Just Browsing...
by Piers Smith-Cresswell
You will hopefully have noticed some changes to the MFC website over recent months not least that it’s now called www.midlandfestivalchorus.org (though the old name still works if you have the site bookmarked). The website has many functions: just think of some of the reasons people may want to look at it:
• Existing members may want to check information about the singing day or annual concert
• People thinking about joining a choir need to see that MFC exists, and find out what it does, how it does it, what it has done and what it’s like.
• The media may need to find background information on MFC and its personalities.
• Musicians, their management or agents who have not worked with MFC may want to find out what they’re dealing with.
• Some people may want to buy a ticket!
These are just a few examples. So we have to provide something for all these people. The impression we give is important. The website is part of MFC’s public face, and we want the publicity materials and website to reflect the quality and professionalism which makes MFC what it is.
So how did we get to what is there? The “look” of the site is based on an idea of the design consultants who came up with MFC’s new look and logo in 2007. I then had to turn their visualisation into a working website. This was challenging because I am not a computer or design professional. My qualifications for the job are two weekends at an adult-education residential course on web design which gave me a grounding in HTML and CSS, some free time in which to work things out, and volunteering (or was I volunteered?) to do it. At times I have felt well out of my depth when faced with the computer’s apparently wilful desire not to do what I want it to. You know how computer screens come in different shapes and sizes, and some have fine detail and others are quite blurry? You have to try to make the web page look good in all of them, whether the viewer’s web browser is maximised or not. All this is not as easy as you might think, and I have spent hours agonising over which font to use, where the margins should be, whether or not the photo can fit on the page without having to scroll, and what happens if the browser isn’t maximised, or the viewer has lots of extra toolbars on it reducing the available space...
Ah, the browser that’s the program you use when you go online to look at web sites. Most people use Internet Explorer, but some prefer Firefox, Safari, Opera, or the new Google Chrome. All do the same job, but they do it slightly differently, and if you have the time and have downloaded the software it can be interesting (well, a bit) to look at the site in several browsers to see the differences. These can be a nightmare for the poor webmaster. Just when you think you have got the site looking nice in one, you discover that another can’t cope with a bit of Java code with the result that someone looking at it on a particular browser sees some horrible gobbledegook instead of a slick slide show. And there can be differences between different versions of the same program. You can’t have Internet Explorer 6 and 7 on the same computer at the same time. There’s no reason why most people should want to, but because I couldn’t look at the site on my computer in IE6 it meant that I didn’t realise that some changes I made recently didn’t work on that until someone told me they could no longer see the site! It was only then that I discovered to my horror how many people are still using the older version... To add to the delights, I gather that the forthcoming IE8 will handle some CSS code differently to IE7 and 6!
So far I’ve only mentioned the website’s appearance. The actual words on it come down from the Committee, and they and I review what’s there from time to time. You have to keep asking yourself whether someone coming to the site for the first time will find what they are looking for easily. Can we keep them interested or will they click on and go elsewhere? We haven’t by any means got everything on there which we might. Finally, of course, we have to keep it up to date. Unlike a town choir MFC does not have a programme of concerts changing every few months, but even so there’s quite a bit to keep an eye on.
Being the webmaster certainly has its frustrating moments, but having a few good reference books to fall back on helps, as does having a few contacts to give advice, and it’s remarkable how many answers to various technical dilemmas you can find just by doing a search on Google. It’s all a matter of asking the correct questions, and it’s very satisfying when it all comes right.