AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Today, at the Michigan State Competition Team 226, the Hammerheads won the Best Website Award and I congratulate them.

With that said, what could we do to improve our site? What sets the Hammerheads apart from us and what do you guys think we should work on?

Thanks,
Ryan

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Differences:

I say their awesome flash intro made the difference. While your website has a very nice and professional look, 226 has a themed website that reflects their identity as the hammerheads. I think identity is pretty important.

Not only that, but they keep their site clean and easy to navigate. They keep what is current and important on their site. Stuff such as what they do, who they are, and their current situation.

Improvements:

Here are just some of my suggestions:

- Get the important stuff on the front page, maybe make the images smaller? All I see on the front page is image after image. The text is not very noticeable.

- Make your navigation less space-y. The little text is being drowned in the sea of whitespace.

Happy coding. (:

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

I would say size made the difference. Almost all of 226's pages fits on my screen without any scrolling needed. This made finding information and navigation very easy.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Disclaimer: I don't make web pages or code anything.

I like your site much better for the following reasons:

• I think flash is unprofessional and it loads slow.

• Your site is easy to read and free from debris.

• Have mouse wheel, can scroll.;)

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Both websites are excellent but I have to say I also like your site better because

-Professional looking page
-Good Color Scheme
-Very Nice Layout
-Nice and easy navigation

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

On this one I have to like the AdamBots website better:

-Hammerheads Flash is cool but its kinda iffy.
-Your site is way cleaner and has that crisp look to it.
-Hammerheads site is still loading 1 min after Adamsbot's site, and is still loading....
-Flash = Bad = No Ipod
-There is something wrong with the pages and they load very slow.
-Adambots have info from pre-2009

This is what I feel the difference is, but HAMMERHEADS HAS A REALLY AWESOME THEME.

Nice job both teams.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

I think that both websites are very good, but I won't put myself in a position to say if one is better than the other. Either way, great job to both teams!

I did take a look at your website, and I think that your team did a lot of things very well. Here are some of the positive things I noticed:

+ I like the color scheme. Easy on the eyes, I think it definitely suits your team.
+ The expanding side menu was a really nice feature. Makes navigation easier without too much vertical clutter. I think that our team should probably incorporate something like that!
+ Good amount of content. Your team definitely has a lot to say, and I'm glad that you have most of your bases covered regarding your team members, outreach, awards, build progress, etc. etc. etc.
+ Lots of stuff about FIRST! I like how you write your own information about FIRST and each competition. Great job thanking the volunteers as well!
+ Again, very good job with putting out lots of documents, resources, and pictures for other teams to look at.
+ Pretty easy to navigate, for the most part. I could usually find what I was looking for within a few clicks, although I might suggest that you rearrange a few of your subpages (perhaps information on your season should be under "About the AdamBots" rather than "FIRST"?). Might just be me being nitpicky. :P

Now, I do have a few suggestions that you could probably use to improve the site. Hope that this helps!

- The main page seems to be dominated by the large header image. I think that visitors would like to see the side navigation panel without having to scroll down too far. With my computer, over half of my browser is taken up by the header image. It's a good image, just a little big!
- When a new menu opens up on the navigation sidebar, I feel that any other menu which is open should probably close. This might make it easier to search around without having to scroll up to collapse one of the menus.
- You could perhaps split your "About the AdamBots" section into two, as it does seem to be a little overwhelming when you have 10 more sections to look at! (Nitpickiness again!)
- Make sure that links which take you to a site other than your own open in a new tab/window. I noticed this when looking at past year's games.

Overall, I think you guys have a great site. The amount of content is very nice, and I feel like people could definitely learn a lot about your team by just browsing through your site. Once again, great job, and I hope that my comments prove to be helpful!

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

I do agree with the identity, the theme is pretty creative. However, I don't plan on making a flash intro, it seems unnecessary to me.

I don't think we could keep our site anymore up-to-date. I'm guessing that what you mean by "current and important" is that they only have information from this year. My team appreciates having team history and past year's information because it's interesting information.

