A survey commissioned by The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund suggests that voluntary groups fail to involve users, particularly young people, in setting up their websites and to monitor site traffic to ensure that they are meeting the needs of their target audiences.

According to the report, charities are often seduced by the call of new technology as a means to target young people but have little way of knowing whether the investment has proved successful.

"The absence of user input to web design, content selection and service choice must be regarded as being potentially very dangerous for all parties involved," says the report. "In general terms it seems the field appears to be lacking an evaluative culture."

Drawing on these findings, the fund has launched three new factsheets on how to develop, maintain and effectively monitor charity websites, available with the full report from the charity's website www.theworkcontinues.org