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Home page has inappropriate content
March 24, 2009 - 3:14am
The home page is the place where we give people a first impression of our site.
The most coveted spot, the top of the home page, is full of administrivia instead of material that will give a good impression. The administrivia should be moved to a forum entry and replaced with "something sexy" chosen to make a good impression.
For example, an ad rotator control that switches between photos of interesting activities that we do - armoured combat, jousting, dance, crafts, etc.
March 25, 2009 - 4:43am
#2
The text directed to
The text directed to newcomers is much improved! I do have one quibble with it, though. The chatelaine is described as "the officer in charge of newcomers". That's not correct. The chatelaine is "the officer assigned to assist newcomers". They aren't "in charge" of anyone. :)
March 26, 2009 - 10:07am
#3
There ya go.
There ya go.
March 28, 2009 - 6:57pm
#4
Interesting photos, you
Interesting photos, you say?
You can use these for the site if you wish. Just give credit to "Magnus Hedemark".
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3601/3337139546_926433dc0a_b.jpg
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3374/3336368095_a087f8ce84_b.jpg
I very much enjoy photography and as I start finding my way to other events & workshops I'll probably have more pics to offer up for promotion of local SCA opportunities.
March 30, 2009 - 1:56pm
#5
Critique of Home Page from newcomer's perspective
This is my opinion and is intended to help us decide what we want on our home page. I appreciate all the hard work the website team is doing! This is just a way I've found to try and help.
Button Bar at top of page:
1) Why have an 'About Us' AND a 'Beginner's Guide'?
I suggest moving the Beginner's Guide to the About Us button and put the most essential info onto the first page. Or vice-versa.
2) 'Articles' is descriptive but not exciting.
No recommendation for improvement, but I wish I had one.
3) 'Policies' is not for non-registered users.
If they aren't a member of our site, they probably aren't interested in our policies and procedures. Nor do they really need to know.
4) Windlore button is meaningless.
What, I can learn how to be a weatherman here? :)
Navigation Menu on Left:
5) Local Groups is meaningful, Cantons is not.
Suggest 'Local Groups'.
6) Attilium (Fayetteville)
Suggest 'Fayetteville (Attilium)'. Ditto for other cantons.
7) Image Galleries (new) and (old).
If you don't have time to move the old content over yet (and that's perfectly understandable!), then hide the fact on an intermediate page. Just have one entry here and direct the user to an intermediate page where they can check out both galleries.
8) User's Guide (FAQ)
The mixture of names and their associated meanings shows this entry has a confused identity.
Non-registered users don't need to know about (at least) half the topics in the guide. If this is a guide for registered users, then it shouldn't show up on this menu for unregistered users.
If it's an FAQ for newcomers then it probably belongs in the beginner's guide/about us entry.
9) 'Feed Aggregator'
I don't know why I would expect a non-technical user to know what a 'Feed Aggregator' is.
10) Who's Online
I'm not sure a non-registered user needs to know who is online. I'm not sure why a newcomer would care.
Footer:
I suspect the blurb is required by SCA policy to be on the home page. Personally, I think it belongs at the top of the text in the content window.
11) Legal
If this is required by SCA policy, so be it. Otherwise bury or ditch it.
12) Information for Site Owners
Why not put this material into the beginners guide/about us material instead of burying it under this cryptic, near-invisible header?
13) drupal logo
We aren't an advertising agency for drupal, so why use precious home page real-estate for this purpose? Ditto for the theme provider, Acquia, Inc.
Content Panel:
14) Welcome to the New Windmastershill.org
New? How new? Is this a "Go down this road and turn left where the old oak tree used to be." kind of information? :)
15) A few notices from your friendly neighborhood admins:
Look, we're already trying to get people to believe in the current middle ages, but let's not strain their credulity overmuch by telling them we have friendly neighborhood admins too! We do, but who in the real world would ever believe ANYONE has a friendly admin? :)
Seriously, it's wasted space.
17) Gallery improvements.
But this message on the intermediate gallery page mentioned in #7 above.
18) Content submission
Newcomers and non-registered users don't need to know this. Wasted home page space. It could be a forum post under the theme (Planned Changes to this Site).
19) Questions/Comments
Good info for newcomers. Move to the Newcomer's para to save space?
20) From Their Excellencies
What's an Excellency? Why would a newcomer know that? Why would they care what an Excellency has to say?
21) What's New
If someone creates a new book with a bunch of pages, it fills up this section. Maybe child pages in a book shouldn't be shown here if they were created within X hours of the the top page in the book?
22) New Forum Topics
Not all forums are of interest to a newcomer/non-registered member. I think forums should be defined as viewable by the unregistered public or not. This should not show forum topics to non-registered members that are not in public forums.
23) Acorn online
I didn't know you could grow mighty oak trees on the internet. Cool! :)
Seriously, why would a newcomer know what an Acorn Online is? This is actually the Kingdom Calendar of Events. It would be nice if we could force local events to always show up if they are within 3 months of the system date.
24) SCA Today
If I was short on home page real estate, this would be put elsewhere.
March 30, 2009 - 10:29pm
#6
13. -1 They slaved over it,
13. -1 They slaved over it, we use it, having the logo is common courtesy.
22. -1 we have something to hide?
March 31, 2009 - 1:23am
#7
13 - I can accept that,
13 - I can accept that, provided it's open source software. If it's commerical software, they can pay us to show their logo. :)
22 - Something to hide? Yes and no. From an advertisting point of view, to reach out to people who might want to join, we should make our message clean and clear. If they are interested enough to register with the site, then they can see whatever we have in all its dirty underwear glory. :) I'm not going to say that "show it all" is a wrong choice, just not the one I would recommend.
March 31, 2009 - 12:51pm
#8
I have to disagree with #1.
I have to disagree with #1. When I think about how to put "About Us" into "Beginner's Guide" or vice versa, no solution immediately comes to mind. "About Us" is such a basic landmark for web pages. People are familiar with it, and they look for it. At the same time, my earlier complaint was that the "Beginner's Guide" was not obvious enough, so I don't want to make it disappear! If I am not mistaken, though, the tabs at top have been rearranged slightly, and the BG has moved to the left one spot. I think this tiny move makes a big difference by uncovering the BG a little and grouping it with a similar topic. But I think there are significant differences between the two--one is for casual visitors to the site and one is for people who want to get involved--that require them to remain separate tabs.
March 31, 2009 - 1:42pm
#9
Brittany, good points. I
Brittany, good points. I think it might be possible to combine them effectively, but if that failed, I would agree with you. It's worth a try.
March 31, 2009 - 2:00pm
#10
Drupal is most certainly an
Drupal is most certainly an open source product.
April 8, 2009 - 5:07pm
#11
Anyone else have any comments
Anyone else have any comments on this?
The Society for Creative Anachronism, Inc. (SCA), is an international, non-profit (501(3)(c)), educational
organization designed as a hands-on, learn-by-doing model to research and re-create European life prior
to 1600.
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Great point. I'm inclined to agree. Let me see what we can whip up.