Landracing Forum
Misc Forums => LSR General Chat => Topic started by: dwarner on February 07, 2009, 10:28:59 AM
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At the board meeting last night I was given a new assignment. I will the website co-ordinater working directly with the contactor to resolve website issues. We are buying more band width in order to take records from past years and make them available on line. We intend to update a photo gallery and look into other items which will make the website more user friendly and a place you want to visit.
Here I will be asking for your help. Please let me know of your concerns about the website in its current form. What problems are you having? What do you want to see? Any links broken? That kind of stuff.
You can post here or drop me an email directly at: dwarner230@yahoo.com. I would like to have printouts that I can take to my monthly meetings with the contractor.
Thanks,
DW
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Dan,that's great to hear.It will be a lot of work but pay off in the end, :-D
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Thanks for taking that on Dan. :cheers:
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You da man, Boy. Wayno :cheers:
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Hurrah!!! (http://i233.photobucket.com/albums/ee171/4-BarrelMike/Miscellaneous%20stuff/beer.gif)
Mike
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The SCTA has a web site? :evil:
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:evil:
DW
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Congrates Dan, I hope your keyboard has a cupholder, mine does. :-P
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Dan,
Does this mean you will be working along with Ed on the website or only on special projects?
I have a request for you. When you go to the SCTA web-page and click on El Mirage, on the new page that comes up on the top right hand side it says results 2007, 2006, and archives. When you click on these to get results blank pages come up. I was told they got deleted when SCTA ran out of space a while back. If you could reinstate those results I would appreciate it.
Another request would be to change the video's on the site more often. One team's video has been on the site in one form or another for many years.(boring) In this instance I feel change would be good for the website.
Thanks,
Tom G.
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Oh yeah!!!!! :cheers:
please please please make the navigation more user friendly!!!!
Here's what bugs me. Click on the main page http://scta-bni.org/
Click on Bonneville Records on the left side it launches a new pop-up style window (not a fully navigable browser window).
Click on Motorcycle Records part way down the page in the middle. If you read the fine print you can toggle back & forth
between the records pages but you're in a pop-up and out of the main SCTA web page so you have to close that window
to get back to the regular page. Now if you actually figured this out & made your way back to the main page but left the
pop-up window open then click on another link on the main page it launches in that pop-up window that you forgot you
opened. Now if it doesn't come to the front you just sit there trying to figure out where the heck you are & where the
window went. Now I'm pretty savvy with web navigation but 9 times out of 10 the site just ticks me off & I leave. I just
don't think it's very user friendly.
I'd like to see the history brought back. I'd like to see as much history as you can put up not just the last year or two.
I've gone to the site to try to get information about racing from a newbie perspective for both Bonneville & El Mirage and didn't find what I needed. Most of what's available on lr.com but the basics should be on there. What is the general racing schedule, start to finish basics on how to race, things like preregistration, registration, tech, licensing...
The Bonneville 200mph club is where? Yeah I know, it's not SCTA but an easier link there would be nice!
Ok, is that enough for a start? :-D
Thanks for taking this on I know what a thankless job it is! (http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p224/DahMurf/Smileys/smooches.gif)
Debbie
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yes Dan i have a suggestion..... "hire a professional!"... not meaning to offend those whom have volunteered to do the job in the past but it kinda show es.... there are professionals out there that will do it for about free... i just hired a new guy to revamp my site and progress to e-marketing and e-commerce, we will still do everything in house... i put an ad on Craig's list and had 2 responses in 8 minutes... as we were laughing about it more popped up... i had 33 responses by the next morning... thats when the trouble started... i started getting 10 to 15 responses PER HOUR!... i cancelled the ad after 300+ responses...
Dan there are a lot of talented people looking for work, just make a posting and ask them for samples of pages they have done...you will find some one who will have tons of ideas and will offer a graphic direction that will complement the exciting sport we enjoy.... It wont cost the SCTA much and the return on investment will be priceless
Kent
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Kent,
What part of the first post did you miss where I indicated that the SCTA has a contarctor? That would seem to point a person to the fact that a professional team is on board.
DW
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Dan,
Can I be of assistance in helping with the SCTA website.... Building, adding content, updating, setting up photo gallery etc etc...
Jon
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Jon,
Thank you for your offer. The SCTA is paying a professional team so I think we will go with them first. With the fast approaching racing season this will be an ongoing project. Please do not expect immediate results.
I understand that there is a wish list in place and I have already received a couple of mails with items that you guys(and gals Deb) would like to see. We will be scheduling a meeting in the near future to set a fix it program.
