How to improve our school site?

[pritchardavid]

The Ockendon School, Thurrock (Running Wordpress 3.01)

 

 

Any ideas guys?

 

Hopefully this is just for the time being, trying to build a Sharepoint 2010 website instead, this will allow us to changes pages easier, instead of attempting to change css/php theming code which we dont really know how to do.

 

 

 

Lol havent got very far with that - http://213.38.46.36/SitePages/Default.aspx

[speckytecky]

Looks excellent to me - but I still very much have my L Plates on when it comes to anything web!

[2097]

Hi Dave im just up the road from you in the girls convent school

 

Ever thought about using Joomla ? its free and and very easy to setup. Css isnt that hard with the correct tools

 

And also i cant see your sharepoint attempt as the url is not working

[pritchardavid]

hi there, yer sorry I just reimaged the sharepoint server, I sort of broke it the other day

 

Joomula I thought was a bit too hard, want to give some of the staff login so they can update pages when needed and create pages/uploads as when required

 

 

 

What tools you using for Css then mate?

[2097]

for css use firefox , firebug addon and i like using Hex colour finder

 

I think there is a addon for joomla so u can assign staff certain departments bits and pieces .. But for the sake of your site i would suggest you doing it your self . I have seen sites where teachers are allowed to edit pages and they end up looking pants

[Cue]

Honestly I'd say Wordpress is perfectly fine to be using for a site, I develop professionally and always use Wordpress even when there's no news or blogging involved, purely because it makes the whole thing much easier for both myself and the client, as it's a very intuitive, easy to use interface, and requires little to no training to get used to once you find the Add Post button, since it's a very familiar interface methodology.

 

As for your site design itself, and I will be critical here, the blue and yellow is actually quite nasty on the eyes. You don't necessarily have to adopt the colour of your logo on the site design, in fact very few do. My old school has a new site now and they used only one of the colours from their logo: Farnham Heath End School. Also, the content section of the site is quite plain, it's not really all that interesting to look at, for instance you could probably put a sidebar in on the right hand side, since your content stretching the entire width of the holder makes it rather bare. Though I will give you points for the navigation, the primary items aren't bloated in quantity, and are very concise in their categories, which is always good. But yeah, the design could do with some improvements, it's, dare I say it quite Web 1.0 right now, i.e. not very appealing to look at.* Also, try to steer clear of the tag, it doesn't bode well with standards, kudos for using div instead of tables for the layout though, lots of people still get that wrong.

 

 

* I apologise for my critical attitude, but I find it's better to say it straight than sugar coat it, helps people learn and improve.

 

And, of course, cheeky as I am, if you're after any web advice or web design/development services, feel free to drop me an email on [email protected] (gotta make the plug, wouldn't be good business practice if I didn't ).

 

In terms of the Sharepoint site, I would probably advise against using Sharepoint for your main site, especially when its competing with Wordpress, Sharepoint is really for team collaboration and document management, it's not really a system made for a public website, whereas Wordpress is, and is much more extendable and better to customise with templates and such.

Edited November 6, 2010 by Cue