As for the front page, I don't think we could be more concise. The images, weren't my idea. I looked at last year's Championship Best Website (MVRT) and thought having them would be a good idea. Their images are bigger, so I'm not sure making the images smaller would help.

As for the navigation, from my point of view, the whitespace is good. It clearly defines separation between links to help the user navigate. However, if I get more comments about this, I'll decrease the spacing.

Yes, you're not the first person to mention the header. I guess I'll have to listen sooner.

For the navigation, this is one of the things we debated with the accordion menu, but, ended up choosing the current style because we thought it would make more sense to people less tech-savvy.

Also, our whole menu is quite lengthy, we keep trying to trim it but most of the stuff within About the AdamBots is important and can't really fit anywhere else. Do you have any ideas for separation?

Thank you to the both of you and everyone else for the comments/feedback.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Suggestions for improvement:

* Make your homepage a little more compact for 1000x600 computer screens
* Be careful about old content, the website judge might be very familiar with your previous years website
* You might want to make a sub-domain 2008.adambots.org to show the differences in your previous years websites
* Just keep adding more content !

Just General Notes
There are many reasons why Visualization and Inventor awards are not given to the same teams in back to back years. Websites are becoming so widespread, we are starting to see similar trends. Your website is amazing and definitely one of the top 5 websites that everyone thinks about in FIRST (remember FIRST topsite ... ) Keep up the great work !

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Thank you for that compliment. Hopefully, we will be eligible to compete for the Championship Best Website Award next year.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

I'm a little confused by this point. The visualization and inventor awards are judged in a different fashion from the website, and even from each other. Visualization is done by a peer vote, for instance.
Also note, 116 has won at least one regional AVA every year since 2003.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

That is true, AVA teams usually win back to back many years in a row. The Inventor award however does not award as many back to back year winners.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Direct your attention towards the bottom right corner of your webpage. Maybe the judges felt they should give someone else a chance for the award?

I can say that i like your site a lot better, both content and design wise (the only problem i have with it is that the header seems too big and very broken... otherwise WOW there is a lot of stuff there). the hammerheads... well... the site is good but its not the best. They still have a lot of content to add and a certain flash intro to get rid of...

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

As far as your navigation goes, the "Current Progress" and "Our Robots" kind of belong under the "About the AdamBots" tab and not the "FIRST" tab. That being said, you have a lot of pages to your website and I'm not a huge fan of all the scrolling either.

You have a lot of great information on your site. I suggest you look at the website judging criteria and run through your site to make sure it's optimized to meet that system of grading.

http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles...20Criteria.pdf

Each item listed on there is worth 5 points. They are the exact items that are on the evaluation form.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

If judges award based off of sympathy for other teams that's kind of disappointing and really discourages effort to make a site better.

Because we participate in two seasons, OCCRA and FIRST, it does seem more logical for us if we have the Our Robots and Current Progress under FIRST because we also have similar things under OCCRA when that gets going.

I have gone through the rubric many times. We may have a problem here and there, but I've made sure our site is in line with it.

Thanks again.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

And it would be entirely unethical.
but who knows what really happened? i cant really give you advice on what to improve on to overcome the hammerhead's site, because it would seem such improvements have already been made...

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

I don't believe a lot of it is sympathy, it is more of... did the team this year make the website?
As for OCCRA & FIRST, we have two websites this year, lamar.discobots.org, and 2009.discobots.org. The Lamar one is for all robotics things that we do, you can check it out (but because of the 2009 website, we haven't had time to update it lately). And, the 2009 one is mainly for FIRST, although we do mention VEX a couple of times.

As for the rubric, I was looking through your website a while ago, so I don't know if this is still a problem, but I found some links that didn't point to a real web page... Maybe you found it, but that's a criteria on the rubric.

But, all in all your website is great!

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

I'm not sure what all of the judging criteria is, nor did I go look at what languages you are using on your site, but if they do take language into account that may have made the difference. I've been on hiatus from the team this year so I don't know everything there is to know, but the engineers have said that the student in charge of our website this year is brilliant with web programming (integrating php and such).

