Revitalization Plan

 

After reviewing our recent website survey, your results indicate that for the most part the class is reasonably happy with the current site.  Our single largest complain it is “Content” or lack there of.  Most of you feel that much of the content is dated.  Not quite as bad but second is the issue of website navigation.

 

In drawing conclusions I’ve learnt that although not all parts of the website are frequently used most of them serve a purpose when the time is right and hence should be kept.   In summary, the most popular sections are the Racing Page, The Boat Yard & Latest News while the least popular are the Crew Bank, Guest Book and Text Search.

 

So given this what can be done do to make Shark Bytes a better website? My ideas are below:

 

  1. Content: Unfortunately the number one complaint is not something I’m in a position to do anything about.  In comparing a website to newsletter, think of me as the publisher, it’s my job is to collect and reformat content before presenting it to you.  If you desire new content I suggest submitting something.  Simply put if something is not on the website, it’s because no one has submitted it.  This applies to everything you expect find from race results to minutes of an AGM to articles on rebuilding a deck hull joint.  All great things to post but they need to be submitted.

 

  1. Navigation:  This is something I can do something about.  My thoughts are to start with a new home page and slowly replace each section of the site in order of relevance to the fleet. This will also include the removal of any proprietary technology that has caused some of the restriction we are currently experiencing.

 

    1. Home Page: Combine the existing splash page/ shark of the week and latest news into one page.  Replace existing left menu with more modern cascading style that pops content up when you hover over the item.  Also I’ll create a new look or style that will carry throughout the site.  This means the entire website will have the same look and feel instead of each section having it own flair
    2. Racing Page:  Not much to do here except to clean things up so it will match the new look and feel.
    3. Boat Yard:  Although this was cleaned up a bit a few years back a little modernization would benefit and alleviate or at least slow down spammers from posting ads here. Lastly, automate the deletion of expired ads and so on.
    4. The rest of the site will then get cleaned up one section at a time.

 

If you have any comments on the above sent them to webmaster@shark24.org

 

Tony, Webmaster

 

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