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Gus
31st-October-2006, 03:49 PM
After following some of the comments on the Ceroc Central thread, I was wondering if there are any shinning examples of good website design on the MJ world. I've constantly been disappointed with the 'Big Boys' websites. Ceroc HQ is poor and Blitz's is appalling. Oddly enough, one of the best I've seen is by a new, small operation (8BeatFusion (http://8beatfusion.co.uk/)). The website is bright, interesting and informative. Any other contenders?

David Bailey
31st-October-2006, 04:03 PM
Darn, you beat me to it!

I did a post here (http://www.cerocscotland.com/forum/showpost.php?p=282253&postcount=24), listing some franchise sites - I'll re-quote it:


I've briefly looked at various franchise sites in England:


Ceroc Midlands - http://www.cerocmidlands.co.uk/
Ceroc Surrey - http://www.ceroc.org.uk/
Ceroc Metro - http://www.cerocmetro.com/
Ceroc London - http://www.ceroclondon.com/
Ceroc Anglia - http://www.cerocanglia.co.uk/
Ceroc Central - http://www.ceroccentral.com/
Ceroc South Birmingham - http://www.cerocsb.co.uk/
Ceroc Thames Valley - http://www.ceroctv.co.uk/
Ceroc Manchester - http://www.ceroc-manchester.co.uk/
Ceroc Essex - http://www.cerocessex.com/
Ceroc Chilterns - http://www.cerocchilterns.co.uk/


Frankly, none of them are inspiring. But at least most of them get you straight to a home page with actual information on it.

I'd love to find a good site run by a franchisee, but I haven't yet. The best sites are directory-type sites, I think - nice and clean and easy-to-use.

straycat
31st-October-2006, 05:59 PM
I was wondering if there are any shinning examples of good website design on the MJ world.

Hello. I'm in the MJ world, and I made this site (http://www.baileyshorsefeeds.co.uk/), which I believe is quite nicely designed :whistle:

Stray
PS jiveswing.com (http://www.jiveswing.com/)'s pretty good too ;)

David Bailey
4th-November-2006, 03:42 PM
I hate to say it, but the Jive Nation one looks pretty good now - decent navigation, clean and simple, and a good impact. It's let down by poor cross-browser support (doesn't work too well on Mozilla), but it's not bad apart from that.

If only ceroc.com were that good :tears:

bigdjiver
4th-November-2006, 05:30 PM
sad to say, but when answering the phone about "nearest Ceroc venue" I used the map from www.modernjive.com (http://www.modernjive.com) rather than www.ceroc.com (http://www.ceroc.com)

Gus
7th-November-2006, 02:46 PM
Just come across the revamped Ceroc Anglia site (http://www.cerocfusion.co.uk/index.html) (now called Ceroc Fusion :confused: ) Looks pretty good :)

phaedrus
8th-November-2006, 11:08 AM
I like this one (http://www.leroc-scotland.co.uk/).

David Bailey
8th-November-2006, 11:16 AM
I like this one.
I give it 10 minutes before that link gets removed... :)

straycat
8th-November-2006, 11:37 AM
I like this one (http://www.leroc-scotland.co.uk/).

Strange - the picture on the front reminds me of something out of Blade - I think it's a vampire, about to sink his teeth into the exposed milky-white neck of his latest defenceless victim while she collapses helpless in his arms....

Um.

Maybe I should get back to work. :sick:

Liz
8th-November-2006, 03:29 PM
one of the best I've seen is by a new, small operation. The website is bright, interesting and informative. Any other contenders?

Having looked at the website mentioned I agree it is bright, colourful and pretty, but is it accessible and is it compliant with the Disability Discrimination Act?

The images are blurred and white text out of a red background is not easily read by anyone with a visual impairment. As there are around two million people in the UK with sight problems I imagine that many of them could be dancers. That's a lot of folk who would have difficulty reading it!

On the other hand, I've found that www.jiveaddiction.com website is clear, interesting and with no fancy moving images that can annoy you when you visit the site freqently. But, more importantly, it's easy to navigate and you can find the information you need quickly.

