Designing a team webpage/Guide 2
From FIRSTwiki
There are many ways to design a web site. Some good, some really good, and theres some that are just plain bad. To begin the design process however you need space to do it in if you dont have it or think you cannot afford it think again. Sevaa.com Hosting offers free hosting to any FIRST Robotics Team. For free you can get yourteam.circuitrunners.com or for about $10 you can get yourteam.com. Now that a space is covered, you can move on to what you need to do with that space.
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Overall Visual Appearance
First off you're thinking: what is it gonna be? The first thing you do is browse the web look at some other team sites and look at some more sites if you need some inspiration. However your team's website will be a representation of your team, so keep it that way. While browsing you see a flash site and think that it's neat, but flash sites are poor on content and unfriendly to people in 56k land. So lay off the blacks and darks, they might look cool, but trust me they are not. Try as much as possible to keep black text on some light color like white. If you can't then don't worry just have people test out the color setup. One last tip on overall appearance: make it easily viewable in 800 x 600.
Navigation
Keep the navigation setup as obvious as possible don't make it hard to read or too small/big. Don't move the navigation to here or there. Also, use PHP and CSS a few simple codes and your navigation page can be loaded on to each page and it can all integrate nicely. This can cut down on maintenance time. IE. if you were to add a new page you only change one file. PHP Will be covered in another article.
Content
Well to have an effective FIRST site you need content and you need it bad. Below are the main things that FIRST judges on and what any good site needs.
Info
This is really important. This will make or break your site and if done properly your site can really help your team out in the long run.
About FIRST
Well what is FIRST try not to give a text book answer here. FIRST has its own site for that.
About This Year's Game
Talk about this years game. Some images of the field and how your team interprets the game.
About Your Sponsors
Thank your sponsors. Provide links to them and write something about how they are an important part of making what your team does a reality.
About Your Team
Talk about your team. Tell anything someone might want to know. Tell about your awards and what they mean. I use the News portion to expand on info about the team.
News
For News one might think oh well who really wants to know what we do we tell people at the meetings whats happening isn't that good enough? Well its not good enough. Our News section has News Article that talk about major events that our team has competed in or has archived. They are composed in the form of a newspaper article and prove very effective at promoting team image, who we are, and what we really do. There good at give anyone who visits a glimpse into your team. Maybe a sponsor wants to check out your site and see whats up. Well this lets them know.
Pictures
Some kind of gallery. This is where to basically tell the story of your team through pictures only.
Communication
Our website has a message board. Anyone can join it and we use it to announce upcoming events as well as point out on a built-in calendar how thing will happen. Its very effective and helpful. We have a team members only portion and a regular portion. Why? because people visiting really don't need to sift though posts that don't pertain to them. Its a waste of their time.
