Here is another topic that might help everyone out a little. I have heard of osme web site teams where one person is doing the website and no one else helps or volunteers. This is common in the website competition so I was wondering if any teams found a good solution to this that they can share with other teams.
What I am asking is: what does your website team do to get other team members involved in the website projects?
On my team, we use several methods. As web site team leader, I encourage other team members to help with small assignments, such as writing a paragraph to post osmewhere or pick out some pictures to go on a certain page. This gets a lot of people involved without them having to know HTML, CSS, or PHP. I handle a lot of the coding, which isn’t much since designing everything takes the most time. Also, we give credit to team members who help on the website credits page on the site.
So, I was wondering if any other teams do something to get more team members involved in the website without requiring them to help or learn coding languages.
Last year, our team had a small “team spirit” group (they were in other things, but they also did this) which made web design, t-shirt design, and similar decisions. We also asked everyone on the team to write one page (topic/what we wanted assigned) for the site.
Back before there was even a website award (I feel so old :rolleyes: ) I built the original site for 237 (and I must admit, it was ok for a 15 year old in 1999, but it was pretty terrible ). Almost 6 years later, many classes and projects on visual web optimization, and now working daily in tech marketing, I’ve found it’s essential to integrate other people’s opinions and work into what you’re doing. Although you may want to inject your personal flair into it, the best websites are 1.) easy to use 2.) content-rich, but not overpowering.
So, back to the original question. How to integrate other members of the team into working on the website?
Create a testing panel. This could be a cross-section of parents, students, faculty…basically fill it with the people that are going to be looking at the website. This is a really low-key way to get people to volunteer without taking too much time out of their lives. Have sessions throughout the design process to come up with ideas for the website, and how to make it better.
Do you have an arts-oriented member on the team? Have them choose the colors so that they fit in with the team image. The website is an extension of the team materials (tshirt, brochure, business cards, etc). They should all have the same feel to them. Although Ryan touched upon this already, it can’t be said enough.
Do you have someone on the team doing a newsletter, or CAward? Have them write the content. Not only does it give them practice writing about the team, it saves you time from having to come up with all the content yourself
Being structured similar to a corporation, team 103 is divided into three departments. Under each department are sub-departments which feature specific team functions.
Under PR/Marketing is a website team that creates, modifies, and deletes website content on a daily basis. This involves changing upcoming events, images, posting newsletters, etc. However, these members are not only involved in the website aspects of the team but also deal with the animation and marketing departments and their included functions. This aids in utilizing all of talents of an individual member. These members are titled the residential website experts and are trained to be able to use programs such as Macromedia Flash and Photoshop as well as required to be familiar with coding such as HTML and php.
In response to your question I would not necessarily try to involve members that aren’t interested in web design or do not have quality writing skills. This is because they will lack productivity in doing something this has no interest to them. Instead organize your team to form a website department that works as a secondary role for those already involved in other activities. For example, take the best writer from your newsletter staff and have them in charge of content, take the most artistic and have them responsible for modifying, resizing, and posting images, etc. Of course all of these members need to know HTML coding, which is not too complex for what they are doing. To accomplish this instruct an HTML course after school so that they are able to take a role in the website. This way more than one or two people share the duty and there are members from other grade levels that are able to train new members after an expert member graduates.
It is nearly impossible to involve every team member with the website because of the amount of time it takes and the large amount of other work that needs to be completed. Focus on a few members that have both interest and talent in the area, train them, and assign them specific roles to produce a website team of members that are skilled, productive, and will essentially be able to accomplish any web related task.
These are some good ideas, but I was thinking more of the teams that only have so many team members and everyone is working full time on other projects. For example, on my team, we have lots of members. We don’t quite have this problem simply because of the volume of people, but not all teams have that many. On my team, we do the website secondary to other projects, like mentioned before, but most team members assume that others are handling the website so they ignore it. I just want to find a way to get more people involved to get more ideas to improve the site, without requiring everyone to help. I like that idea of giving small, simple tasks for people to do so they don’t have to commit to anything big. I tried teaching a class on HTML, but there was not enough support for it for the same reason, everyone assumed that everyone else was doing it. Since everyone is so involved with other projects and meeting so much, they don’t like to work outside of meetings anyways.
Last year, I took over most of the website, since our previous webmaster was unable to participate in the team. I didn’t know anything about HTML or CSS, but within two weeks of the kickoff, I had created the basis for an entirely new website for the 2005 season. Later, our website went on to win the Best Website Award at the UTC Regional.
I did all of the coding, graphics, layout, and 90% of the content by myself (from scratch) at my home. I also took about half of the 2005 pictures on our website. I almost never worked on the website at team meetings, because we had a small team last year, and I was needed for more important things like finishing the robot or driver practice. I still do 99.99% of all the team website stuff right now from my home computer.
Last year, I did have another student from our team help get content for the website, like team bios. This year, she is looking to create a sort of comical section, with funny team pictures (like the squirrel our team’s parade float ran over :eek: ) and quotes my team members and the like. Luckily, this year our team is almost twice as big as it was last year, so hopefully I can get more people involved with the website.
In order to get people to ‘participate’ I usually ask them to read things over for me (just to make sure it makes sense), or occasionally write up the content of pages (such as the “About FIRST” page on our site). Unfortunatly participation is rather lacking, however. The majority of the content is done by either me or Mark McLeod. Also, as someone mentioned above, I do almost all the of the work on the website at home - the computers in school are a mess, so about the only thing I can do is edit HTML.
The key is organization. If team members are not showing support for the website aspects you need to have an overall meeting with the team and urge members to aid in the website because it is needed. You previously mentioned that “everyone assumes[s] that everyone else [is] doing it” - let them know that people are needed and not everyone else is doing. You need to organize the members according to functions - and tell them that they need to multi-task. Show all members what you are working on with the site, tell how they can help, and schedule a meeting when they can give their opinions - do not make it optional. Question members if they are interested, and if there is no positive response assign those with less duties to stay after school to learn HTML, even if it is on there personal time.
Hope this topic isn’t dead just yet, seems we have a bit before the website section kicks off but forgive me for reviving a topic if it isn’t needed. Anywho, with my team I’m generally the one doing the website and animation, this has usually been a burden for me. Though I enjoy it intensely, it’s just tough to have expectations from everyone riding on your shoulders. This year, I set up a team forum rather early, with private access. I encouraged everyone to sign up (forums are worthless if you have no members), and now I drop various images and layouts etc on there for critique. We have a lot of artsy members without technical skills, and that has certainly played a big role in this years design. Normally, I’m a text only guy with a few images or so off on the side, but this year we certainly have what can finally qualify as a “layout”. Thanks to my team!
I still do not understand why many teams only work on their website during build season! A good website should be kept up-to-date throughout the year. Off-season is the best time to work on the site. During build season, we get busy with other things and plan to have the website previously done. I know the rules outline what to do for the website, but it seems to be the same from year-to-year.
I agree that a forum is great to get people to critique ideas for the website.
). Almost 6 years later, many classes and projects on visual web optimization, and now working daily in tech marketing, I’ve found it’s essential to integrate other people’s opinions and work into what you’re doing. Although you may want to inject your personal flair into it, the best websites are 1.) easy to use 2.) content-rich, but not overpowering.