Heal Your Church WebSite

Month: August 2004

  • Solve THEIR problems – don’t bother them with YOURS!

    Imagine going to a church where upon arriving in their parking lot, a ‘greeter’ utters some miraculous word of faith that reduces your roomy GMC Youkon XL Denali into a MINI Cooper. Would you ever go back? I wouldn’t, I need my Toyota T100 extended cab pick-um-up-truck to haul all my old C programming books to the recycling drop-off … but I digress.

    I bring up this analogy of unwanted car shrinkage because of some evil JavaScript offered by the good folks at the “Grand View Baptist Church (GVBC) Beavercreek, Oregon,” that to me, has a similarly chilling effect because as Vincent Flanders so succinctly put it in his second book: “… someone forgot that a Web site exists to solve problems — not the site owner’s problems, not the Web site designer’s problems, the Web site visitor’s problems.”

    The Problem

    Here is what I suspect happened, GVBC is using a Flash-based banner that also doubles as a menu system. Because it has all the height and weight that a Flash animation brings with it, they’ve opted to use Frames, the top one to contain the Flash Banner Menu (FBM), the bottom frame to contain the content.

    Unfortunately, it appears that the FBM for GVBC is rendered at a fixed width of 750 pixels. So on their Parent Frame Page (PFP) they solve THEIR problem by forcing a resize AND a repositioning of MY browser using the following script:

    <script language=”JavaScript”>
    self.moveTo(0,0)
    self.resizeTo(750,window.screen.availHeight);
    </script>

    DON’T DO THAT (DDT)! Ever! I don’t re-arrange your furniture when I visit your house, don’t mess with my computer’s browser!

    The Solution

    While the GVBC has compelling content, the navigation is a killer – and the resize/reposition gimmick is a show-stopper. People might deal with the former, but they’re just not going to put up with the latter; especially when you can simply render the banner image as a .JPEG and employ a little CSS to get the menus to flash a light blue when you mouseover a hyperlink.

    Doing this would not only eliminate the need for frames, but would give the webmaster the option of aligning the menu and/or the banner via a variety of means – yes, I’m talking tables for those whose CSS skills aren’t as advanced as David Shea’s.

    Another benefit of de-coupling the menu from the banner, is that it gives you the ability to update add or edit items without having to monkey with the graphic.

    One other thing I might do is create an “overview” page for each of the main menu categories. This way when you click on the one of the choices, you get a summary of the sub pages instead of a sub-menu change over content from another section (very confusing).

    Whatta you guys think? Leave a comment with a solution – or commiserate with my minimized browser width. Just remember to play nice.

  • Mr. Zeldman meet Mike Boyink, one of ‘The New Samaritans’

    During my short career as an opera singer in NYC, I lived by some hard and fast rules; one of these personal mandates being:

    “Avoid singing for free, and under NO circumstances should you pay to sing.”

    Why – that is why pass on some opportunities to “showcase” my talents merely because of money? Because it was my experience that those of us who were paid, even just a modest honorarium, were invariably treated better than those who weren’t; while those who paid to “showcase” their talents were routinely treated like crap.

    After reading Jeffrey Zeldman’s post entitled “The New Samaritans,” and the Wired Magazine article on which the post was based “Changing the Face of Web Surfing,” I wonder sometimes if those of us who provide free web design services for churches wouldn’t get a bit more respect if we didn’t send said charities a bill for our services?

    The Odeon Saga

    Consider the case cited both by Zeldman and Wired of Matthew Somerville, an Oxford University math graduate who out of frustration redesigned the website Britain’s Odeon cinema chain – gratis. In fact, this free work was so stellar that Zeldman wrote:

    “Mr Somerville did Odeon a favor by solving some of the site’s worst problems …”

    How did Odeon respond to not having to spend thousands of dollars to enlist a top-notch ‘do-over’ firm such as 37Signals? Again quoting Mr. Zeldman:

    “As it turns out, Odeon has hired a consultancy that specializes in the very work Mr Somerville did free.”

    Ridge Point

    Now if this sounds vaguely familiar to some of you, it is because it smacks of a similar treatment Mike Boyink received after volunteering $7,500 worth of billable hours to develop one of the premier church websites on the Internet; Ridge Point Community Church.

    Here’s a very quick chronology for those of you unfamiliar with the story:

    • November 10, 2003 – After 18 months of work, Mike Boyink announces a pMachine-driven redesign of the Ridge Point Community Church website.
    • April 14, 2004 – Pastor Jim Liske announces that “The internet is always changing and Ridge Point is changing its website to include everything the old one had and more! After the changeover occurs, you will need to re-register on the site.“Translation: Ridge Point decides to shelf the Boyink/pMachine design in favor of a Braunius/e-zekiel design whose sense and sensibility is best described by Tim Bednar in his “Open Letter to Pastor Jim Liske of Ridge Point Church.”
    • June 4, 2004 – Pastor Jim Liske announces a return to the Boyink/pMachine design.

    Having gone through a similar situation myself, NOT at Redland where I’m currently blessed with a VERY grateful and gracious staff, but at my prior church, I can understand “shock and sadness” expressed by Mr. Boyink. I also understand why Mike, like myself, opted to take his talents elsewhere.

    What Would Zeldman Do?

    Realizing that those us who donate our time and skill to our church’s websites are not in it for Earthly rewards or recognition, and taking into account scenarios such as the Somerville/Odean and/or the Boyink/RidgePoint redesigns in mind, the killer question for this weekend’s discussion is: “what would you do in a similar situation?”

    For example, would you send the church a bill, which upon its receipt, you’d show up at the church office with a rubber stamp and mark the bill “Paid In Full?” Or would quietly you stick it out, even if it meant dealing with type A++ ministers with a penchant for micro-management?

    It’s the weekend, let’s discuss: