[MeanDean]

My little girl and I were nearly killed yesterday by a driver making haste - I suspect to church. This bugs me, being a church-goer myself.

What also bugs me is how many church and charity websites I run into that virtually kill-off their ability to encourage visits, donations and other objectives by web sites that are rushed into production without taking time to test.

Some of the problems I've seen along these lines include:

• embarrassing typos and misspellings
• lack of cross-browser support
• confusing &/or inconsistent navigation
• broken links and images

That said, how many here design web pages - and of that group - how many are even aware that there are at least two distinctly different types of testing that should be performed before fielding a web site?

I've cited some more examples on a related post over on my blog, but will have as much fun discussing it here as there ...

 

[Stann]

Some people are inconsiderate and other people are just unthinking. Of course, this occurs in any manner of peoples, regardless of religion. It's good that you and your daughter are all right.

Regarding protecting the integrity of a website, most of those individuals that do little of it are just unaware of the many levels of involved issues. It's sad the the Internet has been left with so many security holes for so long. Those security holes are many.

Of course, orginally much of it was intentional. The various Microsoft O/S s were left with open access points to allow a business environments to manage large scale workstations. Then there is the business issue of leaving security problems open so that the process of closing the holes is a revenue source. Then of course, Unix was originally designed with security as only a secondary concern. Later, it was still incredible to see so many exploits being inadvertently left open by sloppy coding, such as buffer overrun exploits. Computer security is such a big business!!!

One reason that I'm posting now is to indicate that even a fairly knowledgeable person can get hit by exploits. I recently picked up a freebee OCR program, that seemed to contain a trojan horse (although I didn't verify this, I removed all aspects of it and did re-install Win2000.). I'm sure that many of you know what it's intention would be. This is an example. There is so much junk and problems on the Internet. It's incredible, it's a jungle. But of course, the good outweighs the bad... I'll always advocate an open Internet.

Regarding fixing website/browser problems/incompatibilities, when will Web Building programs starts building with XML and it's associates. How can incompatibilities like the age-old ActiveX and Java "wars", ever be resolved elegantly. In some sense, look at Cocoon from the Open Source Foundation (kinda Middleware-like). But, it won't happen for a long time.

And regarding user authentification, it's been around for some time with SecurId Cards and the like, very inconvenient. Wait for user authentification via fingerprints and retina scans for a more secure system. It won't happen for a long time.

It's fun to dream about an elegant Internet. But, it won't happen for a long time (if ever). But, I'll bet that the smart terminal, or tablet, will be soon coming to the market (I mean the latest and greatest incarnation...which will help a bit).

 

[Rocky Fields]

Hey Mean Dean,

Some other kisses of death, add these to your list:

1. pages that load slow because they're graphically too heavy

2. flash entry page with no "skip flash intro" button

3. too large or too small text

4. text that blends in with bg color

5. popups

RF

 

[MeanDean]

Hey Mean Dean,

Some other kisses of death, add these to your list:

1. pages that load slow because they're graphically too heavy
2. flash entry page with no "skip flash intro" button
3. too large or too small text
4. text that blends in with bg color
5. popups

RF

Amen to that Rocky ... in fact, I think I may have mentioned some of your items in my 2004 post aptly entitled:

• The Seven Deadly Sins of Church WebSite Design

That said, your list or mine, both enumerations take time to develop ...

... I guess that makes the whole lote of them more evil!!!!

 

[zookeeper16]

A very timely post since I just went live with my website. Never having done any web design or HTML, it was quite a daunting task, but very fun to do. I'd love to have input on it....is the site okay to post?

I will be gone for several days, but if the link is okay to post, I will. Feel free to point out my mistakes!

 

[sammyd]

You mean not everyone has a t1 hooked up to their house?
Not everyone runs 1280x1024 resolution?
Someone actually uses something other than IE?

Surely you can't be serious......

Really....you must watch my flash intro, I spent a whole day on it....LOL

And why should I resize those jpegs? They load really fast on my computer.

 

[Karen]

I think you also have to remember that many smaller churches can't afford to have a professional site done, so they enlist the help of the only computer literate soul they have -- the teenage kid from the youth group.

Trouble with the kid is that he has never been on dial-up service in his life, so has no idea how long it takes a page to load on it, is into flashy heavy graphics, and has no clue how to spell; let alone an eye for design.

