In this article we will be examining the fifth criterion under the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines “Adaptable” guideline. You are likely familiar with the “type” attribute that many input fields support, for example <input type=”text” />. Common types include number, date, checkbox, etc. More niche types include email, tel and password. These are extremely useful, and often cue the browser to offer different behaviour for input. However, those types don’t provide much indication of the purpose of the information. For[...]

Dominating the news over the past few days has been the announcement of the long-anticipated reforms to health and social care in England. Naturally, the question of funding has remained central to the debate. Measures have been proposed to raise £36bn over the next 3 years through the introduction of a 1.25% health and social levy, along with an increase in dividend tax. Initially however, this levy will be used to fund the NHS, and then eventually be diverted to social care. OCC’s work is intrinsically linked to that of local authorities in the social care sector. We are watching closely to determine the potential impact of the reforms on social care funding on our products. In this insights article, we explore whether any substantial changes have been introduced since Dilnot’s first reform proposals in 2011 and take a look at the potential challenges.

We will be continuing our series of insights articles on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines by looking at the first of the criteria under the “Adaptable” guideline: Information, structure, and relationships conveyed through presentation can be programmatically determined, or are available in text The real crux of this one is that we can make a screen of our application look perfectly comprehensible to a user approaching it purely visually, while a user approaching the same screen using a screen reader[...]

Within our Innovation Delivery (ID) team our UX designers work very closely with our developers to deliver intelligently designed products for our clients in the health, engineering, and science sectors. Our designers need to transfer their ideas or designs of a digital product for development. There are numerous design collaboration tools on the market – at ID we have been using Zeplin and it has made a noticeable difference in improving our teams’ workflows. It has become our single source[...]

This article describes the steps that aspiring developers should take to learn the skills that they will need to become a C# Developer.

A study conducted in 2020 into the effects of Covid-19 on Software Developers’ wellbeing, found that “disaster preparedness, fear related to the pandemic and home office ergonomics all affect(ed) wellbeing or productivity.” As such, this article provides practical tips on how to reduce fear related to the pandemic, improve home office ergonomics and increase productivity.

With more and more of our information being stored in social media, businesses and other organisations, data protection and privacy is becoming a growing concern. We want more ownership of our information- where it is, who wants to access it and how to control its dissemination. This is especially true of sensitive information submitted to institutions such as Local Authorities.

Technology and social media mean we may now be more connected than ever. At the same time, many of us feel a greater sense of loneliness than ever before. To help combat loneliness, Ami was launched in 2016 to connect lonely people with volunteers who find fulfilment in helping others. After success in Oxfordshire, Ami is now reaching out into other counties with a vision of becoming a national organisation to help combat loneliness across the UK.

OCC developer and diversity volunteer Beverley Newing won high honours in 4 women in tech awards last year. She discusses her experiences and the benefits of such awards. Over the past few years, there has been a big surge in the number of awards that recognise the efforts and achievements of women in the technical sector and shine a spotlight on female talent. Highlighting women who have successful tech careers in this way can encourage more women to come into[...]

The TAB is OCC’s Technical Advisory Board, made up of representatives from OCC’s project and product groups. The TAB’s role includes reviewing technology developments and their impact on the company’s software development. Test your production code Things can go wrong between debug and release builds: conditional compilation linking incorrect project configuration/build dependencies This means we need to test the production build. However, this is not always as simple as it sounds. Apple makes it almost impossible to test release builds[...]

OCC has donated 8 computers to Oxford’s Rose Hill Community Centre. The computers are being used in the Community Centre’s new beginners’ ICT courses, in a joint project between the Centre and City of Oxford College, with Rose Hill Community Association donating equipment as well as OCC. OCC Project Manager Lois Muddiman said, “We are delighted to be supporting community education by donating these computers. We hope they will be used widely by many different groups.” To find out more,[...]

Hi, I’m Isabel. I’ve always wanted to get into coding and hoped to start at Codebar, Oxford, but was too young. However, through my contact with Codebar I met one of the organisers, Beverley Newing, who’s part of the front-end development team at OCC. Beverley was really helpful and after lots of emails, involving her sending me a lot of resources, and me thanking her a lot, she kindly offered me work experience at OCC. Day 1 I was introduced[...]

In 2003, a software engineer named Eric Evans, who had spent many years guiding large businesses through the process of building software, published a groundbreaking software design book in which he introduced an approach he called domain-driven design. The idea was the result of thinking about what actually led to success in his business projects: fruitful interactions with the client, analysis of the business problems being solved, building teams which thoroughly understood both the business and the software, and the[...]

Much of today’s most innovative software is created by academics, pushing the boundaries of computer simulation to explore, for example, ever more detailed models of scientific and medical phenomena. Often during this academic journey, potential commercial applications become apparent. Helping a client meet the many and varied challenges of commercialisation is a key role for OCC’s Innovation Delivery Team. ‘The process of commercialising research software is very broad,’ says Dr Reynold Greenlaw, Director of the Innovation Delivery Team. ‘Some research[...]