what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

hello,
what would you like to see in a team website? i am working on prepping the green team 885's website for the season.

so far i have:
-forums
-a gallery

on my to do list:
-file share just for the team and maby a separate smaller one for the public
-sponsors page redo
-calendar
-redo all the current pages there with updated info
-news ticker
-contact us (possibly with a map)
so what needs to get added?

the general pages ive thought of so far are:
-student bios/why there on the team
-mentor bios
-sponsors (description / logo etc)
-about the team
-awards/achievements
-goals
-parent bios
-history
-our motto explanation/story


so have i forgot anything?
thank you
/forest

btw team 885's site is www.thegreenteam885.org

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

Pictures!

I go to other teams' websites to look at pictures of their stuff.

We... don't have pictures on our website... they are all loaded onto one of our mentor's personal fotki page...

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

ill try to work some in

also what about themes what do you guys prefer (i personally like the black backgroung with the lime green and the flames)

thanks

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

History - Game info, pictures, past events attended, event results, etc.

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

I always like it when teams have a robot section with each of the years' robots, how they worked, how well they did, what the game was, etc...

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

The question you have to ask is who you're making the website for? Are you just making the website for outside visitors to enjoy, or are you making it for your team to use as well. Our website is a Wiki, and serves both purposes, containing information on our team, photos, videos (okay, embedded GooTube players) as well as another section devoted to information for team members. Calendar of events, daily build schedules (sorry guys, you have to be a team member to see these...) etc. Remember, your website should be just as useful to your team as it is to everyone who visits it from the outside.

IMO, the best way to create a good website is to check other people's out. See what you like, what you don't like and build from there.

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

Our webpage team has done A LOT with our website. You should check it out. There is still work to be done but it's still a REALLY good information source.

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

Everyone keeps neglecting a MAJOR part of FIRST websites.
THEY TELL YOU WHAT JUDGES WANT TO SEE.
As a 2-year website judge, I encourage EVERY FIRST kid to do this, it makes a big difference if you just READ.

If you look at the Website Award section of the manual, they give you the grading process for the judges from last year. The outline of the award basically explains what FIRST is looking for.


They want to see content, that's the key of any team website. They want the inside, human perspective of a team, and to see how this team interacts within both the FIRST community and their own local community. They want multimedia, pictures, video, flash animation is a nice bonus. They want up-to-date information, maybe even what the team is currently working on and how it's going.

Here's what I explained to my kids when they were looking for examples of websites:

One of my favorite things to see is an alumni page. Unless you're a rookie team, you've had kids graduate from your group. So, what have they gone on to do/study? Are they working in science, engineering, or technology fields? It makes SUCH an impact to people in FIRST if they realize just how much progress your team is making in inspiration.

Team 1089 (my team) won the website award at the NJ Regional this year. If you would like, please feel free to stop by our website and compare/contrast with ours (http://www.mercury1089.com ). I worked with the students this year to supply a massive amount of content and work with the fluidity and interactivity of it as well. If you would like to talk to me more about what I personally think is important in a FIRST award-winning website, feel free to PM me.


I know this post is long, I'm sorry.
But I hope it was informative.
2005 NYC Website Judge | 2006 NYC & Philadelphia Website Judge

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

I think that last post hit it on the nose. Pictures and media are good for attracting students, but when it comes to anything involving mentors, sponsors, or of course the judges, you want to focus a lot on content. I'll be the first to admit that the design of our team's site last year was only so-so, but content and organization play huge in the judging and also in winning potential sponsors. The sponsors weren't an issue for us, but I'd still rather have a well-developed site than a site that throws out some information on a cool design.

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

Tell you the truth I think forums and P2P services are practically useless in the long run. The point of a web site is to appeal to a potential client, in this case our clients are the judges. I must admit my site last year won only a excellence award but that was my fault for using frames :ahh: . I digress, the must important thing about a FIRST website is that it shows the judges what they want to see, just like it says in the guidelines, and that you do it with the greatest amount of class. Flash is not a good idea, and neither are frames. Pictures are very nice and so are little articles about events. I've never had log-ins or forums and I don't plan on putting them in this year. Check out my site I'm still doing a little bit of work on it, let me know what you think http://www.wolvcatrobotics.com

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

looks great i like the simple design and the flow of the site. the navy and yellow look good together. do you mind if i borrow some of your ideas?

