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.

[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.

[Carolyn_Grace]

weebly.com is the easiest website design page I have ever used. I have three classroom sites through them. It's all drag and drop, but you can edit the code separately if you want.

You can host a blog on it, images, and pretty much any media you can think of.

There are hundreds of designs to choose from, and you can customize them all any way that you choose.

You can also add multiple admins and editors extremely simply.

Free sites include "weebly" in the url, but it's unobtrusive. If you don't want "weebly" in the url, just purchase a url yourself to use.

[aspiece]

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace

weebly.com is the easiest website design page I have ever used. I have three classroom sites through them. It's all drag and drop, but you can edit the code separately if you want.

You can host a blog on it, images, and pretty much any media you can think of.

There are hundreds of designs to choose from, and you can customize them all any way that you choose.

You can also add multiple admins and editors extremely simply.

Free sites include "weebly" in the url, but it's unobtrusive. If you don't want "weebly" in the url, just purchase a url yourself to use.

Great site to get kids started in web design. It has basic moderation features that will help get the kids involved in creating content right away.

Highly Recommended!!!

[DesolateTen]

Originally Posted by runneals

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.

I am interested in using Wordpress as a CMS for our team, but I have no experience with it. Can I import my own HTML and create a usable theme from that? Are there any tutorials available for using Wordpress like this?

[Dancin103]

If you will be at Championships meet up with some of our students. We had a small team of freshman design and build our new site from scratch (i.e. they didn't use word press or any other templates) and when they started they only knew ~10% of what they needed too. The site is also fully responsive. You can check it out here www.cybersonics.org.

If your team won't be at champs please feel free to pm me and we would be more than happy to walk you through our design process.

[Sperkowsky]

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