Team 461 Website feedback wanted~

[Theodore Huff]

I wasn't impressed with the navigation when I first looked at it; I am still not. Your content is stellar and all improvements are welcome improvements from the derailment the program had last year.

As for the custom Content Management System that the mentors worked on, it is like recreating the wheel. There are already systems that are free and not completely horrible to use. It wasn't really worth the time invested from my point of view.

Then again, I always have to be critical of 461. Right?

[user0]

Originally Posted by Theodore Huff

I wasn't impressed with the navigation when I first looked at it; I am still not. Your content is stellar and all improvements are welcome improvements from the derailment the program had last year.

As for the custom Content Management System that the mentors worked on, it is like recreating the wheel. There are already systems that are free and not completely horrible to use. It wasn't really worth the time invested from my point of view.

Then again, I always have to be critical of 461. Right?

Constructive criticism is welcome.

Navigation: What can we do to satisfy you? what do you not like about it? I don't think it's right for me to edit the navigation that we worked on for the season and throw it away just because one or two people said "I don't like it" without explanation.

CMS/Content Management System: Mentors did not do everything, students definitely played a role in the creation of the project. "Reinventing the wheel" hmm... how to word this... There is a sense in pride that you didn't rely on others to do the work for you? (ex. Joomla, wordpress, mediaWiki, drupal, etc) How many teams out there can say they hand coded their entire website using php, and also programmed a content management system that works great, entirely dummy proof...? I think it's awesomely cool, handy, and allows non-programmers a chance at editing the website content. (plus it lightens the load for us website programmers) PHPmyAdmin is a great databse tool.

Any other comments?

[Theodore Huff]

Originally Posted by user0

Constructive criticism is welcome.

Navigation: What can we do to satisfy you? what do you not like about it? I don't think it's right for me to edit the navigation that we worked on for the season and throw it away just because one or two people said "I don't like it" without explanation.

CMS/Content Management System: Mentors did not do everything, students definitely played a role in the creation of the project. "Reinventing the wheel" hmm... how to word this... There is a sense in pride that you didn't rely on others to do the work for you? (ex. Joomla, wordpress, mediaWiki, drupal, etc) How many teams out there can say they hand coded their entire website using php, and also programmed a content management system that works great, entirely dummy proof...? I think it's awesomely cool, handy, and allows non-programmers a chance at editing the website content. (plus it lightens the load for us website programmers) PHPmyAdmin is a great databse tool.

Any other comments?

The navigation, while helpful and noticeable, is semi-limited. When I first checked it out, I navigated to a subpage and had then scrolled over another header link only to find that my sub links were changed as well. It would be nice to be able to move within the same category, if they are always displayed.

I also think your visual style, while everyone loves black, should return to the lighter overall colors you had before. It would look so much better if there was even some sort of gold graphic in the back ground. For a team that stands out at competitions as being bright as the sun, I want to see their website reflect that. Also, don't forget that CAT doesn't want their logo within some unreasonable amount of pixels to other logos. Do what We and Harrison did, just write the name in Impact and change the spacing to about -25. Should look close enough for recognition, but not be the real deal. Our Cat representative said that it was alright.

I think you guys have a great chance for website award based on your content, but I think that a good number of parents judging it may not like the overall appearance and flow.

[kirtar]

Originally Posted by Theodore Huff

The navigation, while helpful and noticeable, is semi-limited. When I first checked it out, I navigated to a subpage and had then scrolled over another header link only to find that my sub links were changed as well. It would be nice to be able to move within the same category, if they are always displayed.

I also think your visual style, while everyone loves black, should return to the lighter overall colors you had before. It would look so much better if there was even some sort of gold graphic in the back ground. For a team that stands out at competitions as being bright as the sun, I want to see their website reflect that. Also, don't forget that CAT doesn't want their logo within some unreasonable amount of pixels to other logos. Do what We and Harrison did, just write the name in Impact and change the spacing to about -25. Should look close enough for recognition, but not be the real deal. Our Cat representative said that it was alright.

I think you guys have a great chance for website award based on your content, but I think that a good number of parents judging it may not like the overall appearance and flow.

