Designing a team webpage/Guide 1

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When designing a team webpage, the objectives of the site must be considered. For example, do you just want to list the team members, or do you want a forum, videos, and pictures? Your website can be the first impression someone gets of your team, so it should be well organized, have enough content, and be up-to-date.

There are two main functions of a FIRST team website: to tell non-members about the team, and to provide a resource for communication and organizing within the team. It is a good idea to try to create a seperate experience for non-team members and team members.


One excellent resource all teams should consider is OpenFIRST, an open-source project made by FIRSTers specifically designed for FIRST Robotics Teams.

Contents

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Guidelines

Some basic guidelines for team webpages:

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Well Organized

  • One main navgation bar
  • Can go from one page to another, without going through index
  • Maybe a search box
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Compatibility

  • Design your website with browsers other then Internet Explorer in mind.
  • Test it with other browsers such as Firefox and Opera before finishing.
  • Don't use things that will only work on windows computers or require multiple plugin downloads.
  • Active-X is bad! Its full of holes, try and stay away from it.
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Content

  • Imagine your website as just plain text, would it still be worth visiting? It should be!
  • History of the team (how it was founded, etc)
  • History of robots and awards won
  • Links to press coverage
  • Links to your sponsors
  • When possible, link to general FIRST sites (like FIRSTwiki, or the official FIRST site) instead of trying to explain everything yourself.
  • An excellent way to keep your team/mentors/parents/sponsors coordinated is through a forum system. See Creating a forum.
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Imagery

  • ALWAYS Do content before beauty
  • Save images as .gif or .png at a quality that preserves the image but saves space. Do not use jpeg images for the background images of the site, as they are very lossy.
  • Choose a cohesive color scheme to use throughout the website. Ideally, these colors relate with the team in some way.
  • Use contrasting colors to emphasize your message, while making sure to stay within the color scheme.
  • Be tasteful in your use of graphics by learning important design principles involving typography, layout, and color.
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Timeliness

  • Continuously update your site.
  • Nothing is worse than having "Just updated: 2002's awards!" in big letters on your homepage, after the end of the 2004 competition.
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Software

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CMSs

Content Management Software (CMS) can be very useful for a team website. They make setting up basic news, discussion board, gallery and other functionality a matter of uploading files via FTP and running some install files. Of course, if the user chooses, there is plenty of opportunity for expansion.

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