Department Website

[cfaulknor]

I am not sure where else to put this. I am helping out a department. They want a webpage for their dept. Let me start by describing them:

They are a Fire Dept. with a BLS Ambulance Service. They have MFR's and Basics with an EMT-I as the coordinator. What would you put on a dept. website like that? Any suggestions?

[SWVAEMT]

Just don't put the station telephone number on the website. You'll have people calling at all hours of the day and night when they should be calling 911.

Other than that Google "Fire and Rescue Department" and get a bijillion ideas.

[thbarnes]

Wanna see an awesome website for a department? Check out my old department's website, http://svfd.net/

Hayden

[buckeyedoc]

I design websites as a side hobby. I've done a few for departments. In my humble opinion, the website svfd.net is not a good example. Let me clarify that statement by saying, their content is great, but their design is all wrong. It is too busy. Here is what I would do.

1. Keep it simple (not boring, but simple)

2. Make sure that everything is readable. The buttons at the top of the sceen of svfd.net are too small.

3. Use a left-hand menu. Most people don't want to search for the menu. Out of habit, people tend to look to the left of the screen (seeing as how we read left to right)

4. Use a clean font (verdana, arial, tahoma or something from that class). Times New Roman is not a good font for web because it appears jagged. Use the same font for the entire site.

5. Despite any desire you have, DO NOT put auto-loading music/dispatch tones on the page. Not only does it degrade the time to load the page, if someone has their volume turned up loud, the tones/music will blow them out and will probably close the page and not come back.

6. Maintain uniformity on the entire site. Don't use 10 different layout designs for the site. Find one, maybe two, and stick with them for the whole site. Your viewers will thank you for it.

7. Don't load the site with a ton of animated *.gif files. I know they're fun to watch, but it takes longer to load.

8. Don't use full-size images if you don't have to. I know that you'll want some larger photos/graphics on there, and that's fine. If you have a photo gallery, WHICH YOU SHOULD, thumbnail the images.

That is not an all-inclusive list, but just some things to think about. If you need/want anything else, PM or e-mail me. I'd be happy to help in whatever way I can.

Doc

[Nate]

Contact information, it is such a PITA when I need to contact someone at a department and either there is no contact information or the information is bad. I'd make it so that you have a few email addresses on there besides just the "main" one or who ever is in charge of the operation.

[buckeyedoc]

Contact information, it is such a PITA when I need to contact someone at a department and either there is no contact information or the information is bad. I'd make it so that you have a few email addresses on there besides just the "main" one or who ever is in charge of the operation.

Very true. It is such a PITA.

[dsjbean]

Well heres a link to our departments site. I don't claim to be a web designer but it is fairly clean and simple. It is still under construction. Biggest thing I can't stand about sites is when they are not updated regularly. I've seen sites that still have events from months ago. ( I need to remove 2 past evdents from January 06 still) I try to update the information regularly and add new events as information is available.

http://www.craftonvfd.org

[Nate]

Like it all, just would work on a different background. The asphalt is kind of hard on the eyes.

[dsjbean]

Like it all, just would work on a different background. The asphalt is kind of hard on the eyes.

I thought so too, but I had several people tell me they liked the dark back ground....Like I said, it's still under construction. Thanks for the input.....I appreciate it.

[Nate]

Maybe you can fade it, like how the brick background on this website is done. I know there was sone site that had a stupid siren or radio traffic (depending on if you were the even or odd visitor on the counter) and then had a flame background. It looked really bad, like a high school web class had built it.

I think that "noise," "loud" backgrounds, and counters should be excluded from websites. There is nothing wrong with simple IMHO, but web design is a true talent and there are some people who can make some easy websites that are informative, easy to navigate, and don't leave you feeling like you just read the dictionary.