Heal Your Church WebSite

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  • The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding

    The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet BrandingIf one of your New Year’s Resolutions is to read a self-help book then look no further than Al and Laura Ries’ “The 11 Immutable Laws of Internet Branding.”

    Yes it is out of print, but you can buy it used – or do what I did, rented it on Audio Cassette for two 2 hour car drives. I didn’t agree with all of it, but there’s lots of useful information and concepts that apply to how and why your church website is an entirely different kettle of fish than your church’s hardcopy newsletter and/or on-air radio ministry.

    In the mean time, I’d like to extend a healthy and prosperous 2005 to all of the HYCW cult members (and members to be). May all your pages Google and may all your links optimize to the top.

    P.S. it also appears the authors (father and daugther) have put out an updated version entitled “The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding” … I’m linking up the audio version because it’s something you can listen to on and off … over and over again as you drive to work (or church).

  • How to Make (friendlier) a Pop-up Window

    Popups are the spawn of satan … in fact say so much in ‘the Book‘ … most of the time. Like medicinal marijuana for terminally ill cancer patients who have an adversion to morphine, pop-ups do have some rare, legitimate utility for things like calendar widgets for date-related form entries and/or disclaimer type information. Which is why I’ve linked an article by Elise Bauer entitled “How To Make a Pop-up Window” that shows how to do it right – especially for those of us who like to right click.

    Sometimes you might want to link to a popup window from your Movable Type weblog. For example you can make your About page a popup instead of a separate page. Although using the target=”blank” attribute in a hyperlink can generate a new page, using javascript commands for popups will give you more control over the appearance and location of the popup.

    Can I have an ‘Amen!?’ Or at least a partial head knod, for while I’m no fan of the target=”_blank” attribute, I do like the idea of giving the users more control of their destiny when it comes to popup windows. This is especially true for those of us slugging it out with the way ASP.Net uses, or should I say abuses Javascript to launch popups and other such controls.

    If you’re not sure what I mean you can view a popup of my very first post/press release one of two ways.

    • Left click on it and you get a popup
    • Right Click on it and you can open a new browser Window (or tab for you hip, cool FireFox users)

    It is the ability to right click and do things like open window, tabs, create bookmarks and/or save linkable content that makes Elise’s example so valuable — at least to me — of course your mileage may vary.

  • Church Marketing Sucks – the website

    Some referrer hits are more interesting than others, for example:

    Church Marketing Sucks

    Let’s face it, there is a great cloud of witlessness when it comes to the Church online. In fact, there is quite a bit of ‘kitsch‘ out there that distracts, annoys and otherwise drives-away people seeking and/or serving the Lord. Like HYCW, Church Marketing Sucks (CMS) is a website dedicated to dealing with this potentially fatal affliction. This sentiment is reflected in CMS’ catchy (and effective) tag line and explained on their about page:

    Frustrate . Educate . Motivate

    Frustrate (transitive verb) ‘fr&s-“trAt : Something’s wrong with your church. Something’s wrong with the Church. Church marketing efforts and communication in general suck. We’ve got the greatest story ever told, but no one’s listening. The church has a problem communicating, and it’s time to change.

    For example, at here at Heal Your Church Website, we’re often dealing with church websites who simply miss the point. It’s not an art project, it is about getting seekers in the door without the use of firearms and empowering members so they stay inside the door without ropes and chains.

    Educate (verb) ‘e-j&-“kAt : We love the church, but it needs some help. Typos, cheesy logos, and bad clip art aren’t helping the cause. But snazzy marketing won’t save this ship, either. It’s not about being perfect, but there’s a better way to communicate. It’s authentic, it’s loving, and it knows how to spell.

    Add to this spinning animated .GIFs of crosses, scrolling marquees and other indulgences. Also add to this a certain demographic within Body who likes this sort of stuff to the point of emailing me a ‘love note.’ Usually such notes inform me that I’m “against God” or “tearing down the Body.” In reality, the church website reviews here, along with many of your comments, are instead fulfilling His goal to ‘Teach, rebuke, correct & train the Body in righteous web design.’ I’m just there is now another entity out there taking on the ‘TBN school of style’ on a broader scale.

