Selina Maphorogo has been a community health worker in Northern South Africa for many years. She recently retired from the Elim Care Group Project where she worked with health professionals, volunteers, and community leaders to help eradicate the blinding eye disease trachoma.

Selina is recognized for her outstanding work. In 1996, she received the Community Builder of the Year award. In 1997, she was a finalist for the Nelson Mandela Award for Health and Human Rights.

I first learned about Selina when reading the book, The Community Is My University: A Voice from the Grass Roots on Rural Health and Development. On a recent trip to South Africa, I had the privilege of speaking with her and recording this podcast.

In this podcast she talks with Helen Osborne about:

• What trachoma is and how it is passed from one person to another.
• Strategies to educate a community about disease prevention.
• Using song, dance, role-play and other ways to teach about health.

More Ways to Learn:

• Maphorogo S, Sutter E, Jenkins J (ed), 2003. The Community Is My University: A Voice from the Grass Roots on Rural Health and Development. Available from KIT Publishers at http://kit.nl/smartsite.shtml?ch=FAB&id=8332&ItemID=1034&RecordTitle=The%20community%20is%20my%20university
• Osborne H, On Call Magazine, 2007. “Perspective: Health Communication Half a World Away.” Available at http://www.healthliteracy.com/article.asp?PageID=6482

Janice (Ginny) Redish, Ph.D. is president of Redish & Associates, Inc. based in Bethesda, Maryland. In this work, Ginny helps government agencies and private companies create successful web sites through training and consultation on plain language and usability. Among her many accomplishments, Ginny helped develop the federal website www.usability.gov – a guide for developing usable and useful websites.

Ginny has won many awards for her work and is the author of numerous publications on usability, task analysis, accessibility, document design, plain language, and writing for the web. Her latest is the widely-acclaimed book, Letting Go of the Words – Writing Web Content that Works.

In this podcast she talks with Helen Osborne about ways to communicate clearly on the Web. Topics include:

• Writing for print or the web. What’s the difference? How are they the same?
• Appreciating that every web use is a conversation started by the site visitor.
• Understanding your web visitors by thinking of “personas.”
• Applying principles of plain language to health websites.
• Using usability testing to measure how well your website works.

More Ways to Learn

• Redish & Associates, Inc., www.redish.net
• Redish J. Letting Go of the Words — Writing Web Content that Works. Elsevier, 2007. Available at http://redish.net/content/books/lettinggoofthewords.html. You can download two chapters to get a sense of the style and tone by going to    http://redish.net/writingfortheweb/index.php/sample-chapters
• Dumas J., Redish, J. A Practical Guide to Usability Testing. Intellect Ltd.,
  First edition, 1993; Revised edition, 1999.
• Hackos, J., Redish, J. User and Task Analysis for Interface Design. John Wiley
  & Sons, 1998.
• Osborne H. “In other words…What Makes Web Sites ‘Patient Friendly?’” On Call magazine, July 2005. Available at http://www.healthliteracy.com/article.asp?PageID=3803

About plain language: www.plainlanguage.gov & www.centerforplainlanguage.org

About usability: www.usability.gov & www.usabilityprofessionals.org