The Toongabbie Anglican Church web-site was cutover on 1 Jan 2006. Two years on, I’m going to look at the front page of the site, freshen it up and tighten it’s focus.
At some time since 2006, I did modify the overall design of the site a little, but the front page has always (in my mind) been unfinished.
I sat down last night, whilst watching Arnie on the TV (the wonders of a laptop) and had a first go at redesigning the front page. To make this re-design a little interactive, here’s the beta page. I’m not happy with this design yet, it’s a work in progress, and I suspect sometime later today there will be a second beta.
At this point, go have a look at the beta page... I’ll wait…
Ah, you’re back. Now you’ve looked, I want to point out some things I tried to achieve – did I suceed?
- I tried to increase the importance of the recent Bible talks. At the same time, I tried to reduce the importance of the “blog” posts, making them more or less equal in status.
- I tried to give more to visitors to the site. Most visitors to the site will come via a search engine, and probably won’t even land on the front page. I’m focussing on people looking for a church, people wanting to know about Toongabbie Anglican Church. So, I’ve tried to make the basics (meeting times, location) more up front.
- I have got rid of some of the clutter. For example, on the current page, there are icons next to each blog post, e.g. the blue circle for the weekly blurb. I recall there was a tutorial on the web showing how to make little buttons when I was completing the original design – but that’s not a good reason for them to be there. In fact, I duplicate information – there’s the icon, and then I say the same thing in text. So, icons – gone.
Beta 2 – some ideas for a second beta:
- I’m not convinced by the 3 column layout. I might try putting the bible talks below the blog posts. Does 3 columns work?
- The yellow-ish welcome box might need to be toned done – it attracts your eye, despite being off to the side.
- I haven’t placed the login links in the first beta, so I need to put them somewhere. I also would like to make more of the specific facilities of the web-site for members, for example, the Bible reading plan.
Your thoughts… if you use the TAC site, what do you want on the front page? If you’re a visitor, what would you expect to see on the front of a church web-site? If you want to see what others are doing, here are some sites I’ve bookmarked and there are more on Godbit.
Hi Simon,
it seems that the way internet explorer is setup on my computer messes about with columns, so I can’t give you much helpful feedback on that. Regarding your other questions though, I tend to use the website for accessing information such as rosters, liturgy, songs etc, and occasionally listening to bible talks. However, I’ve setup my ‘favourites’ folder so that each of these pages is just a click away once I’ve opened explorer, so I often skip straight past the home page. I think the home page should be geared towards non church people as <span class=“caps”>TAC</span> members will quickly get used to navigating the site to find the info they’re after, but visitors will have a quick look at the homepage and pass on if nothing takes their fancy. Oh, and i think info that helps people come to church for the first time is essential – as i think it is setup on the current webpage