Website ideas

[grazz]

I'm looking for ideas to improve the National 12 website. Does anyone have any good ideas. I'd really like to know

1. Is there any information that you think is missing?

2. Is any of the site confusing?

3. Is any of the site stale/boring/un-interesting to read?

4. Are the things you've seen on other sites that you think should be on the N12 website?


George Finch has already suggested integrating the National 12 pages  on Instragram - so that's on my list

All ideas welcomed, please post here...

Happy sailing
Graham
National 12 webmaster

[Kevin]

It's always seemed strange to me, especially given the status we assign to it and the importance of it to both the history of the class and sailing generally, that we don't have the deed of gift for the Burton Cup displayed on the website at all, let alone prominently.


Kevin

[darebarry]

Finding crews for events and also crews wanting sails is a big problem. Rather than just putting a wanted note on the discussion board can we have a link to a page dedicated to putting helms and crews together? If it was not for Janet's kind help in finding crews for Burton helms in the past few our numbers would have been further reduced.
Thanks Dare

[Tim 3497]

I think there is a crewfinder widget that you can get - not sure what it is called.

The site does look a bit dated now, but it is 15(?) years old. 

There must be a lot of good quality photos around now, so with a modern web templates it should be quite straight forward to give a modern look.

Perhaps simplifying the site and menus and orienting it much more towards potential 12 sailors would be an idea. Treating it primarily as a shop window, while the forum and FB group handle much of day to day stuff.

This might mean dragging things like the starters guide out of their PDFs and turning them into web pages (with lots of good photos). The buyers guide (https://www.national12.org/buyers/index.shtml) is a great idea, but the Start button leads you round in a circle and it's a bit desolate with just text and some tiny thumbnails. 

As a comparison - earlier this year I thought we might be moving near to a club that has a good Firefly fleet, so I thought I'd do a little research. Their website seems to have stalled sometime around 2014 and most of the information for newbies was waffle of the 'we're the best class ever' variety. I couldn't find information on the different Marks of Firefly anywhere, it was only a lot of reading around that gave any clues to what the differences were. Quite a major omission really.

FB integration is important (maybe more than Instagram, a FB feed on the front page shows the class is active. Race reports can be left to Y&Y and then just appear on the FB feed - less work for the webmaste in putting up and taking down links to the reports...

[grazz]

Thanks for the ideas so far.

There is an Instagram feed on the home page now.

I looked into Facebook integration earlier in the year but Facebook seemed to be blocking all external sites pulling data from them - this appeared to be a reaction to their data privacy public relations problem. If anyone has seen a site that still has Facebook integration (or knows how it can still be done) I'd like to know

Tim, I did some menu simplifation last year and attempted to make it easier for potential 12 sailors whilst balancing it up with keeping it relevant to existing owners and active sailors. I'd be interested to know which bits you'd recommend making more accessible to potential newbies.

Please keep the ideas coming

[grazz]

Tim,

Thanks for pointing out the slightly odd behaviour on the Buyers guide. I've improved that now so hopefully will stop people going round in circles

Graham

[grazz]

Kevin,
Good point on the Burton Cup, I've added some more info and historical pictures into the history section on that.

Dare,
I understand the general challenging in finding crews. Will have a look into what we can do there

[Tim 3497]

Grazz,

I hadn't realised that Facebook had changed that, as I handed over my GB Oceanski site at the start of the year to someone with a bit more time. Certainly worth just having an obvious button/link for the FB group though.

In terms of balance between association members and potential newbies, my impression with running the Exeter Canoe Club site for a few years, is that only potential newbies really access the front page and associated info. Members mostly engage with the forum/FB groups, only occasionally using the main site for documents and info. So whether you really need the front page to cater much to current members much I'm not sure?

I do think the present FP is rather busy and link heavy. The boat Boat Database, Events, News, For Sale and Gallery essentially just duplicate the menu bar links. 

Maybe a simplified and visually attractive front page with a 'learn more'/ 'join us' call to action that leads on to an introductory page (Lightning 368 site is a good example: http://www.lightning368.org/lnwp/)?

The present "About" page is good starting point but the sidebar links actually contain many of the things that someone might actually be looking for in the "Get Started" section. Could the two be combined and in the style of many websites/blogs, put the links within the text that lead off to more detailed pages on different aspects raised? This perhaps flows a bit more and keeps people engaged for longer.

[grazz]

The basic technique guide, advanced technique guide and tuning guide have all had a refresh and are now responsive HTML so should work on any device.

We have some new photos coming from this years Burton week which will make a good refresh

Now working on a more appealing home page