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

Go right ahead, message me if you need any help

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

One thing to keep in mind, the website scoring. My dad was a website judge last year and he says it hasn't changed much from this scoring sheet.

Also, you may want to include a page of some good descriptions for you subteams. It can help new members decide if they want to join.

If you want, you can have something like a Flash intro. It does help draw visitors in, makes it much more fun, and you can add a link to skip it so people don't get annoyed.

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

Actually, there are a lot of people in the web design community who frown upon using Flash/Splash pages, even if there is a "Skip Intro" button. The reason behind that is if a "Skip Intro" button exists, then it's obviously not necessary to view the Flash/Splash page. If it's not necessary, why bother? All Flash Intro/Splash pages do is get in the way of people and Search engines wanting to access the content on your website.

Flash Intros/Splash pages are now generally regarded as a fad of the 1990s, which is why most websites nowadays do not have them.

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

Art's right. Make a flash video if you want, but link to it for view / download somewhere on your site instead of making it a splash page. You'll hold onto a LOT more viewers that way :D

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

im not going to do a flash intro just because its more work, and there always annoying....:)

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

Is it possible to use a splash type of "intro" in a banner? If so how would you do that?

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

you could do like a header type thing but have it animated...........if thats what you mean ill show you code you can use for that

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

Flash intros are great to have when you are a company that is coming out with a new movie, video game or a new electronic device.

But when it comes to the main website they don't usually work that well. But Flash as a whole shouldn't be looked at as something to be avoided. You can do some really neat things with flash besides just creating animation.

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

The problem with flash is not that it is a pain to do, or even that it is tacky or ugly, but that it becomes a obstacle that viewer must over come every time they log on. These sites are for the viewer, thus having them view the same video every time they go to the site is bothersome and a waste of time. No one wants to have to click an extra button to get to a main page. Other than that using flash on the website is not to bad of an idea, as long as it is not for something important as some people do not have flash installed on their machines. I've seen a couple of sites that were 100% flash, and although I am sure it must have taken for ever to code, and the coder must have been very proud of his work, they were just ugly, too much flash makes it ugly and tacky.

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

Is their a generic "flash" maker? Or is their some sort of freeware you can use just so i can play around with something...

Re: what what would you like to see in a team website?
 

All I know of is Macromedia Flash but you have to pay for that. It is relatively cheap, and you can download it for a free 30-day trial. I'm actually going to have the rest of my web team learn the program, since it's installed on to every students user account.
I've seen flash used in Navigational Bars ( Specifically 1345 - The Platinum Dragons ) and I've also seen it used in banners at the top of a page. I agree that a splash page on a website does get annoy after a while, I used to have one on my teams website and when I had to keep editing the code and then viewing the site, it just got on my last nerve and now it's gone. You can embed the flash movie into content on the page, like a short movie about your team. If you host your videos on YouTube, they are actually converting the video to a Flash file, which includes their player interface. If you were to copy the code given to you by YouTube, you would be using flash. Flash is not just for introduction pages, sometimes you have to look outside the box for some of it's many uses.

Re: Alumni content
 

499 mentors have been having some of the same discussion as here. What I've asked the team to do is focus more on interesting content and present it well.

I'd like some help in finding examples of effective and interesting alumni pages. Who has something more than just a listing of names, years, and where are they now?

If one were to conduct audio interviews what kinds of questions would be good to ask to get content that sponsors / community members would like to hear?

thanks,

APS

Re: Alumni content
 

One of the things I like about 1089's website, is they have pictures attached to all their students and mentors. Each picture in our "members" gallery is clickable and opens up an individual profile. The nice part of this, is it allows FIRST, and other non-1089 members to learn a little bit more about us.
Example: Here's our advisor's profile: http://www.mercury1089.com/main/#mem...regory.jpg.txt

The other thing our team did, and I don't have any of these uploaded, but PM me if you'd like some of the footage, is ask EVERY student on the team questions about our own team. What their favorite fundraiser was, why they like being a part of our team, what goals they have, to explain FIRST in their own words... It was pretty good. From there, we have plans to splice film and create a really good Chairman's video presentation.

I don't have the list of questions saved anymore, but the generic things that I found best to ask are the following:
1. What is FIRST?
2. What does FIRST mean to you?
3. What is your favorite part of [insert team number here]?
4. What is/was your role on the team?
5. What is your favorite fundraiser/outreach event and why?
6. What are your goals for the team?