Toward Web Page Consistencygreenspun.com : LUSENET : FITMR - 10th Episcopal District, AMEC : One Thread |
While updating the "Churches" page for Reedy Chapel ( http://www.ghg.net/jlpayne/churches.html), I ran across the web site for the Atlanta East District, a presiding elder district of the Atlanta Conference of District 6. I liked the layout for several reasons:
- Uniform exposure. It looks like every church in the district is inlcuded on the home page of the district. You see all of them before you find out much more than their name. This make reven the smallest of 2 members getting the same treatment as the largest, St. Phillip.
- Consistent detail. After the home page, and the Elder's introductory page, one can go to the "church LIstings" page. There, one sees that each church presents a unfirom level of information. Each of these pages may have a follow-on link to a more detailed page, managed by the church, but at least the 24 churches of the district are described in a consistent way.
- Good use of Photography . Although in cyber-space we tend to avoid things that slow down the loading of the home page, the Atlanta East page has 24 shots on it! These loaded rather quickly, and were not huge files. A visitor to Georgia can see quickly what our churches have to offer in way of physical plant.
Given these positives, is this the kind of model Bishop wants to follow for the Tenth, or is it the kind we should consider?
Another model is found at Payne Cathedral of Faith, Houston (Texas Conference). There, Rev. Hobbs has captured a picture of each pastor, in addition to the phone-book information for each site. I have replicated that model to a smaller degree for the South Houston District (Texas Conference), substituting web addresses for phone-book addresses at the moment (but it may grow).
Finally the third model may be found in Florida, which has moved to capture all churches in the connection that are web-based in a uniform way.
Which of these models works best for us? Take a look at the links provided, and let's have some discussion before we get together Founder's Day.
-- Anonymous, December 21, 2001
THe Atlanta solution still allows the individual church to have creativity. It proviedes tghe Unifrom Interface to be consistent with the other churches in the distgrict, but one of the links on certain pages is to the "creatiuve" site, where the church has full expression. Itg actually doesn't penalize or lmit the "creative" church, but assures that all are covered.Take a look at St. Phillip.
Cheers,
-- Anonymous, December 26, 2001
Good comments and find. I agree and we should include this type of information in the Guidlines, certainly in the online version. The Alanta East District site is a good example of the PE Site. It also solves the problem of the small churches not being able to have an individual church site. I do have a concern that we do not place restrictions or guidelines such that the individual churches cannot be creative. Consistent but not necessarily the same.Blessings
Al Paris
-- Anonymous, December 22, 2001