Leaf &Pebble was first established in 2001.
We have serviced Melbourne's eastern suburbs for over a decade, and have enjoyed the patronage of many loyal customers,
with many various needs and tastes.

We have built a core of friendly, dedicated, and experienced staff, which includes qualified landscapers,
a design school graduate, and our new apprentice Steve, who has just received a full dogging license.

We believe in simplicity. Our lives are too complex, and a garden provides a necessary retreat.

We believe plants are living sculptures. Our planting and pruning is done with sensitivity and restraint.

We wish to have as little impact as possible on the environment. Our designs are waterwise and ecologically balanced.

The web should be accessible to all. The World Wide Web Consortium sets guidelines and provides advice
to ensure access for people with hearing and vision difficulties.

Some of our customers might find these tips helpful.

At present our site contains a feature enhancing accessibility for people using screen readers.
"Alt" (alternative) text inserted into code gives textual explanation and description of images.
Without this images would be ignored, or read as file names, which are often confusing and not self-explanatory.

We have also gone a step further adding "null alt" text on images that are decorative
and convey no important meaning. Screen readers can thus skip unnecessary or confusing verbiage.
(Webaim, 2012, Creating Effective Alternative (alt) Text, p.6)

At Leaf & Pebble we are always seeking to improve. Here we present our plans to improve our site, so you the customer can be assured of our integrity.

Accessibility

The proliferation of new devices necessitates design changes to ensure our website is accessible to all.
Adopting CSS makes our website design more adaptable.

Implementation:

• format all site additions and new pages with external CSS document
• replace any existing HTML formatting code with CSS
• replace absolute positioning with relative, and absolute sizing with percentages
• create alternate designs for mobile devices and assistive technologies

Advantages:

• an external CSS document allows simple centralized modification across the entire website,
  rather than tag by tag and page by page
• our website is more accessible as it can be rendered in different ways by different devices,
  yet the content remains the same. See examples at css zen garden
• replacing absolute sizing and positioning makes the layout fluid and adaptable to different screen sizes

Disadvantages:

• initial labor of conversion
• lack of support from older (soon to be obsolete) browsers

Security

As our business moves into supply and delivery of materials we will install an online payment function on our website.
It is therefore necessary for us to invest in high level encryption to protect the personal and financial details of customers.

Implementation:

• introduction of an SSL Certificate to enable encryption
• employ host server capable of strong 128 bit encryption
• do not support older browsers with weak 40 bit encryption, rejecting use of SGC (Server-Gated Crytography) to temporarily raise encryption level
• invest in further upgrade to EV SSL (Extended Validation) certificate

Advantages:

• securing transactions, and our own and customers’ details from hacking
• apart from weak encryption "...old browsers must be assumed to contain bugs that make them unsuitable for applications
  where security is an issue" (Warbrick, Sect.5.4)
• EV certificate (signaled by a green address bar) guarantees to customers that we are a legitimate business and our web address is valid,
  thus protecting customers from phishing, (being tricked into submitting details to a false website)

Disadvantages:

• losing customers who use older browsers, though these would be very few
• EV certificates are an expensive investment