Our AMPS website needs revamping
said Ned and asked for ideas.
So ... with huge respect to Richard the AMPS webmaster here are a couple of thoughts.
1) Make it easily visible to all. A large number of users still have screens set to 800x600. Most are around 1024x768. An increasing number - especially on laptops have a wide-screen format and use tiny pixels. Your present site means even on my 1024 screen I have to scroll sideways to see all of the photos on the right of the home page. One simplish answer is to define table sizes as percentages of the available screen size rather than a fixed number of pixels. (There is a whole area of web design devoted to "stretchy" designs which accomodate all sorts of sizes and screen resolutions but that's more than we need to get into here.)
2) Keep the file size per page as small as you can - especially for the home page. e.g. those photos on the right are huge (widths of 576 pixels, 720 pixels, 576 pixels) yet you display them at 338, 346 and 345 pixels.) Use an image editor to make them all the same size as you want to display them.
3) Try to consider the impact of the whole page. I think the word "festival" or "festivals" appears 11 times including links and menus. You are right to be proud of it but that feels like overkill.
4) The top line of the home page says "AMPS" three times: once in a scrolling image (why?!) once on their own and once as the highlighted characters of the organisation's full name. I suggest keep the last and ditch the first two. Also ditch the strap line as part of a picture (header1.gif) - certainly do not use the word "oldest" ... I would add in normal text "the longest-established film festival in the world"
5) The javascript menu on the left ONLY works on the home page. It appears on the other pages and does nothing there!
6) In fact I would consider losing the left column entirely. Make the header1.gif a link to the home page and maybe use the menus from the foot of each page (which do work) at the top and bottom of each page.
7) The purpose of a home page is to catch the attention of surfers and point them towards where they may find info that will interest them. For regular users it should help them get to the detail they seek and highlight what is new. So keep the mention of the festival to a minimum, beef up reference to the excellent newsletter, mention other benefits of belonging - info about what other individual film makers and clubs are up to, contacts with other film makers at home and overseas, links to other festivals where n-c films are welcome ...
8 ) On the other pages I suggest more articles from the newsletter - both the "how I made" and the "hints and tips" kind. Some articles from and about individual clubs. Maybe Dicie would write about how to keep a group interested and active? Bob could write about involving young people and explosions (!), Roger could talk about preserving a record of our way of life and so on.
9) There is a lot of negative stuff on the site at present about everyone getting old, possibly disbanding etc - even the history of the organisation sounds like a bunch of argumentative types falling out or giving up. True as these may be - they are poor advertising.
10) Get some video on the site - maybe by embedding from YouTube and similar services so that it is not your bandwidth being used up.
11) Offer each club a page of its own to promote its meetings.
12) Highlight one State each month - touch on the filmic possibiltities in it, note any major films made there, mention any clubs in it ... try to engage with State pride.
13) Consider a forum !
14) Consider a blog by an active member who goes to events, shows and festivals ...
15) Have an ideas book to which anyone can contribute. (You can arrange to have entries approved before they go public if you are worried about spam.)
Is that enough to get started?
Dave
P.S. Yes, I know the IAC site does not meet all these ideals either. I did my little best. Atta improved on that vastly. Now this new woman will have a chance to see what she can do with it. We are all struggling to make the most of our websites when we would really rather be making or watching movies.