    Motivate (transitive verb) ‘mO-t&-“vAt : This isn’t simply about putting butts in pews or selling glossy postcards. It’s about helping the church be the Church, and seeing lives changed as a result. If helping the church communicate better allows one person to finally glimpse the Gospel, then our work has been worthwhile. It may be fuzzy math, but God can worry about that.

    Amen. I know my reviews and theologies sometimes get people fired-up, but I’ve also seen several webservants move their church websites from sucky to seriously effective. I guess I should compile a list as yet a further encouragement to those who don’t take such constructive criticism personally. Such a list might also encourage others to reconsider what it is they’re doing when they design, develop and manage their Church’s communications.

    Got a related comment? Let’r rip! Meanwhile I’m adding CMS’ RSS file to my aggregator.

  • 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:

  • More usable sites are used more

    Stating the obvious, usability guru Jakob Nielsen reports today that:

    Redesigning an intranet for usability often more than doubled the use of these award-winning designs from ten public-sector organizations.

    Shortly after I filed this webly wisdom under “duh,” I read through the article and found buried deep in the middle what you can do on your own to make your church and/or charity’s website or intranet more usable.

    Here is the phrase that pays:

    Quite appropriately, user testing was the most common usability method, and was used in 70% of the winning projects.

    Allow me to enumerate this into plain English:

    1. Those who test their intranets often wind-up with more usable intranets.
    2. Those with more usable intranets enjoy greater use and more successful use by their user base.
    3. What goes for government intranets goes for your church website.

    Yeah, okay, so that last point was mine, still, how do you go about testing your church’s website without incurring Nielsen’s $10,000 consulting fee?

    My first suggesting is purchasing, and then reading, Steve Krug’s “Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability.” In the book, he not only discusses important issues such as navigation and layout, but he also dedicates two chapters on how to perform what he calls “Usability testing on 10 cents a day.”

    Once you’ve read this, then I suggest you not create your own usability test from scratch, but instead customize one from the following online resources:


    For as it is written in Hacks 8:36, “See, here are specifications! What prevents you testing your site?“

  • Measure Twice, Cut Once

    Before ‘Home Improvement’ became a sit-com, and more recently a reality TV theme (sigh), Norm Abram was reminding us of the carpenter’s aphorism to “Measure Twice, Cut Once.” USPS Mailbox, courtesy off FreeFoto.com This is because once you cut a piece of wood, that’s it. The only way to compensate for a mistake is either through a messy glue and nails process and/or to suffer the expense of purchasing more lumber.

    The same is true with email, listservs and the publishing of web content. Once you’ve hit the post or send button, it is about as difficult to retract as putting an envelope inside of a U.S. Mail box. A reality that can lead to very costly mistakes if not caught before you transmit and/or publish – such as the case of the Republican gubernatorial candidate for Montana whom after winning the primary election this past Tuesday, transmitted his concession press release to various news services which read:

    “It did not go as we had hoped tonight, but tomorrow is a new day, and we endorse our party’s choice for governor at this time,… You ran a hard race, and we encourage our supporters to back your candidacy in a united effort to defeat Brian Schweitzer. Congratulations and good luck!” – Billings Gazette

    Well at least Brown lands on his feet for being gracious, instead of a career killer … like let’s say for giggles: “you scum sucking idiot, you stole the election from me and I’m going to make you pay if it is the last thing I do …” Still, the email mistake could have been avoided had Brown’s staff put some controls on their email machine.

    Now I realize that I’m always complaining about user interfaces that frustrate users with an array of nested forms, menus and/or confirmation pop-ups, but here is one situation where I think making a process a bit annoying would have avoided what could have been a painful and costly mistake.

    How? Well, I’m sure each of us can think of a something (and if you do, please don’t be shy, leave a comment) for example, why not set up post-election distributions on two different listservs, one if they won, the other if they lost? Or at least configure the listserv or email system so administration confirmation is required before a message is transmitted.