I agree that the black background does take some getting used to. However, it is too late to really change that for this season. Part of our problem was that our graphics designer never showed up. Also, I don't see what the problem with the menu is. Javascript menus, such as yours do not keep the drop downs there either. Also, from a workshop about two years ago.. "no information should take more than three clicks to get to." With the current system, it is unnecessary to click on the main tab to get to information. Otherwise, it would either be necessary to click on a tab twice to access the primary tab's page, or it would be necessary to visit that page in order to access any information under that tab. In either case, that is a bad navigation decision. At this point, as far as I can tell, all or at least most of the information which is available can be accessed in three clicks (without using the site map, since that's cheating).

Also, it is worth noting that content was actually a focus this year, as there was content dating back to 2007 which had not yet been added (e.g. 2007 Championship), and there close to nothing about 2008. To be specific, there was nothing about any competitions that we went to except a news article about Boilermaker. The 2008 team history never got fully written last year. Also, FTC and FLL information had not been updated for quite some time (game listed on FTC was the pilot year and FLL was Nano Quest). The awards page did not have anything about 2008 awards, so pictures had to be take and put up, and the sponsor listing was from 2007. As you (hopefully) know, content makes up 50% of the website score.

[Theodore Huff]

Originally Posted by kirtar

I agree that the black background does take some getting used to. However, it is too late to really change that for this season. Part of our problem was that our graphics designer never showed up. Also, I don't see what the problem with the menu is. Javascript menus, such as yours do not keep the drop downs there either. Also, from a workshop about two years ago.. "no information should take more than three clicks to get to." With the current system, it is unnecessary to click on the main tab to get to information. Otherwise, it would either be necessary to click on a tab twice to access the primary tab's page, or it would be necessary to visit that page in order to access any information under that tab. In either case, that is a bad navigation decision. At this point, as far as I can tell, all or at least most of the information which is available can be accessed in three clicks (without using the site map, since that's cheating).

Also, it is worth noting that content was actually a focus this year, as there was content dating back to 2007 which had not yet been added (e.g. 2007 Championship), and there close to nothing about 2008. To be specific, there was nothing about any competitions that we went to except a news article about Boilermaker. The 2008 team history never got fully written last year. Also, FTC and FLL information had not been updated for quite some time (game listed on FTC was the pilot year and FLL was Nano Quest). The awards page did not have anything about 2008 awards, so pictures had to be take and put up, and the sponsor listing was from 2007. As you (hopefully) know, content makes up 50% of the website score.

Our menus don't stay there, not the argument. The point is that if something is up there, it should be relevant to the information provided. I can be on the Members page and have a link about your Woodie Flowers awards staring me in the face because I scrolled over a button on my way down. It's not a huge problem, it's just a personal itch.

[kirtar]

Originally Posted by Theodore Huff

Our menus don't stay there, not the argument. The point is that if something is up there, it should be relevant to the information provided. I can be on the Members page and have a link about your Woodie Flowers awards staring me in the face because I scrolled over a button on my way down. It's not a huge problem, it's just a personal itch.

In any case, there's not much of a way to avoid it without a bad navigation decision, although I can think of a way right now. I'll ask our flash guy if he can set it to always default back to the active tab if you're not moused over the menu, although I don't anticipate that being easy at all (nor particularly neat in the code). At the point in which you mouse over another tab, the computer (which is not psychic) can either assume that you want to know about the information in the tab or can assume that you don't. However, since you moused over it, we have it assuming that you want to know about it.

In either case, your argument was poorly worded, since it said

It would be nice to be able to move within the same category, if they are always displayed.

This implies that your problem was that the links aren't always there, although for, say, dropdown menus, this will always be the case as the menu will collapse. At the least, the tabs are preloaded for you, instead of being blank... (like at the home page). Oh yeah and a quick fix? Mouse over the section that you're on....

[FRC2669_Valery]

cute design.
the menu is very kitschy for my opinion.

[user0]

Originally Posted by FRC2669_Valery

cute design.
the menu is very kitschy for my opinion.

can you define: Kitschy...?