Lory
8th-November-2006, 03:55 PM
Cerocmetro has to be the most boring and dull site of them all :sick: BUT it does do the job! ;)

Dreadful Scathe
13th-November-2006, 04:43 PM
The images are blurred and white text out of a red background is not easily read by anyone with a visual impairment.As there are around two million people in the UK with sight problems I imagine that many of them could be dancers. That's a lot of folk who would have difficulty reading it!

Modern browsers can switch off or use their own styles, - anyone with any visual impairment should take advantage of this. Screen reading applications are more concerned with the code you dont see than what the web page looks like. So I find it amusing when you say....



On the other hand, I've found that www.jiveaddiction.com website is clear, interesting and with no fancy moving images that can annoy you when you visit the site freqently. But, more importantly, it's easy to navigate and you can find the information you need quickly.

...which sounds ever so slightly biased ("interesting" :rofl:), and doesnt seem to be compared very well to Gus's example at all e.g. no mention of navigation of 8beatfusion, no positives about 8 beatfusion at all, etc..

Looking at the jiveaddiction code - it has a lack of any sort of identifier for some of the graphical links making navigation for the severly visually impaired entirely random :) 8beatfusion DOES have alt tags for its linked images :)

David Bailey
13th-November-2006, 04:54 PM
Looking at the jiveaddiction code - it has a lack of any sort of identifier for some of the graphical links making navigation for the severly visually impaired entirely random :) 8beatfusion DOES have alt tags for its linked images :)
If you look at this "Jiveaddiction case study (http://www.d2ps.com/cms/jiveaddictionbrandingcasestudy)", it describes the "branding, and here (http://www.d2ps.com/cms/jiveaddictionwebsitecasestudy) it describes the website creation.

But yes, in accessibility terms it's useless. Like most other MJ websites. :rolleyes:

phaedrus
13th-November-2006, 08:42 PM
But yes, in accessibility terms it's useless. Like most other MJ websites. :rolleyes:

ITYM like most other websites of any kind.

Lee Bartholomew
13th-November-2006, 08:58 PM
Knocked one out in 5 mins (so to speak) for classes that I have started.

The menu is bit of a pain and needs changing. There are a few more pages to go on ie photos, links message board etc.

Any comments appreciated.

www.go-dance.co.uk (http://www.go-dance.co.uk)

straycat
13th-November-2006, 11:42 PM
Knocked one out in 5 mins (so to speak) for classes that I have started.

The menu is bit of a pain and needs changing. There are a few more pages to go on ie photos, links message board etc.

Any comments appreciated.
I presume it was a bit more'n five minutes.

First glance, looks fine. But... to allow me to bear to give it more than just a first glance, please sort out the menus. Don't know whether this is intentional, but it seems that just hovering over a sub-menu item will jump me onto the associated page (tried this in Safari and Firefox) - this is not a good thing. If I want to follow a link, I'll click on it. :what:

Lee Bartholomew
14th-November-2006, 12:16 AM
The actual site took about half hour.

Will sort the menu out. It was just quickly knocked together as a temp thing. Working on a new one as we speak.

Whitebeard
14th-November-2006, 01:13 AM
Knocked one out in 5 mins (so to speak) for classes that I have started.

The menu is bit of a pain and needs changing. There are a few more pages to go on ie photos, links message board etc.

Any comments appreciated.
Please run it through a spellchecker !!

Andy McGregor
14th-November-2006, 01:22 AM
Please run it through a spellchecker !!:yeah:

cerocmetro
14th-November-2006, 12:59 PM
Cerocmetro has to be the most boring and dull site of them all :sick: BUT it does do the job! ;)

Do we get a prize for that :whistle:

Actually now would be a good time as we are revamping the site.

So what do you want?

How about the first forum designed web site, can you imagine the mess :sick:

Anyway Lory, its not that dull, i have just finished reading Don Quixote. (why buy someone that for a birthday present)?

David Bailey
14th-November-2006, 01:12 PM
Do we get a prize for that :whistle:

Actually now would be a good time as we are revamping the site.