In any case, I really like your site as well :) (I like ours too, but I'm probably biased).

~Allison

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

I'm not exactly sure what you meant by this, but how I interpreted it was that you were asking if we, the students, made it. The answer to that is yes, absolutely. Students completely designed and developed our website and also wrote the majority of the content. Mentors do contribute to the content though (specifically history, alumni, team meetings, calendar .. ect).

It makes more sense to our team if we have all the content about our team and it's activities in one place rather than having it in multiple areas (subdomains).

While this is helpful, it doesn't win you any points. We have two students doing our website (design/development process) which is constructed using many different languages.

Once again congrats to you guys for winning the award! :)

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

I don't doubt you guys did it. I was saying that they are probably looking for a website that you guys did this year. Some teams have really good design and content one year, so they keep it. And, the judge's might get tired of looking at the same stuff over and over again.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

This year's website is brand new and much different from last year's design.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

And last year you won two website awards. Think about what you changed from last year's website. Perhaps this is a sign that some things were better the old way? Try to pick the best features of both year's sites and combine them to make something that is even better than 2008 or 2009 alone.

Also, I agree with others that the header is huge. It's good to keep the team identity in the site, but that's all you see on the home page.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

People keep commenting on the large header, but I like it. It has been a big trend amongst web developers, especially towards the end of 08 and into 09. The nav bar on the left does take up a lot of room, and would be nicer if you could fit it in better. Personally I like bars along the top, with a sub bar beneath that you repopulate based on selection. However you have enough items it would be difficult to fit, especially given your large font size. While part of me says you could make the entire page wider to fit everything, I know that's just because I'm running at 1680x1050. With a 920 site, you can't get much larger before you start exceeding screen size for older monitors.

You might want to consider having the page load with the 'Start Here' tab closed, so more of the menu items are visible initially. I think it would also look nicer if you were to extend the fade around the page all the way down, instead of stopping ~340 pixels after the header.

I would also move the awards off the front page, especially if they are from a very different site. You're giving the wrong impression that the site people are looking at has won those awards. And I agree it would be very nice to create a subdomain with your site from last year on it, to showcase how you have been changing.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Both teams have great sites. While asking for advice and suggestions is absolutely great, I don't think it is fair to compare two teams websites in a forum like this. It is only going to cause ill feelings. In the spirit of FIRST I would suggest this thread focus on the advice and not comparing the two sites. Good luck to all the teams in Atlanta.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

The 2008 and 2009 sites have the same exact layout and page structure just a different look. In fact, last year we also had a gigantic header with the countdown on it.

As far as judging it by how many awards it's won, that's not really the best way to do it. This year in Michigan, you were only allowed to win one district Best Website because they wanted 7 winners for the State Championship.

Thank you; this is some of the best feedback I've gotten so far. Next year, I'm considering moving to a horizontal dropdown menu of some sort to make the navigation seem less overwhelming and possibly easier to use. As for the fade, I'll look into making it go down further and the end less noticeable.

With subdomains, are you saying I should divide the content from each year into a bunch of subdomains or simply showcase the design from each year on another subdomain? The content remains the same year after year, except the new stuff regarding new seasons.

This is a good point. Make sure that when you're giving feedback, it's not harsh or cruel and respects the work of teams.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Showcase the design from each year on a different subdomain. This helps to show the judges that you're making something new each year, instead of just reusing the same site, which would be a valid concern given your history of winning web-related awards.

Agreed. That's why I only focused on ways I thought Ryan could improve his own site, instead of comparing it to the Hammerheads. I can tell both teams have put a lot of efforts into their websites, and both turned out excellent.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Even if your site is high quality ! You need to create a completely new site from year to year or the judge will take notice.

I agree that this is not the place to compare two sites for good or for bad, therefore I think this thread should be closed.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

We did create a whole new website this year. We just used the same layout and content and gave it a whole new look. I don't think this is one of the reasons points were deducted.