The church is just so thrilled to have it's own website, they don't even "see" the errors or problems; and if they do, they feel it would be critical to correct the poor kid. After all, he just made a website and, to those who barely know how to turn a computer off and on, the kid's a genius!

Zookeepper, post the link. I'd love to see your site!

 

[Chuck]

Plus said teenaged kid's experience with web design probably goes no farther than his "pimped" Myspace page.

 

[MeanDean]

I think you also to remember that many smaller churches can't afford to have a professional site done, so they enlist the help of the only computer literate soul they have -- the teenage kid from the youth group.

First, I've found from first-hand experience that teenage'd kids do not make for good webmasters. Though technically adept, they lack the understanding of broader concepts such as 'conversion goals' ... often and only volunteering time to implement cool stuff they're not allowed to implement on their noisily ineffective, 'pimped-up' MySpace pages.

Second - if you can manage Microsoft Word, or even this BBS, then you can manage leveraging an online presence for a church on the cheap using a free tool such as blogger.com.

In fact, it is the advent of such free software services that have lead to a bunch of embarrisingly hasty posts that come back to haunt an online ministry.

 

[Karen]

Exactly. The problem is, the church doesn't understand that; thus the poor websites. They think it seems fine...go figure! :shrug:

 

[14yearpcmaker]

You mean not everyone has a t1 hooked up to their house?
Not everyone runs 1280x1024 resolution?
Someone actually uses something other than IE?

Surely you can't be serious......

Really....you must watch my flash intro, I spent a whole day on it....LOL

And why should I resize those jpegs? They load really fast on my computer.

I totally 100% agree with your post.

 

[14yearpcmaker]

First, I've found from first-hand experience that teenage'd kids do not make for good webmasters. Though technically adept, they lack the understanding of broader concepts such as 'conversion goals' ... often and only volunteering time to implement cool stuff they're not allowed to implement on their noisily ineffective, 'pimped-up' MySpace pages.

Second - if you can manage Microsoft Word, or even this BBS, then you can manage leveraging an online presence for a church on the cheap using a free tool such as blogger.com.

In fact, it is the advent of such free software services that have lead to a bunch of embarrisingly hasty posts that come back to haunt an online ministry.

:Bawling: I beg to differ!!! A couple of years ago, I started doing the church website for our church back in Kentucky. I still do it, and we now live in seattle. Ill send you the link to the website, via pm. (please don't share it....security reasons) and see what you think.

 

[MawKettle]

Dean...I think a lot of the issues you isolated are directly related to the original conceptions of the web in general.......

In the beginning, the Internet was not viewed as a "serious" development environment and bad habits became the norm....

How many folks that bill themselves as "web designers" today have any training in classic programming techniques? Database design and normalization? Good solid GUI design?

Very few. Most of the web sites I see these days rely heavily on bells and whistles (i.e. fancy Flash stuff)....and less so on solid programming fundamentals.

They look beautiful at first glance....but have the issues that you stated:

embarrassing typos and misspellings
lack of cross-browser support
confusing &/or inconsistent navigation
broken links and images


I will say that cross-browser support has been my biggest challenge in the design and maintenance of my own company's site.....

If you have any suggestions on dealing with that particular issue (short of buying a Mac and debugging directly under that environment)....I'm all ears.

 

[snv1492]

As other people said, I think the vast majority of churches do not hire professionals to do their sites. They "hire" a parishioner, who is probably a volunteer, and who's only experience with web design is dragging and dropping things into their free copy of FrontPage Express. They have probably never even seen the code they created, and they don't want to.

That being said, there are some pretty nice standards compliant church sites out there.

http://www.zcpca.org/
http://www.trinitybirmingham.com/
http://www.parkviewbaptist.net/
http://www.thecity.org/
http://www.nsider.org/

There is no reason they can not have a professional website if they hire a professional. Most simply choose not to. There is nothing wrong with having a parishioner volunteer to do the site, but if that parishioner doesn't happen to be a professional web developer, unless god intervenes, he or she will not do professional quality work, and it would be unrealistic to expect otherwise.

The same thing happened across the board though. Ever since WYSIWYG editors took off, the bulk of web design went from the hands of professionals to the hands of amateurs. Even a lot of business sites are horrible because the boss made his secretary or his 12 year old nephew make their company website.

