|
 thanks New
- Forum: BoaterTalk
Re: Some feedback for AW webmasters. . . I70toI68 New
Date: Aug 06 2007, 22:24 GMT
From: okeefe
 |
|
 |
|
This is all good feedback--
>I don't think it was broke, so I'm not sure why you tried to fix the river description pages. Specifically, I'm not crazy so much of the information being hidden behind tabs.
A primary issue is we were getting a lot of information on pages (e.g. our new maps feature). Tabs are a good way to break it up so people can find the information they're looking for and to improve load speed. For example comments were way down at the bottom of the page and I was blown away to learn some first-time users didn't even know we had photos--they weren't scrolling down to the bottom of the descriptions.
>I'd be very surprised if many of the Wiki's actually get used.
Call this a test. This comment came up before we went live and I'm in the camp that tends to agree with what you're saying. The question is what is the best way to make this a community resource that we can all help build? WIKI is a good way to do this but maybe it doesn't really work where we have this system of editors for each page. Let's see what happens.
>I also think the old system of managing photos was more intuitive and easier to manage.
You can still manage through the photo page. The nice thing is you can now manage directly from the page for that image too. This is a huge help for staff and volunteers who were called on to fix errors with photos being posted to the wrong reach, credited to the wrong person, etc.
>Also, it seems as if the design-element has gotten worse. There is strange spacing, font choices, color choices, etc.
We do have some design issues and there have been plenty of discussions about this. I hope this is not taken as an excuse but what I can say is for the complexity of our site AW keeps the web investment fairly small--we also involve a lot of volunteer. I like to think of it a little like the journal where we don't invest in putting something out like Kayak Session. With both the journal and website we have something more organic and member driven.
Because of our member contributions we have an absolutely incredible resource here that no other advocacy group has. We have over 5000 river reaches mapped and we can quickly do all sorts of useful queries on our database. We've been able to use this in our agency partnerships and Congressional outreach with incredible effectiveness. We can easily find and describe the whitewater resources that are in a Congressional District, State, or the National Forest of interest. Finding ways to present this content in a more visually appealing form is a long-term goal. Finding the resources to do that in a way that does not divert resources from our stewardship program is the challenge.
>Just my thoughts as a user, not as a web-design expert, they are meant to be constructive.
These are all fair comments and the feedback is appreciated. If folks have more specifics you can also post to our StreamTeam forum:
http://www.americanwhitewater.org/content/Forum/list/send/25/
Tom O'Keefe
AW PNW Stewardship Director |
|
 |
|
 |
 WorldKayak.com River Wiki snowwrestler New -
 I don't understand. Rattso_del_Flatulato New
|
BoaterTalk 
