Feedback Please

[esco4466]

would love some feedback on our website. I know there are a lot of problems, ie all flash. I am learning as I go. please advise

www.hopeworks.us (http://www.hopeworks.us)
www.hopeworks.us/forum (http://www.hopeworks.us/forum)

[StubbyD]

Site appears to not exist from here !!!

[David Gillaspey]

Site appears to not exist from here !!!Hi Stu, both worked for me, but I have to wait til later to comment on them. The first site is all Flash, so it may be that you don't have the current Flash plugin installed. (But the code should have detected that and directed you to Adobe's website.)

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites

[JackWolfgang]

First, I would recommend to David that this get moved to the newly created review forum!

OK, now for the review:

The site looks great when Flash is installed and properly linked into the browser. At home, Flash is not integrated with my default Firefox browser (but it is installed and integrated with Internet Explorer). I have the ability to fix that, but not the time nor the desire. In Firefox, I get a white page with a green puzzle piece that says "Click here to download plugin". Why is there no alternative content?

I first looked at this site at work this afternoon, and the first thing I noticed is music. I generally listen to Christian music at work, so yours competing with mine wasn't appreciated. However, if I worked in an office where music wasn't allowed, it wouldn't be appreciated for a different reason. Not to mention, how did you get around the licensing issues?

I was very glad to see a control where I could turn off the music, but the music should go off like a light controlled by a light switch, not fade out. If I turned it off, I wanted it off when I clicked that.

David recently wrote a wonderful review about my site (http://www.greatchurchwebsites.org/forums/showthread.php?p=3792#post3792), where he suggested more content on the front page to engage the user (something I need to work on). On your front page, I have three options:

Enter the site for more content
Make contributions
Turn sound off and on

What's there to engage me? I would move content to the front page of the site and lose the splash page. The "Online Contributions" link is subtle. That's good, keep it that way.

When I click enter site, it drops all the menu options on the same page (as opposed to re-directing me to another page). Why can't I have the menu options from square one without the click?

[David Gillaspey]

First, I would recommend to David that this get moved to the newly created review forum!Hi Jack,

But that's not necessarily in the best interest of the forum. I was happy to create a new area for reviews, per members' request. However, that's completely hidden from visitors — they can't even see that there is such an area of the forum, much less any actual threads within it.

At any given time, only a few members are logged in to this forum and browsing it. But throughout much of each day, up to 200 visitors are browsing the forum. The number goes down at night and on Sunday mornings, as one might expect. Members' reviews of websites — when the reviews are publicly viewable — can be useful and helpful to visitors not only now, but months from now. That's true of any post in this forum; people are benefited immediately, as well as far into the future.

Some visitors might be motivated to join the forum in order to comment on a site. For example, they read this thread and decide they want to say something about esco4466's website. Others might be motivated to join in order to request comments about their own site, because they plainly can see that such requests are honored on the forum. That may very well be how this thread came to be.

Anyway, there's a certain balancing act that goes on here. It's good for members to be able to privately request reviews, but it's also good (for the forum) for such requests and the resulting comments to be publicly viewable. Thus I've enabled both options.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
Forum administrator

[JackWolfgang]

Good point, David. Given that, I wouldn't mind my review being public, because I am willing to discuss the techniques I used (e.g. the JavaScript to center the Google Map). However, leaving it where it is makes sense to me because I think everything should be organized.

[mrbelfry]

a much better flash site then I could ever hope to produce. Along with the other comments I would add that on my 1024*768 monitor I have to scroll down to see the whole site. Even when I fullscreen the browser window I get scroll bars. You could make the hopeworks logo smaller and move everything else up to fit it in if you wanted.

Also you don't have a title set for the page. I'd put the church name in there or something so that I can easily find it when I've got 500 tabs open in my browser

[michael]

I am not a big fan of the splash page. It would be nice if you just got right to the site instead of adding all of that fancy junk. People who visit your site want the information fast and easy. The way your site is right now it would take a little time for them to find the information they need. The music annoys me! I agree with JackWolfgang the music should go off right away. If you want music it should be a 10 second clip of a song not the whole thing.

[David Gillaspey]

Hi Jim,

I'm going to step (or stomp) on some toes, maybe yours. So steel yourself.

Here are my comments:

1) The splash screen is beautiful, but the fact is, splash screens have been out of favor for several years now. You should eliminate it. (I realize you may not be personally responsible for the site.) There are a couple of reasons why you don't want to use splash screens: a) they waste bandwidth; b) all of the most important content on a website should be available in three mouse clicks or less; a splash screen wastes one of those clicks; c) if you want people to come your site often, why make them have to see the splash screen every time?

2) When the splash screen first loads, the user is given the chance to "Skip" the animation or introductory screens. This option should skip the splash screen altogether. Instead, the user, having clicked on "Skip," still has to click on "Enter site." That's two mouse clicks wasted.

3) The music, as Jack suggested, is probably illegal. You MUST have a license to play copyrighted music over the internet. Of the three "performing rights" organizations (ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC), only ASCAP has a specific license for this (see http://www.ascap.com/weblicense). Check the copyright information for the song to see whether it is licensed under ASCAP or one of the other organizations. Your church's CCLI license will not cover internet usage of music.

