Transcript MSCM 8630: Information Technology (IT) for Church Management

IT for Church Communications:
Web Site Design
MSCM 8630
IT for Church Management
Dr. Wagner
October 30, 2008
This week in class…
Two on-line sessions this week
◦ Thursday night 7:30 p.m. ET
◦ Tuesday morning 9:30-10:30 ET (office hour)
 Continue reading
◦ Go over articles from CC magazine
◦ Chapter 5 of the Welch book for next week
 Discuss web design technology

◦ Look at web sites and critique
◦ Fourth assignment posted shortly (personal web
page)
◦ Choose a web design tool
 Begin learning with books, Element K, etc.
Some comments about your
proposals…
Lots of web sites and
databases
 Spend time up front
to plan design
 Interview
stakeholders

◦ Test out designs
View it as prototype
 Create summary
document of project

How about some more database
queries (true geeky fun)?
Northwind database
 Single, multi-table queries
 Other operators
 Basing a report on a query
 Data maintenance operators

◦ Delete, update, append (caution here!!)
Article: 25 Church Website Design
Tips
1. Don’t use splash or intro screen
-
Except when there are multiple sites behind it
2. Don’t use all Flash sites
-
3.
4.
5.
6.
don’t use small text and don’t force users to
scroll down too much
Allow visitors to turn off Flash animations
Don’t use frames
Don’t use buttons in menus – use text links
Don’t use tiled backgrounds
Article: 25 Church Website Design
Tips (2)
7. Don’t use gifs, counters, or rainbow colors
-
Keep credit line subdued
8. Don’t use denominational logo in banner
-
Should have a church logo
9. Don’t put photo of church on home page
-
Photos of people show community more
10. Don’t advertise on your home page
-
Focus main page on new people
11. Add a “what to expect” page to website
Article: 25 Church Website Design
Tips (3)
12. Include essential info on home page
-
Make it easy to find. Segment by gender?
13. Add scripture to home page
14. Include key email addresses and form for
inquiries
-
Disguise email addresses to avoid spambots
15. Make website more than just an online
brochure
16. Avoid drop-down and slide-out menus
Article: 25 Church Website Design
Tips (4)
17. Don’t confuse visitors with interior
navigation links
18. Use easy to understand labels
19. Underline links in text
20. Illustrate ministries with photos
21. Include captions on photos
22. Don’t call audio downloads “podcasts”
23. Don’t use audio/music backgrounds
24. Include time zone info for live broadcasts
25. Make site disabled friendly
From 100 Best Parishes…

Picked 3 sites to look at randomly
◦ St. Bridget of Richmond VA
 http://saintbridgetchurch.org/
◦ St. Mary of Helena, MT
 http://stmaryhelena.com/
◦ St. Timothy of Blain, MN
 http://www.churchofsttimothy.com/
◦ Mountain Lake Church of Cumming, GA
 http://www.mountainlakechurch.com
 (cited in article)
What does Welch say?

Religious Web Resources
◦ Vatican www.vatican.va
◦ U.S. Bishop’s Conference www.usccb.org
◦ Catholic News Service
www.catholicnews.com
◦ Paulist www.bustedhalo.com
◦ The Taize community www.taize.fr
◦ Irish Jesuits www.sacredspace.ie
◦ Wing Clips www.wingclips.com
◦ GodTube www.godtube.com
Important Secular Sites
Flickr www.flickr.com site for
downloading pictures
 Wikipedia www.wikipedia.org
 YouTube www.youtube.com
 Del.icio.us social bookmarking
 iTunes www.apple.com/itunes for audio
or video podcasts

Basics of Web Page Design
Building a content-only Web page is easy
 Everyone is doing it for a variety of
reasons

◦ Family Web site
◦ Evening sports league team
◦ School classes (by me)
Basics of Web Page Design
A word of caution when building a
personal Web site
 Don’t include too much personal
information
 Don’t include (as a general rule)

◦ Your address
◦ Your phone number
◦ Your unique IDs
HYPERTEXT MARKUP
LANGUAGE (HTML)
HTML – the language you use to create a
Web site
 HTML allows you to

◦ Specify the content
◦ Specify the formatting for content
HYPERTEXT MARKUP
LANGUAGE (HTML)
To create a Web site, you must create an
HTML document
 HTML document – file that contains
your Web site content and the HTML
formatting instructions
 Web page is a view of an HTML
document from within a Web browser

Creating an HTML Document
Use any text editor
 For example, in Notepad:

◦
◦
◦
◦

Click on Start
Point at All Programs
Point at Accessories
Click on Notepad
Create HTML document and save with
htm or html extension
HTML Document Sections
HTML tag – specifies the formatting and
presentation of information in a Web site
 Structure tags – HTML tags that set up
the necessary sections
 Two major sections in an HTML
document

◦ Head section
◦ Body section
HTML Document Sections
Body
section
Structure
tags
HTML Tags
Usually are <tagname> and
</tagname>
 Entire HTML document

<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
</body>
</html>
HTML Document
Resulting Web Page
Image
Lists
Let’s try our own page…

A number of web design tools out there
◦ MS FrontPage 2003 (via Citrix?)
 Basic web design tool
◦ Dreamweaver
 Most popular professional tool
 Lots of Element K support
◦ MS Expression Web
 New, well-rated package
 90 day download available
 No Element K support
Assignment for next week
Work on the Web design tutorials on
Element K (if necessary)
 Read up on Web search engines

◦ 2 articles sent shortly
◦ Welch chapter 5

Start work on personal web page
◦ Assignment 4 to be posted shortly
Questions?