Scout site - please review

[boomla]

Hi,

I have build and am maintaining this site for a scout troop:

http://www.chasper.info

I would appreciate a bit of feedback on the setup and/or graphics, please.
Although the site is not in English, the overall impression is universal, right?

The site is intended for the elder kids (12-14), all parents (existing as well as new ones) and for the leaders/scoutmasters as well.
I am kind of hoping for inputs that will make the overall site more attractive,
i.e. is there too much modulemix,
more or less graphics,
does it seem confusing or easy enough to navigate

Any and all comment are welcome!

Regards,
boomla

[djbeta]

Hi there,

I think you have wayyyyyy too much going on. You don't need all that information
to hit your user when they first get to your site.

Reduce the tabs in your main navigation to about 4 or 5. Think deeply about how you can
categorize the information. What is important to scouts? My Troop? Scouting? Nature?
Think broadly. Come up with 4 or 5 ... maybe 6, but no more!!!!! You put all this work into
this site, so you want people to enjoy it when the arrive to it, and use it intuitively.

The main navigation can lead to areas that have other options.

I felt overloaded when I visited your site, and didn't want to have to read all the stuff on the left ( i obviously didn't read it
because i don't know what it said )

Apple is the best company I know at designing the visitor experience... they're a major company and look at how many main buttons they have in their first level of navigation

I don't love the colors nor graphics. I think you'd be better off with a beautiful picture in your
banner that represented your site and plain text and random images throughout the site.
The little cartoony things look amateurish.

Sorry, I realize I'm being harsh, but no one else replied to you, so I figured it would be best to let it all out.

I like you and your purpose. You're obviously a wonderful soul to be making a site like this.

I just want you to be able to feel confident that your site will hold its own.

[djbeta]

the text is also a bit small.. and (it's probably) it may be that I'm connecting from New York, but the site loads very slowly.. if you don't have that problem on your end, don't worry about it, but just wanted to mention it to see if there was anything you could do about it.

best wishes

[boomla]

Hi djbeta,

Thanks for for your review.
Only the honest answers will lead to a change for the better!!
And thats what I want (obviously)

I was, actually, suspecting a comment like this on the left side...
So, I'll be fiddling with the CSS and maybe on the outlook for some other pics.

Thanks again, appreciate it

boomla

[ablaye]

I went to your website and it is currently messed up. The raw code is displayed on top of the page. There is a serious problem on your site.

[boomla]

Hi ablaye,

Yes, I know, I'm working on it, only now, I've been locked out from the backend.
Doing a fresh install

But thanks for the notice anyway

boomla

[jscout]

Hi Boomla,
you may find some ideas about Joomla sites for scouts at http://www.joomla.scoutkar.se/
It is in Swedish but that is perhaps not a problem for you

Take a look at "Användare av Joomla" (http://www.joomla.scoutkar.se/index.php ... 3&Itemid=3) for troops in Sweden that uses Joomla.

YIS
jscout

[boomla]

Hey, jscout,

Nope, not really a problem to read, indeed.
Yeps, good, clean layouts on a lot of the sites, I'll give you that!

I have a few restrictions/guidelines of what to show on the frontpage, and as the matter of fact, I'm uploading the new site as I write this

And, I'm afraid, I have to leave my beloved extcal (outdated, sec. risk) and maybe go for Eventlist

I'm following djbeta a bit with regards to all the stuffing around the site, ie right module column is now gone, the menu compressed with subs, text size a bit bigger, but the colors and graphics, hmm, I have to convince the troop later on in march..

Anyway, thanks for providing the link, much appreciated,

boomla

Jävla Joomla! Internal 500 error - OK. I've got some work to do