What I meant by the post earlier was that we have everything (our content on the left, navigation on the right, the countdown at the top, ect..) in the same spot as it was last year.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Take note of the points category, "Is this site dedicated exclusively to a FIRST team and its activities?"

The OCCRA stuff may have been taken into consideration when the evaluators were judging your site. It wouldn't be a bad idea to set up a separate site just for OCCRA and linking to it from your FIRST site.

I'm also noticing that it is kind of hard to read some of the darker fonts on an older monitor. This could have also been a possible deduction area.

Content wise though, your website is fantastic. It looks awesome on my home monitor (1680x1050). I'm kind of split on the large header. It looks great but at the same time, the scrolling is not something I like. Maybe in the future, you could have the lower half of it hideable so it pulls more of the page up. (FIRST would want the link to their site to be displayed the whole time I'd assume, so you'd have to swap it with the quote above it or something).

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

I went back and looked at the site again after I read this- I didn't even notice there was a quote there! The font is so dark on the dark background that I can barely read it. I think the picture adds to that effect.

Also, I might recommend moving the menu bar to the left hand side, starting up at the top so that 1) you don't have to scroll down to read the whole thing, and 2) you don't have a big blank space under the center section.

It's a nice website as a whole, but as with any website, it's not quite perfect yet.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

If you are using Internet Explorer, the navigation fully expands at will of the browser as the browser isn't standards compliant. There is not much we can do about that... Look at it in any other browser and it's 100% better.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

I'm using Firefox.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Good points on the menu. This shouldn't be a problem for next year since I'm planning on using a horizontal dropdown.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

That also sounds good. (:

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Something ive always found kindof irritating about your site is the navigation bar... it seems rather kludgy and adds an extra layer of complexity of getting to the rest of the site that the casual viewer probably wont put forth the effort to figure out. Some of the links in the accordion menu would probably be better off not inside a structure at all, but in a more easily accessible area.

I think you guys have gotten yourself into a pickle with your website; you have SO MUCH content and information but no good way to make it all available easily, but i think the fact that you are planning a new nav system is a good start.

The last con i think im able to squeeze out... i know this has been mentioned and you've denied it out the wazoo, but if you invert the color scheme and remove the dean kamen quote at the top of the page, you basically have the same website as last year (design wise). In particular, the accordion menu and the mediawiki backend strike me as very similar.

You guys had an insanely good website last year, and the judges noticed. Unfortunately, your site was only 1.1x better this year, and im guessing for the judges to notice an award-winning amount of change you would have needed to make it 2x better.

disclaimer: i wrote this on 2.5 hours of sleep, so sorry if it seems a bit grumpy, its not supposed to (:

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

Here are previous three site designs:

2007 Design (We didn't like this design and it never saw a FIRST season):
http://www.adambots.com/w/images/8/8d/AdambotsV2.png

2008 Design (Won Detroit and Great Lakes Regional Website Awards):
http://www.adambots.com/w/images/a/aa/AdambotsV3.png

2009 Design (Won Kettering District Competition):
http://www.adambots.com/w/images/0/01/AdambotsV4.png

The site is definitely different, but there are some similarities. We chose to keep the side navigation bar because we received so many compliments for it last year. The judges even sited it as one of the reasons for us winning last year. This year people don't like it, so were going to a horizontal navigation bar for our next design.

We also felt the the FIRST logo and the sponsor logos should stay in the same place because they are so important and should be one of the first things people see.

I would be disappointed in judges were doing this. No where in the grading criteria do you get points for having a new site design. After all, it is the Best Website Award, not the Most Improved Website Award.

Re: AdamBots.com Feedback
 

v3 and v4 look and function very similarly. as i said, its the same color scheme inverted and with larger headers and nav buttons. (on a similar note, look how much of the navigation appears on the 2008 version vs the 2009 version)
i guess the reason they bear so much resemblance is because of the mediawiki engine.

personally, i think if you took the colors of 2009 and the layout/sizes of 2008, your site would look much better