DW
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well Dan I dont think i missed anything...i did read it and i also re read it... it said you "WILL" be working with a contractor... your post did not say you already "HAD" a contractor... good luck...who is your selected "contractor"? can you give us some links of things he (or she) had already done? It will give us an idea of their capabilities and knowledge, so we can assist in suggestions.
Kent
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Kent,
You're right. Poor choice of words. I want to see where we stand before making any statements as to what will happen. Please let us know what you want to see in the meantime. I do know there is a list of fixes but, I have not seen it yet. As I stated before this will not be an overnight deal, small steps.
DW
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DW its cool, your still my hero! next to my wife your one of the nicest people i know.... as for the site, man these things can get really really deep, been there done that and is best left to someone who likes that sort of thing, you know the kind of guy who likes root canals!
As Deb said, please start with easy navigation... if people are comfortable with the site they will come back...
Kent
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Tom, Deb & Kent,
Thanks for the suggestions. I just passed them on to the web people. I like to see where this goes.
DW
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Again thanks for taking this on Dan! If you need any uninvolved testers on any new look/feel stuff let me know! I like to poke around on websites when I need a little mental break at work. :-D
Debbie
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Again thanks for taking this on Dan! If you need any uninvolved testers on any new look/feel stuff let me know! I like to poke around on websites when I need a little mental break at work. :-D
Debbie
OK kids, I think it is time we cleaned up a few more 4 letter words around here.... SSS can't we get the W word changed to something like "finance fluffing" :roll:
OK it's a slow day on the site...
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Stainless, since I sold my busines last spring I've been pleasantly unemployed - and my memory seems t be going. What's that word you mention --- unh, I think it's "wurk" or something -- what's that mean?
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I don't know, I retired over 2 years ago... but when Linda leaves in the morning, she is pissed off about something so I know the W word is a bad thing... OK sorry for the short hijack Dan, but it keeps your thread on the top... :roll:
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Dan thats great news, but dont you have so much to do already? next year maybe pres? hope to see you in inpound at speedweek. :cheers:
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It needs a whole section devoted to diesels... :evil:
KIDDING!!! :-P
In my opinion, the #1 thing about a race info site is to have timely updates when things change. This is something I think the SCTA has done a good job at. Not sure how it is currently set up, but all officials of the SCTA (perhaps selected others) should be able to quickly and easily update content without requiring outside assistance. Anything that works against that will work against getting timely updates. When I hired a "web designer" for my business, they didn't know what I did for a living, and made it nearly impossible for me to alter the contents without "asking". That is a lousy way to do things, from personal experience.
Personally, I love good content and pictures, but I'm not a fan of Blingus Maximus: Overdone flash content that reduces the amount of info on a page is getting more and more common. NHRA's site is a good example of overdone design, IMO, for a "racer-based" site.
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Stainless,
No problem on the hijack.
My retirement plan for 2009 is to keep on par with the cat, nap for nap.
DW
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I think we should wait to see what the changes are when they post the up graded site. We can nit pick it then and suggest the changes or additional needs. Give it a chance. :-o
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Dan, good luck, and thanks for the work you will put in on this. I have developed many websites for different purposes and it is a huge amount of work.
My suggestion would be to add fillable Adobe Acrobat forms for membership, vehicle entry, medical forms, etc. That way the entrants can easily fill out the forms on the computer and eliminate illegible entries. The forms would be emailed to the office eliminating postage and mail delays. Adobe has good tools for doing this and a developer could create the existing forms in a few hours.
Don
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Don is sooooo right. Making the Adobe forms so that you can fill them out makes life so much easier. The data fields can be formatted so that you get the data in a form that is usable to you, like phone numbers for example.
It's amazing how many people still hard code their web pages. It's so much less work to make them data driven so that the users have control over the content without bothering the poor web guy.
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Dean
the only real problem with data is search bots...if you are only posting data and do your own promotions to drive visitors to your content then its OK other wise old school is the best....form fillers and data capture are must have's...
Kent
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I've suggested BNI membership sales on line several times, always got the "yes that would be good be we are not set up to do anything like that" answer. If we could submit medical forms, pay BNI memberships and racing entry forms online I think it would be great.
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I'd go along with that -- especially considering the number of ties that I've received a call from JoAnn asking me to clarify something I'd written - a little less than legibly.
Speaking now as the guy that runs this site -- I'd be willing to have a link to the SCTA "forms" page - to make on-line registration easier. Keep the offer in mind, Dan, and see if it's something that would benefit your new chore.
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Having read every hand-written entry in the last few years and seeing what (and how) the same folks enter things on this website, I'm not sure having it done online would see any improvement. One phone call usually straightens things out rather than a host of emails back and forth.
Stan