Team #1656 Website Design

[haverfordfords]

Hello All,

We are a rookie team and since most of you have a lot of experience and have seen quite a few websites over the years, I was wondering if you could please give your thoughts on our new website.

While no content is online yet, the design is basically complete, although it is a work in process.

Our website is: www.haverfordrobotics.com

Thank you in advance,

Jason
Haverford Robotics #1656 Team Leader

[JohnBoucher]

Hi and Welcome to a Rookie team.

Nice job. I really like the color scheme.

The one thing that you want to keep in mind at this stage is incorporating the FIRST logo and a link to FIRST into your template.

Your team website is a good place for a team forum. It not only helps your team members communicate, it gives the rest of the FIRST community something to read about your team.

Again a nice start and please let us know when your content is up.

jb

[theory6]

Hey there,

I love the layout. It's "techy" and got a certain sci-fi feel to it.
However, if I were you I'd change the font of the buttons and banner, maybe to a simpler font like Arial or Verdana. Either that or take off the glow on the banner.
The rollovers are nice and simple which is good
When you add pictures and content the website will look ten times better. Have you considered including some sort of interactive communication method like chat rooms, forum, journals just as John Boucher mentioned. That might be a good idea especially when you have lots of people posting or idling in them. Try putting a section off on the homepage itself for sponsors. Maybe beside the FIRST logo.
One more note, I hope the webpage isn't flush vertically. I'd add vertical scroll bars or you could just incorporate a vertical scroll bar within the layout itself.
Overall the colors are nice and appealing, and contrast well with each other.

Congrats you guys are off to a great start!

[Yov]

One team under us, feel insolent?

[Goobergunch]

Greetings from your neighbors in Malvern!

I really like the general design of your site, and I think that I'm really going to like it after content is added. Just a few minor quibbles:

• The "Calender" button is misspelled - it should say "Calendar".
• As others have said, you're going to need a link to FIRST and the FIRST logo prominently displayed on your site. I'd recommend simply putting a button on the row of buttons that links to "http://www.usfirst.org/", but I'm not sure how I would integrate the logo into your site.
• I agree with putting some form of communication system onto your site. Friarbot.com has both a guestbook and forum, although the latter is rarely used.
• Since "http://www.haverfordrobotics.com/" simply displays the content of "http://www.phillydesigns.com/fords/index.php", the URL displayed on your screen does not shift when you click on a button. This is just a pet peeve of mine and there's really no way you can fix it, so don't worry about this one.

Other than that, well done!

[Goaliexam]

Hi everyone, I'm the web designer for Haverford Robotics, and I appreciate your suggestions. I will have a corrected Calendar button online ASAP, and I moved the content up to a higher position on the page so you do not have to scroll as much.

One suggestion was to use iframes so as to avoid lots of scrolling, but in my experience, iframes are more trouble than they are worth. Therefore, I'm going to leave the site the way it is in regards to scrolling.

I am working on the front page design, and I'll make sure to include the logos of US First and our sponsors as have been suggested. Again, thanks for taking the time to take a look at our site and give ideas to make it better.

I would suggest changing the background for your rollovers when the mouse is over it. Such as http://www.deviantart.com.