Of course you can't drag and drop together a database application, but most of these types of sites don't require anything that sophisticated, so they are fine with leaving it the mess that it is. Even though they probably would benefit from some sort of CMS, they have no concept of automation and dynamic systems. They don't even have enough knowledge yet to know what they don't know.

:Ill send you the link to the website, via pm. (please don't share it....security reasons) and see what you think.

What's the security issue in visiting it? Aren't websites are supposed to be visited.

 

[lharvey]

OK got to post my 2 cents worth.

I volunteered to build a website and host it for free for the church that my wife belongs to.

BIG MISTAKE

They don't understand it (the process) they don't want to understand it. They just want it done and done cheap.

I spent hours on end on the site. Looked and worked good. But still lacked some critical information. After months of prodding for the missing information I had to quit on the project as it was just making me mad.

I took the site down (I don't want my name on unfinished work) and a full three months later someone ( the same person that was my contact) from the church called me and wanted to know when I was going to be starting on the site. The same someone that was supposed to furnish me the information that I had repeatedly asked for.

You get what you pay for...

Same as a motor cycle helmet. If you have a 5 dollar head, buy a 5 dollar helmet.

If you want people to think your business (church in this case) is in a tar paper shack, then scrimp and cut corners and have some kid build it.

Just my two cents.

:L

 

[MeanDean]

OK got to post my 2 cents worth.

I volunteered to build a website and host it for free for the church that my wife belongs to.

BIG MISTAKE

They don't understand it (the process) they don't want to understand it. They just want it done and done cheap.

...

Just my two cents.

You're not the only one of that opinion.

Check out this article I wrote a few years ago called:
Mike Boyink on the problem with free ice cream

It is based on a situation where a rather talented webmaster gave away free services to his church, only to have a pastor with an "well optimized ego" run Mike out and then ruin the site with his own "expertise."

 

[14yearpcmaker]

As other people said, I think the vast majority of churches do not hire professionals to do their sites. They "hire" a parishioner, who is probably a volunteer, and who's only experience with web design is dragging and dropping things into their free copy of FrontPage Express. They have probably never even seen the code they created, and they don't want to.

That being said, there are some pretty nice standards compliant church sites out there.

http://www.zcpca.org/
http://www.trinitybirmingham.com/
http://www.parkviewbaptist.net/
http://www.thecity.org/
http://www.nsider.org/

There is no reason they can not have a professional website if they hire a professional. Most simply choose not to. There is nothing wrong with having a parishioner volunteer to do the site, but if that parishioner doesn't happen to be a professional web developer, unless god intervenes, he or she will not do professional quality work, and it would be unrealistic to expect otherwise.

The same thing happened across the board though. Ever since WYSIWYG editors took off, the bulk of web design went from the hands of professionals to the hands of amateurs. Even a lot of business sites are horrible because the boss made his secretary or his 12 year old nephew make their company website.

Of course you can't drag and drop together a database application, but most of these types of sites don't require anything that sophisticated, so they are fine with leaving it the mess that it is. Even though they probably would benefit from some sort of CMS, they have no concept of automation and dynamic systems. They don't even have enough knowledge yet to know what they don't know.



What's the security issue in visiting it? Aren't websites are supposed to be visited.

Long story... I can send the link via pm to any one who wants it, just don't post it any where on the forum-- for my sake and a for a former teacher's sake--(we got beat up...while on a class trip when I lived in Kentucky...)
These are certian rules that I MUST follow...so please don't be immature over this.

 

[Guest]

2. flash entry page with no "skip flash intro" button

I HATE those!

 

[MeanDean]

I HATE those!

Well think about it, if the Flash intro needs/requires a "skip intro" ... then is it really content of value to the conversion goals of the site?

 

[MeanDean]

Long story... I can send the link via pm to any one who wants it, just don't post it any where on the forum-- for my sake and a for a former teacher's sake--(we got beat up...while on a class trip when I lived in Kentucky...)
These are certian rules that I MUST follow...so please don't be immature over this.

If it's a church site, then how in the world does someone get in trouble for telling people about it?

Perhaps rather than looking outwards and asking members here not to be immature, why not a little introspection along the lines of "what does it benefit a church to hide its website under a bowl?"

Along with that "how do the perp's who did the beating put together the church and past victims ... and do they want to go down that course again?"

Certainly all this only adds more substance to the argument that perhaps employing teen labor is more prone to problems than solutions.