Web Design Tips

Are you interested in designing a web site for your BSA unit? Do you already have one? What's in it?

These are questions that many of us have either been asked by others or ourselves. As the IT Commissioner for Orange County Council I have seen thousands of BSA-related web sites. Some have been hosted by us and others elsewhere with contents ranging from a couple of pages to sites that have hundreds of pages with a well-designed layout.

Now my purpose here is not to dictate the layout or design of a web site. On the contrary, each webmaster is free to design their site around their abilities and the needs of the unit, within the guidelines of the Council Web Site Policies posted on this web site. What I would like to do is generate some ideas that might be helpful to the webmasters of the units that are hosted under the "ocbsa.org" domain.

Consider the following;

1) What activities does the unit you're planning the web site for like to do? (camping, bicycling, boating, hiking, nature, etc, etc)

2) Why are you creating the site?

The best designed and most successful web sites are those that are based around the activities of the unit and contain information that is helpful to the success of the unit. They also serve to "advertise" the units activities which will help to attract other boys to the unit.

Before I go any further, let me offer a word of caution. DO NOT JUST BUILD A SITE OF LINKS

There are web sites that have little else but a page of links to someone elses work. These do little to advertise the unit for which they're designed.

In fact, it does just the opposite, as it tends to advertise for the other unit. Design your own site. If you feel that passing out a list of links to where the adults in your unit can go for additional information that you don't post on the unit site, then create a document that lists that information and pass it out during a unit meeting. A newsletter would be a great idea and could contain information that you would not normally post to the web site or couldn't post because of policy restrictions.

Gather suggestions from the parents of the youth in the unit on what they'd like to see and then design it around the needs of the unit and within your abilities.

K.I.S.S. - a term that most scouters are familiar with (keep it simple scouter). Don't over-design the site with a lot of complicated programming. One of the most complicated items in a web site can be the calendar. Again, K.I.S.S. >> by building a simple table with 7 columns and a row for each week of the month. The top row would hold the words "Sun, Mon, Tue, etc". Every other row would be narrower in height and would contain the day of the month (1,2,3,4, etc). This approach is not only very easy to create but it also offers the ability to add hyperlinks with ease and with no extra programming.

If you don't want to do a formal calendar in the usual style, then consider just a list of upcoming events. Such as a bulleted list. Anything that gets the information across to the members of the unit as to what's coming up would do the trick.. It needn't be complicated.

PICTURES are always a hit, especially with the youth. They love to see their photos on the Internet.. However, use caution here. Be sure you have the permission of the responsible adult before posting a photo of their son/daughter. Do not identify anyone in the photo by full name. See our web site policies for help with this one.

UPDATE IT, update it, update it. This is an area that tends to fall through the cracks with many webmasters. They work hard to design a web site, then it's forgotten. Information rapidly becomes stale and those for whom the site was designed do not return because nothing's new. A web site should be considered alive. It needs to be constantly fed with new/updated information. New events, calendar dates, photos, new.......whatever.

CONTACT US

One requirement for each web site that's hosted by us is to maintain a contact Email to the webmaster of the site. Each unit is provided an Email address that forwards Email from the unit Email address to the Email address provided by the webmaster when he/she requested the site. The unit Email address should be posted on the site (example: troopxxx@ocbsa.org). Another caution: If you wish to post the names and phone numbers of the leadership you need their permission to do so. Do not post the names and phone numbers or addresses of the youth.

These are only suggestions but they have been based upon years of observation.

Before posting ANY content to your site you must be familiar with the web site policies of this council. Although a webmaster is free to design the layout around their abilities, there are some restrictions in regards to contents.

This page will be modified periodically with different ideas and tips in regards to web design. If you have a suggestion that you feel would be helpful to everyone, please use the "suggestion form" on the menu to your left to submit it. All suggestions must conform to council web site policies or they will not be considered.

Roy Mickelsen

Council IT Commissioner