[Nfb-web] NFBIL Web Site Pilot

Sat Feb 16 19:48:53 CST 2008

Hello Joe and listers,

    During the seminar some of us discussed the amount of content and links
on a site's home page. Two of my Web sites received criticism for being too,
"Top-heavy" with a large amount of links on their home pages. The national
Web site was designed to address this situation by organizing links in to
content areas such as, "About", "Members", "Information About Vision Loss",
Products and Technology", "Resources", and "Publications." The remainder of
the home page includes text and links to important happenings in the
federation such as the Transition to Independence Club Career Fair,
Celebration, The Jacobus TenBroek Disability Law Symposium, the 2008
National Convention, and the March for Independence to name a few. Links to
pages concerning important issues and news stories of the NFB'S activities
follow this section. Note also that as events occur, and as new information
about our activities becomes available this information is rotated. Old news
is removed and fresh new content takes its place.
    This arrangement prevents the site's home page from becoming cluttered
with an excessive amount of links to old and out-dated information. Provided
I get a, "Thumbs up" from the NAGDU Board concerning migrating the division
site in to X Catalyst the same will happen on that Web site. Information
concerning NAGDU and its activities will be available as will a wealth of
information concerning all aspects of blindness and the work of the NFB. It
may be some what inconvenient to locate specific information within a
particular content area, but the trade-off is that a lot of exciting content
can be made available on an affiliate or division Web site and its home page
will have a cleaner and neater appearance.

Peter Donahue

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Joe Orozco" <jsorozco at gmail.com>
To: "NFB Webmaster's List" <nfb-web at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 6:57 PM
Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] NFBIL Web Site Pilot

I hope you don't follow the national web site standard, at least not in
content arrangement.  I find it difficult to locate information that used to
be more easily accessible directly from the main page.--Joe Orozco

"We cannot forever hide the truth about ourselves, from ourselves."--Senator
John McCain
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Peter Donahue" <pdonahue1 at sbcglobal.net>
To: "NFB Webmaster's List" <nfb-web at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 5:11 PM
Subject: [Nfb-web] NFBIL Web Site Pilot

> Hello Ruth Ann and listers,
>
>    You did a great job with the NFBIL demo site in X Catalyst. Since the
> National Association of Guide Dog Users, (NAGDU)  is seriously considering
> migrating its site in to X Catalyst I need to get busy and construct a
> similar pilot Web Site for their board to review.
>
>    Much of the NFB of Missouri's Web site was created with the lay-out of
> the NFB National Site in mind. I like the idea of being able to include
> the
> same content presently on the national site on state and division sites
> with
> the edition of state/division specific information. For example in
> addition
> to the content for members all ready present the membership area would
> include online and downloadable member registration forms, newsletter
> subscription information, and a calendar of events for each affiliate or
> division.
>
>    Likewise the laws and legislation area could in addition to the
> information now on the national site would include the state white cane
> laws, legislation and regulations related to international travel with
> guide
> dogs and information related to specific public access issues.
>
>    ?Doing this would allow visitors to the NAGDU Web site would not only
> give them access to division-specific information, but would allow them to
> access the wealth of information on our national Web site vastly
> increasing
> the amount of available content and making the job of site migration much
> easier and more tightly integrating our affiliate and division sites with
> the NFB'S National Site. What you did with the NFBIL pilot site is exactly
> what's been going around in my mind with respect to creating
> second-generation affiliate and division Web sites. Keep up the good work.
>
> Peter Donahue
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Ruth Anne Wheeler" <webmaster at nfbofillinois.org>
> To: "'NFB Webmaster's List'" <nfb-web at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 10:20 AM
> Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] Webmasters Seminar, Any Thoughts?
>
>
> Hi Milt,
> Well, NFBI has a very extensive website that I maintain.  I do all the
> code
> for the pages and all the publication to the website.  My web committee
> will
> check from time to time for broken links and pages in need of updating, or
> think up some content to add to the site.  But the site is all my work, so
> I
> have access to every file there.
> Last Saturday evening after our dinner, I spent that time in the lab in
> the
> institute on my laptop taking current items from the NFBI website at that
> time, to see how I could format them into xCatalyst.  We'd already started
> an "About Me" type page in the seminar, where I had used the NFBI vision
> statement.
> As I was formatting that up a little more, I tried to think of the pages
> that "irritated" me the most in updating on the NFBI website.  The
> Committee
> Appointments and the Announcements are the pages that I am getting regular
> updates on, and often are my biggest pain to keep updated as plans change,
> committees change, etc.  I thought those would be good choices, because I
> could see how easy it would be to cut out text and paste in new text in
> the
> editor.  So I decided that those pages - as of 2/9 -  were my best choices
> for a test site to play around some more with xCatalyst.
> After saving the pages in the editor, you have the option of viewing your
> page from the link in the main console.  I did that, copied the URL, had
> my
> husband see if he could use that URL to get to the page, go through it and
> see what he thought.   He could get there in the staging area, and had a
> couple suggestions from what I had formatted.  I made some more changes,
> had
> him check again....and the URL still worked, so after getting back I
> included it on the report to Patti and Ronza, my web committee and our
> board.
> Hope that helps!
> Ruth Anne
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: nfb-web-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-web-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
> Behalf Of milt.1818
> Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2008 6:20 AM
> To: 'NFB Webmaster's List'
> Subject: Re: [Nfb-web] Webmasters Seminar, Any Thoughts?
>
> Hello Ruth Ann,
>
>
>
> Could you share with me how you got your web page
> https://stage.nfb.org/nfb/main.asp to this point that you could have your
> state president take a look at it and see what he thought?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
>
> Milton Taylor
>
>
>
>
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