Feedback please on this church website

[spirelli]

Hi there, I am positively surprised at the many cunstructive critisism people get there on this forum about their website! So I thought I would ask you about this site I have put together for a church parish in England.

It is not finished yet in therms of content, but I'd like to have some feedback on structure, usability and clarity. Does it invite a bit to click around? Maybe you have some suggestions on what to improve.

Thanks a lot.

[motorwatchercounter]

Hi spirelli,

Nice layout and a good mix of colours.

Don't tell the world but I was born in Holloway.

[Proteus]

Interesting HTML code... Are you using a software?... Which one?...

[spirelli]

I'm using the content management system phpwcms (http://www.phpwcms.de).

[DSL Guy]

On Structure: no suggestions from me to improve it.
On Clarity: it's straight forward and clear.
On Usability: very easy to navigate.

Looks like you've been doing your homework on site building. You even get Google rank which in my book means you should get good Google search engine placement once you've submitted your site for indexing. If you are looking good to Google, if Google is a popular search engine in England, you'll look good to all the rest of the search engines.

My best suggestion as a novice is to continue doing what you're doing.

On a personal level:
I'm Dan, known in this forum only as DSL Guy. I hope you won't mind if I use your site as an example of what can be done for a church website. As a UMC evangelism chairperson in our local parish, we will be putting together a site as well.

I also liked your Alpha link. I am a local Alpha leader. God bless Nicky and his family. Thanks to Alpha, Nicky, you Spirelli, and most of all our Lord for the Alpha program from Duluth, Minnesota. It's added membership to our parish and others in the area.

[spirelli]

Thanks Dan. O couse you are welcome to use the site as an example.

Wahat I would like to know: From anyones viewpoint, on this website is a guestbook
4 Entries so far this year, does this seem little? I guess we don't really get that much visitors and the majority doen't know us. But is there something discouraging about this guestbook? I really have no idea. should I not be asking for an email address? But of course I don't just want to have crap entries in there....

[DSL Guy]

You're right on target to ask for the email address in my opinion. Anyone posting on your Church guest book should not mind. Of course you will probably get some that enter bogus addresses but that's the nature of these things I suppose.

I hope you don't mind I just posted to your guest book.

I noticed when you do put your name and email address in, the curser begins at the last letter of the word "name" and "email" without allowing for a space before entering that info. When I entered my info and hit my space-bar to begin that info and then finished the message, and then hit submit it returned an error message" must enter a valid email address and name".

[spirelli]

Thanks a lot for your comments. It's good to hear how it works in the end for people. The Guestbook thing for instance: People are supposed to remove 'Email', 'Name' and 'Message' from the fields and put their details instead. Well, seems like I only thought that was obvious. :D
I know that it's possible to code it that way that the initial value of the field disappiers when someone clicks in it, but I don't think I can do this via our CMS...

Thanks for yur entry though, Dan!

[Sabrina]

I really like the site, very appealing. Somehow I wanted to see photos or more illustraitons on the home page.

[spirelli]

Somehow I wanted to see photos or more illustraitons on the home page.
Thanks for your feedback, Sabrina. YEs, more photos on most pages would be great. Have to make an effort to get some....

[sabrinawise1]

Not so bad... How are your features on there? Is it pretty functional? I'd also like some design feedback on our homepage too. So if anyone is up for it, that would be great!

[NeilB]

I have just had a look through your site and I like it. Nice clear plain layout, easy navigation with clear labels - nice. Just from a personal point of view I would like to see a few more images to illustrate your text in places...

Cheers
Neil

[webado]

Sabrina, you've dug up a 2 year old thread.