(A visitor wrote to remind me that my original post was incorrect on this point, so I've now added the word "copyrighted" above. Music in the public domain — for example, many, but not all!, hymns — can be played over the internet without a license. But a Michael W. Smith recording of a public domain hymn, as one example, can't be played over the internet without a license. The hymn is in the public domain, the recording isn't. Also, if a church musician records his or her own rendition of a public domain hymn, then that also can be played over the internet — assuming that the musician is OK with that.)

Many people think that because there is no specific law requiring licenses for music used over the internet, that it's OK to play copyrighted music over the internet from a website. (I'm not referring to downloads, here; that is a related but different matter.)

They are incorrect because they don't understand copyright law. Copyright gives creators of music, art, photography, books, poems, etc., complete control over how and when their compositions may be used, for a certain period of time. However, certain laws have been passed that subtract, so to speak, from the complete control that copyright owners enjoy over the use of their material. That is why you can make copies of your music CDs for personal use (not to share with others). That is an area where the rights of copyright owners have been subtracted from or reduced by the passage of laws.

The idea that there would have to be a law to require licensing music to be played over the internet is wrong because it assumes you build up a copyright owner's control over his or her material through the passage of such laws. But, as I've pointed, that is completely backward. You can only subtract from a copyright owner's control over his or her material, not build it up.

Thus, it's illegal to play copyrighted music over the internet UNTIL AND UNLESS there's a law permitting people to do so. There isn't, therefore, permission or license is required. (Except, of course, for public domain material.)

See http://www.ascap.com/licensing/licensingfaq.html for more information about this matter.

4) Once inside, I see a row of navigational links across the top (Check us out, Who we are, Ministries, and Audio). When I mouseover them, little boxes slide down from the top, and the words I was aiming for (the link) move to a location inside the box. At this point, I am completely confused as to where I should click: in the original location of the words (now blank), or in the new location? So ...get rid of boxes that slide down from the top. They just confuse things.

5) I clicked on "Check us out" (I chose to click on the blank area where the words WERE; links should NEVER be moving targets). I see a screen that includes Service Info, Phone, and Map. "Check us out," however, has two possible meanings. Some visitors to your site will expect "Check us out" to lead to a page with the church's mission statement or vision or who the church is trying to reach or an invitation. Others will expect exactly the information that you have on this page. If you want to make sure that people will find your map or your contact information, then the button should explicitly say "Location" or "Contact us," respectively.

6) On this same page are the names (and email links) of your staff. When I mouseover the names, then the name disappears, to be replaced by the person's title. Let's say I wanted to email the worship pastor. I would have to mouseover several names, as in a treasure hunt, before locating the worship pastor. Thus, this setup only works for church members who already know every pastor by name AND their function. You can be sure that's a small minority of people using your site.

7) I clicked on "Who we are." There's some text there about the church's mission. I see the phrases between paragraphs: we believe... our core values... more info. I mouseover them, and the phrases are replaced by "click for more information". Really?

Just underline the original phrases and do away with the mouseover swap. Underlined text is universally understood to signify a link.

8) I clicked on Ministries. I see some small photos with the names of ministries beside them. Some of them I understand, e.g., Women's ministries. But, as a visitor to your site, who doesn't know your church at all, I don't have any idea what "N.R.G" and "Pregame" are. Replace these ambiguous, "insider" terms with more descriptive labels.

9) On the Audio page, I see a list of messages on the left and a list of podcasts on the right. "The New You-Identity" link on the left is bad, by the way. Of the list on the right, three of the four titles, when clicked, open in a new window (or tab, in Firefox). The second one, Ann McFarland, opens in the same window. This is inconsistent. As a result, while reviewing your site and testing the links on this page, I closed your site twice, which is very annoying. If I were an unchurched visitor, I just wouldn't bother to come back. The third time I clicked that link (after getting back into the site twice), I had the presence of mind to hit the back button. I expected to return to the Audio page, but instead, the whole site reloaded, starting with the splash screen. Very very annoying.

Finally, I could detect no discernable difference between clicking on the messages on the left and the "podcasts" on the right. Both (except as noted) simply result in a new window or tab opening and a file playing in media player. Podcasting is NOT making a file available for download. It's much more than that. (And maybe that's what you're doing, but I couldn't detect it.)

10) When I mouseover "launch pics/blog", the words change to "view pics". As above, my reaction is, Oh, really? There's no need to change the text of links on mouseover. Also, the original link text is "launch PICS/BLOG". On mouseover, the user only see "view pics". So ... what happened to the blog?

11. So I clicked on the link to see the pics and the blog. This is interesting...a blog with no text, only photos! But no captions. I don't know these people. Who are they? Please provide captions.

As for the photos...finally, something I really like. I have a master's in photojournalism. Those photos are incredible! (But you might want to do something about the woman displaying her cleavage.)