So what do you want?
Errr, as it seems to be down at the moment, it's difficult to see what needs changing...

detomo
14th-November-2006, 01:18 PM
I use www.southwestswing.co.uk (http://www.southwestswing.co.uk/) to keep track of jive events in the South West :)

Tessalicious
14th-November-2006, 02:50 PM
Please run it through a spellchecker !!Can I just remind you that some of the worst spelling errors are the ones that wouldn't be picked up be a spell checker? Get a proofreader instead.

Lee Bartholomew
14th-November-2006, 02:57 PM
Or i'll just learn how to spell!!!

Was done at 2am in about half hour or so. Am in process of re-doing it all. Just needed a five min temp site to get things going with maps etc.

Whitebeard
14th-November-2006, 04:35 PM
Can I just remind you that some of the worst spelling errors are the ones that wouldn't be picked up be a spell checker? Get a proofreader instead.

You may, indeed. But a spellchecker is, nevertheless, a useful tool.

What is interesting is that we, perhaps I'd better say I, can endlessly read through and revise a piece of personal writing and yet still miss errors that someone else will pick out immediately.

Lee Bartholomew
14th-November-2006, 04:43 PM
Having used computers since i was 7, I blame them for my bad handwriting and spell checkers for my poor spelling.

Dreadful Scathe
14th-November-2006, 05:14 PM
You may, indeed. But a spellchecker is, nevertheless, a useful tool.

What is interesting is that we, perhaps I'd better say I, can endlessly read through and revise a piece of personal writing and yet still miss errors that someone else will pick out immediately.
or off course, you're spell chequer does correct you're spelling but does knot actually improve any thing. You really do kneed a human being to read through your text to :).

David Bailey
14th-November-2006, 05:17 PM
or off course, you're spell chequer does correct you're spelling but does knot actually improve any thing. You really do kneed a human being to read through your text to :).
:worthy:
It must have taken ages to do that. :awe:

David Bailey
25th-November-2006, 01:56 PM
Re: cerocmetro web site (http://www.cerocmetro.com/):

Actually now would be a good time as we are revamping the site.

So what do you want?
It seems to be up and revamped now. My comments:

The navigation is now based on a horizontal tab, with drop-downs to sub menus. A definite improvement on the old "left hand menu", and it only has 5 main sections, which is great.
In fact, it's possible to get almost all the information you need with 1 click from the front page - which compared to something like ceroc.com, is fantastic.
The colour scheme is non-intrusive and easy on the eye - none of this sparkly black background nonsense - again good.
And it's got a breadcrumb trail; :clap: - I believe that's a first for a Ceroc site! Nice one.


A few quibbles:

The font style (serif) and size (small) on some pages (e.g. "Who are we" and "Class details" table) is both inappropriate and inconsistent, should be fixed.
Bit of a gap before the start of the text on the home page, could be moved up a bit
I absolutely agree with Lory that it's boring as hell - but to me that's a good thing as it provides maximum information content with minimum distraction. OK, maybe it could do with a little "sizzle" to sell it to new starters, but that's a marketing call.


Hmmm, you know what? I think this is the best franchisee site I've seen so far.

Can anybody think of a better one?

David Bailey
3rd-December-2006, 01:39 AM
Arrgh!

Quick tip: do not go to funkylush.com if you have multiple tabs open in Mozilla, because it screws your browser something chronic, and you can't get out of it (or navigate to other tabs) without closing the browser. :mad:

This is very annoying if - to take a purely hypothetical example - you were in the middle of composing a post in another tab. Grrrr.

I won't even mention the fact that it repositions and resizes your browser, removes your menu functions, etc. etc. OK, I lied - I will mention it.

Some Flash designers - well, shooting's too good for those people. But at least it'll get them out of the gene pool.

straycat
3rd-December-2006, 02:46 PM
Arrgh!

Quick tip: do not go to funkylush.com if you have multiple tabs open in Mozilla

Obviously if you're going to say something like this... you know fine well that the first thing someone like me will do is open up several tabs in a mozilla browser, and visit funkylush.com.

Disappointed. Works fine in Firefox / Mac or Firefox PC. Can't be bothered to install Mozilla proper.

Appalling site though...

TheTramp
3rd-December-2006, 03:03 PM
I went there in Mozilla, and while it did screw around with the sizing of the window, it didn't screw it up too bad.

On the other hand....


Appalling site though...

:yeah: