TOPIC:

Please evaluate my website abilene.toastmastersclubs.org

What I like:

1. Use of color.

2. Photo of members on home page.

3. Phone # on contact us form.

4. Meet Our Members Page - Photos and bios for officers.

5. Photo Gallery.

6. Newsletter Page.

7. FAQs

8. How to Log in

9. Club Membership page with dues table

Things I think could be improved: (my opinion--others may have a different opinion)

10. There is a *lot* of large type. Using it all the time can occur like you are yelling at someone all the time. Use more variety in font sizes and styles (think of it as the written equivalent of vocal variety).

11. The color would be better if it was more of a cohesive color theme. In other words, I think it is good that you are using color, but sometimes it is best to use it in moderation, like fewer colors used more strategically.

12. If you put an email address on your home page, make sure you do not mind getting spam at that email address. (very likely)

13. Meet Our Members page. "Meet here on left side of building" Can you include a photo of that from the street level? What should a prospective meeting visitor look for to make it easy for them to find your meeting?

14. Public Downloads. I would suggest putting your files in "virtual folders" using that feature. It will help better organize your files.

15. Your Club Meeting Roles page seem more geared to members (detailed to dos) than website visitors. Should they be on the Members Only menu instead?

Overall, lots of great content in your website! Looks good!

In order to continue to have this forum section be useful into the future, we need to request that everyone contribute to it.

Therefore, we are implementing "Get an evaluation, give an evaluation." . Basically, we are requesting those who have received a website evaluation give a Toastmasters style website evaluation for at least one other club that has requested an evaluation in this forum section. (You get to choose which club website to do the website evaluation for.) Just post your impressions: things you like about the website, and areas for improvement. Everyone has something to offer... just trust your instincts.

My first impression is that the green menu area does not fit with the color scheme.

I do like that the you have enlarged the menu links. It is in keeping with the text on the homepage.

I would eliminate the "click here" text and place the link with "Check out Pics from Spring Speech Contest". That will bring the photograph up the page and not have as much unused space in the most critical area of the page.

I think your homepage provides the necessary information and the photographs are good.

Meeting Information/Directions
The link to the detailed map is a dead link.

Meet Our Members
Many listed, many bios. Good job!

Public Downloads
Looks like you have some good documents here. I would re-arrange the order as it appears a bit jumbled the way it is displayed.

Club Meeting Roles
Nice! Perhaps this would be better in the members area.

Club Officer Roles
Nice, but the text style does not match the rest of the site.

FAQ
I like this. Again, the text style does not match the others. I am okay with the larger type face, but whatever you choose should be consistent throughout the site.

How to Log In
Nice!

Social
FB with current content. Good!
Twitter: last post was July
The other social links are for the district.

Good going!

Awesome! Thanks for the feedback. Do you happen to know how to rearrange the documents in the public download area?

I see you have been working on the order. Naming the files with numbers or letters is one way. This is a better look than it was.

I would just use the virtual folders without the numbers.

Hi jamminson66!

Personally, I think the pastel colors may be a bit too much, but at least it's on a gray background, so the entire screen isn't as intense. I agree with Steve, if you are going to go bright, use just a couple of those colors several times over.

I like your calendar, it show that the club has a lot going on. Let me ask, how were you able to get one event to run across several day? I've tried toggling into day/week mode, and haven't been able to do that.

There was a lot of activity on your facebook page with a lot of good photos, but don't forget to include a link TO YOUR SITE in some of your postings. Your Twitter took me to your District. You may want to develop your own. Your LinkedIn is a private group, so you may want to move it to the member menu as a link.

Good FAQs.

Keep it up!

Blaine, ACB
VPPR, TM 1757

Sir,
Appreciate the feedback. To get an event to run across several days when you left click the day you want the event to start keep the button clicked down and scroll over to the day you want it to end. Not sure if I am explaining myself right. Let me know if this works for you or not. Thanks.

Steve the techie was on the money. I am always looking for ideas from other sites and your page is the best I have seen using FTH. If you had a public "FB Page" people could see it without having to sign into FB. eg www.facebook.com/TriangleToastmastersCanberra.

John,
Thank you so much for the comment. I believe our FB page is public. Is there something different we should be doing to our facebook page to make it more accessible? Thanks again. www.facebook.com/dyesstoastmasters?ref=hl

Your Facebook page is already public, you do not need to modify it.

Likes:

All the pictures and good links on Home Page
Good physical direction to Club meeting
Nice to see phone numbers on Contact Us page
Liked all the pictures of members on "Meet Our Members"
Nice Social Media
Wonderful informational Club Calendar
Liked the How to Log-in link

Possible Improvements

Change the website background color to highlight different sections
Vary text on Home page to appeal to the eye
Might want to change your map type to one that allows direction to be found from any location
Try to get bios with the pictures on 'Meet Our Members'
Meet the Members in some cases is last name first in other places it is first name first-It may be better to have it consistent
It isn't easy to get back into your website after going to Free Resources

Sincerely,

Karen Platts, DTM
theevaluators.toastmastersclubs.org

Hi jamminson66!

Thank you, I tried that initially. Now I tried to click and drag BEFORE I entered text into the fields..... it works. Thanks, again.

@John... Great facebook!

Blaine

Everyone thank you so much for the valuable feedback. I made quite a bit of changes to the website. I still need to work on a picture of building where we meet and add it to meeting information/directions. I'm still working on members pictures and bio. I have quite a few done so far. I incorporated what I think is a better color scheme. If anyone could take another look at website or provide additional feedback it would be much appreciated. Thank you.

abilene.toastmastersclubs.org club#1071

Personally, I find the green background and menus too bright, but that may just me.

I think that you have too much in the public downloads that probably should be in the members only downloads. I also might move some of the items that are geared more towards the members into the members only menu.

Love the newsletters that open as a page instead of a download. Nice job!

I couldn't get your photo gallery to open.

I agree with Roger on the color... less bright would be better for a background. Also, green seems like a bit of a mismatch for the banner colors.

Also, it is very nice photo that you have of your club members, except for one thing... The white chair in the foreground--it is a distraction. My suggestion would be to just crop off some of the bottom of that home page photo to get rid of the chair... you have the room to do that in the photo.

On your photo gallery, I would suggest excluding photos that are dark, of poor quality, or essentially duplicates.

I made some more changes to the website. One problem I am having are the bullets and numbers stay the color black and it won't let me change the color. Also for meet the members is there a way to change the font color? Thanks.

abilene.toastmastersclubs.org/

For meet the members page, it is a system generated page with complex formatting (nested tables), and as such, all of the formatting on that page is set via the scripts that generate it, except for the background color which I allow clubs to set. I may change that a bit in the future, but the page is not intended to support a lot of user-specified formatting modifications.

For the bullet colors, you will need to put style attributes on the li tags, which I am not sure that you can do outside of Source View.

I found the easiest way to change the color of the bullet was to use <li style="color:#F4E287">, that was the only part I had to change so it was actually pretty easy. Thanks.

Looking at the FAQ page, would you also change the number size in the same li tag?

And do you have to change each li tag or should the color have carried throughout that page?

Sorry for the late response. This is what I used to replace each li instance.
<li style="color: rgb(244, 226, 135); font-size: 18px;">
I'm sure there is a way for it to apply for the whole page but due to my limited html coding experience this seemed the easiest to me. Hope this helps