Nice Unit Website

[M. Golembesky]

These guys have an impressive website for their unit > http://2ndmarineraiders.org/?page_id=3469

[Capt Koch]

@CW4 Whelan hint hint nudge nudge

[M. Golembesky]

We may need to step up our game (no pun intended).

Edited September 19, 2018 by 1stLt Golembesky

[Osbourne]

Damn. Ist cool ja 

[Specter]

Their TS has like....5 channels and no one in it..

[Capt Koch]

its almost as if some people don't use ts constantly

[Maj (Ret) Ray]

I'm not a fan. The excessive use of media kills loading times, and the embedded Youtube videos don't even fit correctly on the mobile version--so why even make us waste our bandwidth for content that doesn't show properly? I also hate the black-white-yellow color scheme: the further down you scroll, the more empty-yet-annoyingly-dense it looks. And no one reads blocks of text, let alone blocks of white text on dark backgrounds.

 

4 hours ago, Capt (Ret) Koch said:

@CW4 Whelan hint hint nudge nudge

Not if I have anything to say about it.

[Capt Koch]

my only irk on the website was that it didn't really scale up well on big monitors

[Sgt Waller]

18 hours ago, GySgt Specter said:

Their TS has like....5 channels and no one in it..

No one on it, because we're still in the middle of the week and it's a german (or german speaking at least) unit. Time zones my friend :). Also it's a 15 man unit apparently, so you don't need a ton of channels. 

Also their forums are pretty active from the looks of it: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/secondforecon/

 

 

Overall I do like their website though, only irk i have is some of the text and headline formatting. I don't understand why they would host a seperate website for their forums though.

 

[MSgt Falconer]

Not a fan, feels cluttered. Then again I know fuck-all about website design.

[Capt (Ret) Bazarnicki]

8 hours ago, CW2 (Ret) Waller said:

Overall I do like their website though, only irk i have is some of the text and headline formatting. I don't understand why they would host a seperate website for their forums though.

 

This is probably due to how they might have their hosting set up - there are places that can host wordpress for you, with addon support and all of that, but it would only host wordpress. They almost all let you use your own domain.

But I don't think many of them would also host a forum for you. And they probably don't want to go to the effort of paying for a forum host as well, so they go for a free one. Free forum hosts generally don't let you use your own domain.

 

3 hours ago, SSgt Falconer said:

Not a fan, feels cluttered. Then again I know fuck-all about website design.

This is nowhere near cluttered. Everything is presented with clear separation, you can easily make out sections of content. A main header image, a single Youtube video, a 3 card info section ("important notes"), and a very web standard 2-1 main/side bar layout for news posts.

 

The only real criticisms I would have with this is that the news is so far down on the main page that its pretty hidden under the fold, and there is no clear Call to Action anywhere near the top when a user first loads a page. They have a tiny recruitment link in the nav, which is fine, but it blends in with the other links. There is no "Join Now" or anything like that at first glace. The general idea is that average people will spend barely any time on any one page, so you have to have something prominent, obviously stands out, calls on the user to take an action, and that should never have to be scrolled down to be seen (but that's more marketing type stuff the design specifically I guess).

 

Aside from that, the pitch black to stark white is a huge contrast. While I don't hate it, i think they could play with more grey colors and make a bit easier on the eyes.

 

Over all, not a bad website, and I've seen way worse. Its pretty easy to get a decent design with Wordpress though since it has such a wide user base, and tons of themes.

[M. Golembesky]

6 hours ago, 1stLt Bazarnicki said:

This is probably due to how they might have their hosting set up - there are places that can host wordpress for you, with addon support and all of that, but it would only host wordpress. They almost all let you use your own domain.

But I don't think many of them would also host a forum for you. And they probably don't want to go to the effort of paying for a forum host as well, so they go for a free one. Free forum hosts generally don't let you use your own domain.

 

This is nowhere near cluttered. Everything is presented with clear separation, you can easily make out sections of content. A main header image, a single Youtube video, a 3 card info section ("important notes"), and a very web standard 2-1 main/side bar layout for news posts.

 

The only real criticisms I would have with this is that the news is so far down on the main page that its pretty hidden under the fold, and there is no clear Call to Action anywhere near the top when a user first loads a page. They have a tiny recruitment link in the nav, which is fine, but it blends in with the other links. There is no "Join Now" or anything like that at first glace. The general idea is that average people will spend barely any time on any one page, so you have to have something prominent, obviously stands out, calls on the user to take an action, and that should never have to be scrolled down to be seen (but that's more marketing type stuff the design specifically I guess).

 

Aside from that, the pitch black to stark white is a huge contrast. While I don't hate it, i think they could play with more grey colors and make a bit easier on the eyes.

 

Over all, not a bad website, and I've seen way worse. Its pretty easy to get a decent design with Wordpress though since it has such a wide user base, and tons of themes.

Just saying, at first glance it looked very professional and good for recruiting. Just sharing for constructive thought. 

[Capt (Ret) Bazarnicki]

1 hour ago, 1stLt Golembesky said:

Just saying, at first glance it looked very professional and good for recruiting. Just sharing for constructive thought. 

I wasn't disagreeing. Just giving some feedback as someone who has worked in the web field professionally, since other people seemed to have issues with it.

I was definitely nit-picking on purpose.

[GySgt Cole]

Unit websites that link directly to the forums with no landing page are lame, I asked for a landing for basically the entire time I ran S-5.

The people looking to join large units (read: 15-22y/os not in the military or older guys who probably have prior service) love nice landing pages with cool aesthetic moto shit (and in the case of the older guys proof of authenticity and MISSION STATEMENTS) and probably don't care about load times since it's 2018 and people playing video games for at least 4 hours a week probably have good internet.

Sure the page linked isn't the nicest shit I've seen but at least it's something

Here's some of my favorites:

https://4thib.co.uk/

http://4thmrb.net/

http://1stmrb.us/

http://www.unscdf.us/

note how two of them are MRBs which while they may or may not be shit units will catch more eyes than our website (the heist of 3dmrb.com didn't help)

But what do I know I just worked in recruiting for a year and talked to practically every recruit that came through and spent the off hours talking to other units to see what worked for them 🤷‍♂️

 

[Maj Whelan]

A landing page is being worked on but I have a job and a university degree to worry about too.

[Capt (Ret) Jones]

Just now, CW4 Whelan said:

A landing page is being worked on but I have a job and a university degree to worry about too.

While I'm not entirely well versed in CSS/HTML (yet), I would love to assist if you're interested in another hand.

[Osbourne]

It’s good but it’s not quite Carling