Hi Anne,
Great job. You can be proud of yourself. Your new site is visually stunning. I'll be adding it to my database of well-designed church websites when I do my next update, in a few weeks. I particularly like the rotating pictures at top right (rotating, in this case, each time you load the home page). And the moving photos/links across the bottom are nice, too. Thanks for making it clear to the user (with the words "Scroll" + arrow) how to navigate this. The rotating pictures at top right, the moving photos/links at bottom, the Highlights (middle left) and Upcoming Events (middle right) show the thought you've put into ensuring the site will always appear (and be) fresh to the visitor.
Now allow me to offer some comments about the site. You may already be aware of some of the things I'll mention.
You are obviously relying on CSS to a great extent. In Internet Explorer 5.1 on the Mac, only the "Directions & Times" link under the banner displays. No other menu links show under the banner. No big deal in this case, because of this browser's limited usage.
In Firefox on the Mac, all the links under the banner show. However (the rest of my comments are regarding the site's appearance in Firefox) the type in the dropdown menus is so small as to be almost unreadable. This is a common problem I encounter when viewing sites in Firefox on the Mac. Of course, I can easily enlarge the type by hitting Command plus the "+" key repeatedly. Usually that results in the layout falling apart, however. To your credit, your layout continues to look good even as the type enlarges.
You may have developed this on a PC. If so (and actually, speaking to all, here), it's important to remember that fonts of identical point size appear 20% bigger on a PC than a Mac. So if a web designer specs type on a PC just big enough to be readable (typically to fit long words or phrases into a narrow dropdown menu), he or she is guaranteeing a problem for Mac users (in Firefox; the problem seldom occurs in I.E. on the Mac).
When I click on the "About us" link, I see a column of links on the left and text on the right, under the banner. (This is true for all sections of the site.) While I advocate that links should be underlined (this is the web standard), I think you can do without the underlining in this situation (for the links in the column at left), because they are understood to be links, just as the links under the banner are understood to be links.
Also consider adding titles or headlines to all the pages that appear on the right side, as the user clicks links on the left. (Not only in this section, but in all sections of the site; having later browsed the whole site, it appears that some pages have titles, some don't. It would be best, I think, for all pages to have titles.) The reason for this is that it's a little hard for the user to know what he or she just clicked on, that is, where they are. You give them no visual clue on the left, after all. (For example, the underlining of the "Note From Pastor Dave" link doesn't go away when you click on it and go to that page; if it did, that would be a clue to the user as to where they are.) Help the user out by putting a title (exact same text as in the link) at the top of all the "pages" or articles that appear to the right.
By the way, on the "About Westside" page, the underlining doesn't go away when the user mouses over "eight weekend services" but does go away when the user mouses over "areas" and "contact us". Obviously, it would be best to be consistent. Personally, I see no reason to make the underlining go away upon mouseover on any of the links throughout the site. It might be better to have the link change color. I think that would be more in line with web standards than the underlining going away on mouseover.
The "Calendar" link should be identified as a download. When I clicked on it, I expected the calendar to appear in the space to the right. Instead I downloaded a pdf. Also, if the <a href> tag for this includes "target = '_blank'," I think you can leave that out. I was left with a blank browser window after downloading the pdf, which is annoying.
Nicely done staff directory page. I've added a mention to it on my "Seen and Noted" page (plus a plug for your redesigned site in general). However, all or most of the phone numbers look like this: (123)456-7890. (Missing a space after the closing parenthesis.) It's also this way at the bottom of the home page. Maybe you've intended to invent a new style, but usually there's a space there.
Moving on: Under Connecting @ WFC = > Baptism, I tried to view the baptism video. With the highspeed connection, only the media player window opened; no video ever loaded. (I'm on Comcast broadband.) The dialup connection worked; the video loaded almost immediately (since I'm on broadband). But the video I saw, I don't think is the intended "baptism" video. It appears to be a video for the most recent weekend service (very nicely done, I would add), combining a custom video presumably prepared for the service, with the actual teaching.
The link for Connecting @ WFC = > Women opens unexpectedly to a different site. It might be good to warn users this is going to happen. The Westside Women website is really nice looking, too.
I would make the same suggestion for the Grow => Online Bookstore link. Warn users they're about to go to a different site in a new window. (This is especially important for blind users. Imagine how confused a blind person would be, not knowing he or she is now in a new browser window.)
On all sections of the website, considering adding space between the links in the column on the left. The problem: some of the links wrap to two lines. That makes it hard for the user to know if the second line of a link is just that, the second line of a link, or a separate link. By insert a little extra space (2 or 4 pts) between links, it will be clearly obvious to users, whenever a link wraps to two lines, that both lines of text belong to one link. (If a hanging indent is possible using CSS, that would work, too, in place of the extra space.)
In the Worship section, when I click on Service Times & Locations, I am taken to the About us (or About Westside; you're not consistent) section, with the links in the lefthand column that belong to it. That's really confusing to me, and I think confusing to a user who wants to check out everything under the "Worship" section, that is, to be take somewhere else on the site. I don't know how to solve the problem, but it would be better if you would keep the user in the same section (Worship) while displaying for him or her the worship times. (Eight services each weekend. Wow!)
The names of links in the dropdown menus don't always match exactly the names of links in the lefthand column for the corresponding sections of the site. Now, you know the two different wordings for a given link (in the dropdown menu vs. in the column at left for a given section) point to the same page; but I'm not sure it's wise to expect visitors to know that. It seems best to me that the wording be exactly the same in all cases.
Speaking of the links in the dropdown menus vs. the links in the lefthand column of corresponding sections of the site, in most cases all the links in the lefthand column of a given section are also found in the dropdown menu for that site, as one would except. One exception is the "Reach" dropdown menu, which does not include the FAQ and Getting Started links for that section.
Those are my comments. But really, your site is superb. Great job!
Sincerely,
David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites