Team 1625's Website, Need Feedback!

[Blusix]

Happy 2013 Season everyone!

Our Website: http://team1625.org/

Anyways, our team is looking for feedback from you guys since we switched to a new modified template that looks a lot cleaner than from our last one we did.

Our website is powered by blogger due to the fact that it is within the parameters of our school's extra curricular regulations and that our school uses Google's services. Plus our team just works well with notification services like Blogger that just seems to work better for us.

What we would like to know is if our website is worthy of possibly receiving the website excellence award or even winning best website at one of the regionals we are participating in or any other things that could be improved.

Thanks!

[bvisness]

It looks good! It loads quickly and has a nice clean design. Really the only thing I would say is your header is huge - I would shrink it up a little bit so that more content is visible at a glance.

[nathan_hui]

Just a quick thing: If I were a third party interested in talking to you guys, I wouldn't know where to start. You don't have an obvious contact point. And having it in a blog post doesn't count: it's not going to be there forever.

Other than that, it looks nice, except for the header (as bvisness said).

[JoeWithTheSpecs]

It's a really nice clean design with your team colors, I really like it

I would like to see a Contact Us button or page somewhere so there is a definite place where someone could be able to contact one of your team's leaders/head-mentors.

Also, there is a box on the front page that says "Subscribe by email", but it does not say what you're subscribing to.

There is also a lack of media on your website, in the form of pictures or videos, although I would suspect there are more on your facebook/twitter.

This may be me being a bit nitpicky, but, the same picture is used on the tops of both the Team History and Sponsors pages. Some variety would look nicer in my opinion.

But overall, looks pretty good. Nice work

Quick Edit/Addition;

If you had not heard there is no Website Excellence/Website Award this year. It has transformed into the Digital Media, criteria of this award can be found in the FRC Administrative manual under 6.8: Here. Also, this award is only given out at the World Championships, with no regional/districts awards.

[MentorPrice]

Nice clean design however I would add more visually pleasing aspects to the main page such as pictures or animations. But awesome job!

[Blusix]

Originally Posted by JoeWithTheSpecs

This may be me being a bit nitpicky, but, the same picture is used on the tops of both the Team History and Sponsors pages. Some variety would look nicer in my opinion.

But overall, looks pretty good. Nice work

Quick Edit/Addition;

If you had not heard there is no Website Excellence/Website Award this year. It has transformed into the Digital Media, criteria of this award can be found in the FRC Administrative manual under 6.8: Here. Also, this award is only given out at the World Championships, with no regional/districts awards.

Oh please, give as much feedback you want, we really do appreciate it so don't be afraid to get VERY detailed ^^

As for everyone else, thanks for awesome feedback, and a Contact Us button is an awesome idea that I had forgotten to implement.

Thanks guys!

[dellagd]

Oooh, I LOVE the color scheme! May teams miss the simple fact that a screen saturated with different neon colors doesn't always look the best.

[runneals]

Great job guys! Nice and simple and professional like ours! I'm sure Aren would approve of it too

-David

[Banderoonies]

One thing I am always looking for on a team's website is a current picture of this year's robot. that would be a nice addition

[rachelholladay]

Originally Posted by Blusix

Oh please, give as much feedback you want, we really do appreciate it so don't be afraid to get VERY detailed ^^!

Homepage / Overall Layout: My first reaction is that its a little busy. The home page is the first thing s a user will typically see and there is a lot of content in the upper pane, header logo, navigation bar, left side panel, main center panel and right side panel with the two side panels having their own divisions. Perhaps consider consolidating or grouping things so that the eye doesn't dance around too much. I like the fact that your header image has your team name, number and location; those are all crucial piece of information that you quickly deliver to the viewer. It would also seem that your homepage is your blog page. I did not realize this a first, so you might consider making a separate home page. Often this landing page would give basic information and introduce the viewer to the team. From a blog page stand-point I commend you for having regularly updated and interesting posts with a variety of content (text, videos, images, etc). I like the legal notice in the footer, its a nice touch. A very minor note of me being truly nit-picky, in your header image the orange of the text is not the same orange of the "W".

Navbar: Its effective and clean. Serves its purpose well. I would, in the ordering, put "What is FIRST" before "2013 Clinic".

2013 Clinic Page: Solid. Nice graphic. I don't really have much else to say, sorry.

What is FIRST Page: You cover the majority of the important points about FIRST, which is good. I like that you describe every program, not every team website does and I appreciate those that do. I would add a link to the FIRST website somewhere very visible on this page. At the bottom you have a paragraph about how FIRST effects people on your team. FIRST's impact is the most important part of FIRST, so I would make this section more prominent.

This Year's Game: Also a good section to have. Its nice that you include the highlight parts of the manual including picture of the game pieces and the game animation itself. I would also add a link to the official manual.

Team History: Based on my skimming this provides a very well-written general overview of the history of the team, which I like. Its nice to have a overview that gives the viewer the sense of the team identity. This does give more the feel of an "About Us" more than "History", which is totally fine. You might considering adding a page or section that gives more detailed year-by-year history talking about competitions attended, the robot built, the awards won, other important milestones, etc. People especially like to look at pictures of previous robots (And I think someone mentioned that earlier on this thread).

Resources: You might be able to better organize the page in to specific sections. For example "Links" "Documents", "App" etc. Just some dividers to give the page a bit more structure. Also, the first line of text seems better placed on the 'Contact Us' page. As a personal opinion, I'm generally okay with one or two font colors on a page. Three gets a bit much (for me), so I'm not a huge fan of the red. The accenting orange (for example used with the links) looks very nice however. Under 'Research and Learning' you have a link to 'Bill's Blog'. Bill Miller is no longer Director of FRC and the new FRC blog can be found at http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc/blog. The 'Research and Learning' section could also have a Chief Delphi link, but that's just a suggestion.

Sponsors: Very nice listing of sponsors, I'm sure your team makes them proud. The couple paragraphs at the bottom are also lovely. You might want to, in addition, include a link to your business plan in the 'Resources' Section.

Calendar: Google Calendar, I'm a fan of it, it always does the job well. Adding links to more specific schedules at the bottom is also nice, but you might want to either move those links higher on the page or make them more noticeable so that they don't get lost or missed.

And that's all I have to say for now.

[spydan]

Home (Blog): Nice colors! Think about adding a current robot picture on one of the sides. Also, I would shrink the header, remove the FIRST logo from the footer (it is your site, not theirs) and add 3-5 major sponsor logos onto the footer.

2013 Clinic: Looks Good!

What is FIRST?: Making all the headings/sub-headings larger (3-5 points) would help the reader find out what they want to know faster. Examples are "FIRST stands For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology" , "FIRST's Mission Statement:" and "How FIRST has affected us:"

This Year's Game: I would make the embedded video larger so the viewer doesn't have to go into full screen to see all the detail.

Team History: The whole explanation is a bit long for me--I would make it a little bit shorter.

Resources: Look into getting Google apps for education. It allows you to make a custom Gmail account with an address like example@team1625.org (if you have your own domain)

Sponsors: Add major sponsor's logos

Good luck and great job!