Website Officially Launched
Welcome to the Aberystwyth Dog Rescue website! We asked our web developer, a student from Aberystwyth University, a few questions about the process of making the website:
What are your reflections on the overall project?
"I feel that the overall project went really well. After getting used to the Webnode software, creating pages and features was relatively easy. Sometimes it was difficult to make decisions about the content and features of the website, but I chose what I thought was in the best interest of the users because it is a user-centered design."
What were the advantages of the software you used to create the website?
"It was relatively easy to get used to. Creating pages and the hierarchy of the Information Architecture was easy, as was editing current pages. What I particularly liked about Webnode was the ability to edit pages without publishing them and the 'drag and drop' options it offered for page creation. The choice of templates were wide-ranging and I got to play around with those until I found the one most suitable for the website, and I could edit it to give the website a unique image that hopefully users will be able to associate with Aberystwyth Dog Rescue."
Did you face any problems due to the software?
"I faced quite a few problems when making the website, mostly regarding restrictions due to Webnode. These included:
- Problems with accesibility: Webnode did not provide the facilities to be able to enlarge text, which would have made the website more accesible to those with visual impairments. I also had to link to a seperate page with a transcript for the Alexandra Burke video because I did not have the software or knowledge to add the transcript to the original video.
- Problems with navigation: I wanted to have a tab to the homepage (before 'About Us') on the navigation bar for those users who might not realise that clicking the logo takes you back to the homepage. Webnode, however, would not let me create such a tab.I also wanted to have a drop down menu displaying local navigation which would appear when hovering over the tabs. This way, users could find what they were looking for quicker because they would not have to click on each tab to see the available sub-menus.
- Problems with the blog: The Webnode blog did not provide commenting facilities so users could interact with it.
- Problems with searching: Had the capabilities of Webnode allowed it, I would have created a function where users could narrow down the search for their dogs by breed, sex and so on by selecting features they found desireable.
- Problems with page dimensions: Due to Webnode having templates, the image below the navigation bar has to fit certain dimensions, meaning that not much information can be displayed above 'the fold', requiring users to scroll down on certain pages.
- Problems with the font: After changing the font on the pages to black several times, Webnode changed it back to grey every so often. This is not as readable on the screen, which might make it difficult for those with visual impairments.
- Problems with creating pages: There was no way to create pages that are not sub-pages of any other page. This meant that to create a seperate page for the video transcript, it was put under the 'Links' section, which would not make sense to the user."