I had occasion today to google some denominations while doing a quick search for someone that needs some research.
ACCCCKK!
I do mean a quick search, Anglican, United, Catholic, World Council of, Evangelical Fellowship, Methodist, Orthodox, Salvation Army.
Man.
I’m looking for positions on a certain social issue for them.
No biggy, right?
What part of - please make your website user friendly, especially if you are the head office of a denomination - don’t these webmasters get?
The easiest to navigate was the Salvation Army.
It’s designed for the user. Excellent. Two thumbs up.
The prettiest and most “look at me!” was Pentecostal Holiness.
All red and white and very Canadian. Surprisingly artsy a la 100 Huntley Street.
No content that I could use.
No search engine.
Excuse me, but some of these sites are so pompous.
If they were businesses, they’d be out of business.
Some are so, so, um, collegiate.
And how many splinter denominations do protestants really need?
I wish to protest.
The reality is most of these sites aren’t designed for the user, they seem to be there make the church look good. I’ll correct that. They seem to be someone’s idea of what would make their denomination look good. And some of them are really bad. I landed on some branch of the Baptists (with profound apologies to my Baptist buddies) that really need to get out more.
Truth is, I don’t have time to fool around. I need the info - I need it now.
And if the denomination head page types can’t provide it, then tough, I’m moving on.
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Yes - ther’s a major critique to be done on how bad Church communications (not just websites)are. Websites as in your case and others tend to be inward looking or inward focused. Here in the UK bigbulkyanglican had a good provocative post on a newsletter he and I (among others) had recieved.
Church sites are the worst. All the problems could be solved, but won’t anytime soon.
That’s because even though I believe that efforts to teach pastors, priests, elders, and lay leaders in the church about effective design, web standards, usability, and communication may pay off with lots of determination, you can’t change one fact.
That fact is that 99.9% of churches I’ve discussed these things with don’t believe that spending money on an effective site is worth the cost. In essence, they invest nothing, they get nothing.
Recently I had a pastor of a large church tell me that he wanted a “pretty” site, but “why can’t we just put a page on Geocities or Yahoo! since it’s free?”
And if the only things your denominational or church site communicate are directions, mission statement, service times, and head shots of the pastor and his family (yawn), why bother doing something excellent?
Thanks for your positive comment. I have nothing to do with this SA web-site, but I forwarded your post to those that do.
I know a amount about the United Methodist structure and I still can’t find my way around the website, even to find simple information. And the search engine is terrible.
Some are invested in their own special language for sure. And lots of it.
I need the info for a news conference that isn’t going to wait for me to find my way through the morass.
Truth is, apart from the solid information I need or get, it gave me a good idea of who I would contact or recommend when there is another media opportunity.
First impressions and perception does matter.
These are head offices. Get a professional designer, do it right and test drive the site on cranky busy people that wouldn’t know an Anglican from a First Baptist.:^)
Hey Bene,
Justin B’s full time job is to run this thing, I don’t know if it’s up to your standards, but it sure is mesmerizing. http://harvest.org
—will
Oh man, poor Justin. Please give him my regards:^)
My standards are kind of low William, go - in - get - out without needing copious technical expertise or pushing my limited patience to sainthood…I hate a site that treats me like I’m stupid or is a cyber 2X4 between the eyes. I’ll settle for something reasonable in the middle. That audio is downright painful. Man. Poor Justin. I can’t imagine having to go over there every day.
(Will do.)
Ah yes, the joys of not having computer speakers!
Yeah. Woke up the dog.
Hey he’s got HourEleven as his creation. It’s a site to be very proud of.
And that is why a site like http://www.healyourchurchwebsite.com/ should be made known to every person in charge of a church website!
I agree. Most church sites are ugly and difficult to navigate. Ours is “turn-key” and we can’t even change the major tags so that a Lutheran visiting the city could find us (about 4,000 members) if they didn’t know our name.
My least favorite are the 15 styles of type with flashing graphics and no content. Out sourced to the junior high class?
But I do have an article about Christians and the Internet on our site and the church magazine and newsletter appears as pdf.
If you are looking for Catholic, you won’t find it at a single site - I mean the Vatican has some good stuff but much of it isn’t in English. There are several good Catholic portals, but if you want the official position on anything RC, check out the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is online in several places. For the US, the USCCB (conference of catholic bishops) has a large and multilayered site, with a decent search engine. I don’t know about your Canadian bishops, though.
Meanwhile, my blog is down - I haven’t been able to get to any of the sites on the server and I am quite frustrated!
As far as the Baptists go, the SBC’s page is pretty easy to follow — I just wish that they wouldn’t open external links in a frame with the SBC info at the top.
As for some of the others — a lot of my Independent Baptist brethren don’t have funds to hire someone — and others are just too cheap to hire someone — so they get whatever they can. ANd it wasn’t too long ago that His Holiness Jack Hyles (can you feel the sarcasm there?) pronounced the Internet anathema, so many won’t go there.
And yes — a lot of them need to get out more. That’s why I left the whole IFB movement for the relative sanity of the Southern Baptist convention (note I said relative!).