ECF web site : facelift badly needed

[John Upham]

The ECF web site must be overhauled : it is embarrassing. This is not the fault of the current web manager by any means : I suspect it was inherited and has grown out of control.

First impressions are very important and the corporate and big money audience will not be impressed.

The ECF web manager (Sophie) needs to be freed up to become the Content Manager and that's all. She can then focus on content and content alone.

The underlying technology requires some kind content management system to remove the dullness of maintaining a static site.

I suspect much time is wasted hand coding HTML and other out dated practises. These kind of linear, static sites should be dead and buried.

The site design needs to move from the late 1990s to web 2.0 with content mash-ups, RSS feeds and other stuff.

Another item off my chest...

[John Upham]

I wonder if this post is a symptom of the new vs the old that seems to be causing a raging argument on these forums. My limited understanding of Web2.0 seems to be summed up in the comparison between the Encyclopedia Britannica and Wikipedia ie Web2.0 involves the user much more and where the web site almost has a life of its own.

see
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly ... tml?page=5

help how do you post links (shows which camp I'm in !!) PS oh it worked

What's wrong with DreamWeaver thats what I say

Indeed : your first observation is astutely correct.

What *is* wrong with DreamWeaver? I use it frequently so it suits me.

It is a tool in my toolbox along with many others.

I'm not interested in the tools used to edit the HTML or CSS or even the XML or JavaScript. This is trivial detail that is transparent (and rightly so) to the consumer of content. Sophie might be using Notepad for all we know and jolly good too! That is not the point at issue.

[TomChivers]

The ECF web site must be overhauled : it is embarrassing. This is not the fault of the current web manager by any means : I suspect it was inherited and has grown out of control.

First impressions are very important and the corporate and big money audience will not be impressed.

The ECF web manager (Sophie) needs to be freed up to become the Content Manager and that's all. She can then focus on content and content alone.

The underlying technology requires some kind content management system to remove the dullness of maintaining a static site.

I suspect much time is wasted hand coding HTML and other out dated practises. These kind of linear, static sites should be dead and buried.

The site design needs to move from the late 1990s to web 2.0 with content mash-ups, RSS feeds and other stuff.

Another item off my chest...

I personally don't find anything embarrassing about the ECF site. I don't think it's the best website I've ever seen, but it's simple and clear. Maybe there could be more an emphasis on 'links' than on 'news' on the frontpage, but I don't think this is a big, urgent issue. I doubt the "corporate and big money audience" earnt their millions by snap-judgements based on web-pages, but maybe I am naive.

I agree an RSS feed would be very useful though.

[Carl Hibbard]

The ECF web site must be overhauled : it is embarrassing. This is not the fault of the current web manager by any means : I suspect it was inherited and has grown out of control.

First impressions are very important and the corporate and big money audience will not be impressed.

The ECF web manager (Sophie) needs to be freed up to become the Content Manager and that's all. She can then focus on content and content alone.

The underlying technology requires some kind content management system to remove the dullness of maintaining a static site.

I suspect much time is wasted hand coding HTML and other out dated practises. These kind of linear, static sites should be dead and buried.

The site design needs to move from the late 1990s to web 2.0 with content mash-ups, RSS feeds and other stuff.

Another item off my chest...

The grading site also needs a major facelift but that is all you are getting for free, sorry

[John Upham]

The ECF web site must be overhauled : it is embarrassing. This is not the fault of the current web manager by any means : I suspect it was inherited and has grown out of control.

First impressions are very important and the corporate and big money audience will not be impressed.

The ECF web manager (Sophie) needs to be freed up to become the Content Manager and that's all. She can then focus on content and content alone.

The underlying technology requires some kind content management system to remove the dullness of maintaining a static site.

I suspect much time is wasted hand coding HTML and other out dated practises. These kind of linear, static sites should be dead and buried.

The site design needs to move from the late 1990s to web 2.0 with content mash-ups, RSS feeds and other stuff.

Another item off my chest...

The grading site also needs a major facelift but that is all you are getting for free, sorry

What does 30 quid get me?

The need to facelift the ECF site is much greater than the rating site IMHO. We both suffer from "never happy with what we've done" syndrome but I'm sure but the ECF site is much more the public face of the governing body that the rating site which is totally functional.

Are more filters possible? Shall I write the SQL queries for you to save some dosh?

Can you allow free form SQL queries straight into the PHP parser at run time please?

Howabout "update ratings set rating='240' where ECFCode=xxxxxxx etc?

Oh go on....

John

[Carl Hibbard]

Just so long as the interesting and controversial stuff surrounding the ECF does not somehow dissappear overnight- I have been half expecting that to happen anytime!

BTW John The President apears to be the ECF press Officer (okay unofficial and unelected) In Cleveland he used to be known in the local media as 'Mr Chess' says it all!

Why would it disappear?