    Not all controls require massive amounts of computing power. Why not create a step-by-step script and/or check-list on paper for what to do in which scenario; then rehearse it, including sending email to test accounts? Why not have test destination accounts that receive an important email for proof-reading before the trigger is pulled for real?

    The point is to look at your church’s ‘standard operating procedures’ regarding computerized publishing and/or transmissions and see if they have any form of controls, automated or manual, to insure that ONLY the right information gets to the right people at the right time each and every time. If not, then put some in place or suffer the consequences of something with the potential to embarass and/or even divide your church’s congregation.

  • Using XSLT to Transform the RSS 2.0 Daily Verse feed from the ESV Bible

    For those of you old enough to remember the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture, you might recall a gruesome scene early in the movie where a transporter malfunction turns two incoming shipmates into disfigured piles of short-lived screaming flesh. That’s sorta the image that came to mind yesterday when I looked at the Redland Baptist homepage and noticed that my VerseScrape program had to horribly mangle yesterday’s incoming words of wisdom from the Book of Proverbs. That is, my screenscraper failed due to the changes in the incoming source file; notably, the highly identifiable and easy to tokenize parenthesis surrounding the scripture verse have been removed.

    Unlike the aforementioned unfortunate Enterprise members, VerseScrape is fixable, however to do so would require bringing in the girth of the Scripturizer module to identify and hyperlink the scripture reference.

    Since the purpose of VerseScrape was to import a simple JavaScript rendering of the International Bible Society’s Verse of the Day, and since a number of online Bible providers responded positively to my request for syndicated daily Scripture files, I think it is time to move on to more up-to-date method of customizing a daily verse feed to fit your website’s look-n-feel.

    Hard Code:

    Another shortcoming contributing to the demise of VerseScrape is the fact that I hard-coded the output in my examples. This means that whenever I make changes to fix the program, you not only have to download and deploy the fix, but you must also fix the example code to suit your site’s display. So rather than just offer a variant of my article “Using Cron with LWP::Simple and XML::RSS to retrieve news feeds,” where I also hard-code the output, why not instead practice what I preached in Chapter 14 of “Son of Web Pages That Suck” and use XSLT?

    Just to catch some of you up to speed, XSLT is short for eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations.

    Yeah, I know, it sounds scary but simply put: XSLT is a mechanism in which two files create a third file. The first being an XML file, such as an RSS 2.0 syndication file. The second file is an XSL file. When smooshed together via a transformation application/module they result in whatever file format and media type you defined in your XSL file. You can read more about it over at w3schools.com.

    Assign Once, Iterate Often:

    One of the other reasons I created VerseScrape was because incorporating dynamic feeds into your web pages, regardless of format, can and will slow down your page load times. As suggested in “Using Cron with LWP::Simple …” one solution is to employ a loop that makes several attempts to copy the feed locally, AND THEN process it so network failures won’t negatively impact your site’s performance.

    The first example is a Perl program that after successfully downloading the ESV Bible Daily Verse RSS 2.0 feed, employs XSLT to create an include file. Beneath that is a PHP program that does the same. Both code examples call an XSL sample I’ve also provided that you can modify to suit your website’s specific needs; regardless of how many times I’m compelled to fix either the Perl or PHP versions.







    Theology:

    I realize some of you may be asking why I’ve switched from the IBS to the ESV. The answer is two-fold, yet simple:

    1. The IBS is still using the 0.91 RSS specification, whereas the ESV uses 2.0;
    2. The Scripture the ESV provides is generally under 264 characters, and doesn’t include embedded HTML tags – see my article entitled “the Gospel, according to RSS and/or Atom” for a more in depth discussion of this.

    If you would still rather not go the XSLT route, then you might want to pay a visit to an article I wrote last summer entitled “English Standard Version Bible RSS Feed” where I demonstrate how to slice-n-dice the ESV RSS 2.0 file using either use XML::RSS or use XML::RSSLite. If you do have questions, make improvements or find bugs in the above, don’t be shy, share your findings in the form of a loving comment.