12) Back on your website (since the blog is located on another site and I had to close the tabbed window), I clicked on "launch forum". The link text changes to "Acts 2:42-47" upon mouseover. You can be sure that your unchurched visitors understand the significance of that! (I'm a longtime Christian and it doesn't even make sense to ME.)

13) The home groups page has a little label at top left, "Acts 2:42-47 forum." That's probably not supposed to be there.

As for this page, yeah, it's kind of nice. But how would someone new to the city and the church know which home group is closest to them? All you've done is provide an address. Include a map for each address, zoomed out so as just to indicate generally where in your city each home is located.

14) Finally, wherever I go in the site, there's a lot of animation and stuff. Yeah, that's kind of cool the first time. But set a cookie or a session variable to turn it off if I've been to the site before or I'm navigating around the site. As Michael states, I'm there to get information, not be impressed by Flash programming skills.

To summarize, the site is flashy, and Flashy, but not as functional as it could be. Functionality is always the priority. It seems like the site was never tested by unchurched people who are not familiar with the church. That kind of user testing would have been invaluable.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites

[esco4466]

wow, thank you.

you said:As for the photos...finally, something I really like. I have a master's in photojournalism. Those photos are incredible! (But you might want to do something about the woman displaying her cleavage.)

ha ha. I know. my wife took the pics she is an amazing photographer. I luaghed when I first saw that one pic you are referring too. Perhaps I should take it off.

THe site was a template that we changed dramatically. I didnt do the original site (i helped with the content) because I didnt know anyhting about this stuff. Since I have done the updating and a number of the other things, ie blog, forum, external html pages, etc. I dont know how to eliminate the splash page. Should I just redo the whole site? Where would I start.

[StubbyD]

Site appears to not exist from here !!!Hi Stu, both worked for me, but I have to wait til later to comment on them. The first site is all Flash, so it may be that you don't have the current Flash plugin installed. (But the code should have detected that and directed you to Adobe's website.)

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites

Oh I have all necessary flash plugins - it just wasn't responding.

It is now though :)

[StubbyD]

As for the photos...finally, something I really like. I have a master's in photojournalism. Those photos are incredible! (But you might want to do something about the woman displaying her cleavage.)

Isn't that just a tad sexist David?

Let me clarify - I'm not American so don't understand your values, views, etc on life and I may be stomping on toes here.

However - if the woman in question (I haven't seen the pic) is happy - and this raises a question of have the Church got permission to post the pics - then who are we to say what should / should not be published? So longas the pic isn't lurid or indecent then is there really an issue?

Just my 2p.

[JackWolfgang]

As for the photos...finally, something I really like. I have a master's in photojournalism. Those photos are incredible! (But you might want to do something about the woman displaying her cleavage.)

Isn't that just a tad sexist David?

Let me clarify - I'm not American so don't understand your values, views, etc on life and I may be stomping on toes here.

However - if the woman in question (I haven't seen the pic) is happy - and this raises a question of have the Church got permission to post the pics - then who are we to say what should / should not be published? So longas the pic isn't lurid or indecent then is there really an issue?

Just my 2p.

I haven't seen the picture either, but I don't think David was out of line. We are called to be different (set apart, sanctified, holy), and I believe the picture as described projects a sexuality that should be reserved for the married couple's bedroom.

[StubbyD]

I haven't seen the picture either, but I don't think David was out of line. We are called to be different (set apart, sanctified, holy), and I believe the picture as described projects a sexuality that should be reserved for the married couple's bedroom.

This is why I quantified my statement with - I don't know the American values / viewpoints / etc ...

I know a little of differing attitudes and in my experience (not verry wide)it has appeared to me that British Christians tolerate certain things that American Christians don't and vice-versa. And maybe this is one of those areas.

As I also said - I don't want to stomp on toes. However in the light of wanting to see the what we are discussing, I have been and looked at the picture and I personally can see nothing wrong!

That's only my opinion and I fully expect that others won't / don't agree with me and that is absolutely fine.

[JackWolfgang]

[quote=JackWolfgang;3867]As I also said - I don't want to stomp on toes. However in the light of wanting to see the what we are discussing, I have been and looked at the picture and I personally can see nothing wrong!
David, is it the woman with the children that you are referring to?

[David Gillaspey]

David, is it the woman with the children that you are referring to?Yes.

Not of question of right or wrong, however, but a matter of taste.

The photo itself is beautiful, leaving aside the question of cleavage.

Let's address the larger issue: What standards, if any, do people have for photos on their website, with regard to revealing cleavage, skimpy outfits, thongs, revealing bikinis, etc.?

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites

[David Gillaspey]

Let me clarify - I'm not American so don't understand your values, views, etc on life and I may be stomping on toes hereWell, that raises an interesting question. Since websites can viewed by people living in other parts of the country and the world, whose standard do you apply? Local community standards? Or standards that exist in other parts of the world?

However - if the woman in question ... is happy ... then who are we to say what should / should not be published? I would say the church, ultimately, since a website is the public face of a church.

The photos, technically, aren't on the church's website, however. They're on blog with a different domain name. That's interesting in itself.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites