Team 871's Site: A Team That Pwns

[ernie.]

I don't post a lot on Chief Delphi, but this post angered me a bit because it sounded arrogant and a bit selfish.

When I first joined my robotics team I was given the position of webmaster, and just like you I was told I could choose whatever host I saw fit. Being immature, and a bit of a geek I decided to go with Mediatemple, which costed $240/yr. By the time the website was up I realized I completely missed the point of FIRST and stomached the cost of the hosting myself. Don't take advantage of your team.

Now I'm going to be honest you have a lot of work to do on your site. Simply setting up a CMS is far from enough, you need to have content. This site is your team's face to the world and you want to tell them what FIRST is about, what you are about. If you have the budget for the site forgo the ads, there are tons of inexpensive hosting solutions (ex. http://www.nearlyfreespeech.com) you can choose from.

In my opinion the most important code for a website is the navigation. The navigation defines the structure of your site. Having a horizontal navigation and then a separate vertical navigation, both as your root navigation is a terrible idea. If you have horizontal as your main navigation, and a vertical bar as a secondary it would make more sense, but this doesn't seem to be the case.

Aesthetically it's simple - partly because there isn't much content - but there is a fine line between minimalistic and just plain dull. If you go to Apple's site (who I assume you're inspired by) you'll notice negative space is used simply as a device to space out content, and make readability better. Inject some life into your site!

I sound harsh, and I'm sorry for that. You said you're a freshman and I didn't want you to finish this year thinking this site will pass. You should go back to the drawing board, don't think of what CMS you'll be using yet, don't think of who your host will be. Just sit down and sketch a browser window and draw out your site. Plan out a navigation bar that mirrors your sites structure, draw out where you think images should go, and when you get to the details you'll find it all fits together. Good luck.