Web Designs

[SoulianPride]

I'm looking to redesign my team's website with the rest of the website crew and was wondering if anyone had some good templates we could look out before we make our own?

Much thanks,
Rose

[saikiranra]

Some of the best FRC websites I have seen are from Teams 1114, 254, and 610 (and a shameless 3476 plug).

When it comes to website design, pick something to match your experience level. I would start off simple before going too complex. A good library and platform to start off with is Bootstrap. There are a lot of examples, and its easy to get a professional looking website set up quickly, but it has enough freedom to let you go your own direction (its also compatible with mobile browsers out of the box!).

[Alex Webber]

If you want easy, use Wordpress. You don't need to know HTML or CSS or JS to make great looking websites. Find a fancy theme, (i like Customizr) and some plugins, and crank out a great website! PM Me if you need to know some good plugins to get you started.

[SoulianPride]

Originally Posted by saikiranra

Some of the best FRC websites I have seen are from Teams 1114, 254, and 610 (and a shameless 3476 plug).

When it comes to website design, pick something to match your experience level. I would start off simple before going too complex. A good library and platform to start off with is Bootstrap. There are a lot of examples, and its easy to get a professional looking website set up quickly, but it has enough freedom to let you go your own direction (its also compatible with mobile browsers out of the box!).

Originally Posted by Alex Webber

If you want easy, use Wordpress. You don't need to know HTML or CSS or JS to make great looking websites. Find a fancy theme, (i like Customizr) and some plugins, and crank out a great website! PM Me if you need to know some good plugins to get you started.

Thanks guys! I learned HTML and CSS in my Computer Science classes and I'm starting with JS this week so I'll be using the software provided to me. I've been doing the real simple web design right here but it seems too quaint and I'm finding it tedious to update. I really like the designs for 3476 and 1114

I always direct people to Team 115, MVRT's website - they've won more website awards (back when those were a thing) than anyone I know, and for a good reason.

[Alex2614]

One of the best sites in my opinion is Exploding Bacon http://www.explodingbacon.com/

Also good are Miss Daisy (nice and simple and elegant, but gives you all the info you need and nothing more) http://www.team341.com/

[JoeWithTheSpecs]

First thing I would do is look into getting a content management system like Wordpress. It makes updating pages so simple, you could even hold a short workshop to teach new students how to add/update content on the website.

Some of my favorite team websites;

Team 1114 - Simbotics
Clean and well done design. Not "responsive" though, which means it doesn't scale well if someone reaches their website on a phone or tablet. Recent content is one of the first things the user sees. Really good use of their team logo and team colors.

Team 3132 - Thunder Down Under
Responsive web design, scales well on almost every device. Uses Wordpress. Uses their team colors for elements of their website, instead of just being the background color or something.

Team 245 - AdamBots
Shameless plug, but to be fair I didn't work on the website redesign. Also uses responsive web design. Recent content is one of the first things the user sees. Twitter feed integrated in the front page. Unique animation used in the header of the website.

Team 3476 - Code Orange
Cool design that also has an interesting implementation of touch controls you would find in an iPhone or Android app. Click and drag to the left to reveal a site-map.

[woudie]

Personally, I have always had a special affinity for team2052.com. They have a great design and amazing UX. I developed my teams site 4946.ca, but due to my lack of knowledge in UX design and CMS', I was unable to develop it into what I wanted. The team mentioned above my post and 2052 are great examples to follow for a great website (UX, UI, CMS, etc)

[MrMARVINMan]

Hi, I manage team 2614's website. We use squarespace to host and update. From my experience, it is very user friendly and it makes it extremely easy to update pages. We switched to squarespace from WordPress and I must say I prefer it to WordPress.

[Sperkowsky]

We use wix so people with no experience can update it. I designed everything in an hour. Www.regaleaglerobotics.com

[AdamStockton]

I manage my teams website (warlocks1507.com), and we use wordpress as a content management system. We took our old hand coded html and css template and converted it into a wordpress theme. I would recommend wordpress, as it has worked well for us.

If you are just beginning web design, I would recommend using an existing theme rather than creating your own. Creating your own theme requires knowledge of PHP and the wordpress template engine, and gets tedious at times. Although if you are up for a challenge, go for it!

If you are looking into creating a static html site (one that isn't powered by a CMS like wordpress), you might want to explore different frameworks such as bootstrap. Bootstrap (getbootstrap.com) is a responsive html and css framework for creating responsive web sites.

You should also check out freewebtemplates.com. I've been able to find some pretty good templates on this site for use in some other projects.

[guniv]

We use Bootstrap on our website and integrate a lot of HTML5 video and stuff. It looks great and sizes across all devices.

We probably should use a content management system like Wordpress but integrating it at this point would take a lot of time. Building your own site often looks better, in any case.

My suggestion would be to get your layout down and make it easy for you to go and add more content when you need. Our team, for example, decided against having a blog because it was just another thing to update often on top of our 4 or so social media outlets.

Building off that; keep your website up to date! I can't tell you how often I look at other teams' sites and they're a year or more (come ooooon) out of date.

When people want to find out information, what do they do nowadays? They Google it! Your website will likely be the face of your team, give it the attention it needs.

Our site is here.

[kathrynmariel]

My team has redone our website this past season and are continuously updating it and improving it I dont know much about it but I know they used wordpress and the website is completely student written
http://powerhawks.org/

[Ichlieberoboter]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

We use wix so people with no experience can update it. I designed everything in an hour. Www.regaleaglerobotics.com

I also used wix to design ours. http://hibbingfrc2499.com

[runneals]

Originally Posted by Alex Webber

If you want easy, use Wordpress. You don't need to know HTML or CSS or JS to make great looking websites. Find a fancy theme, (i like Customizr) and some plugins, and crank out a great website! PM Me if you need to know some good plugins to get you started.

Wordpress or another simple CMS is a MUST if you want your site to keep running after you're gone. I tossed our website together in like a month during the fall of 2012. I based our design off of Twenty Twelve. If you're looking to get into wordpress, I suggest taking a look at their Twenty xxxx themes that are highly customizable.