HELP! Website Content & Design

[TeaLeaf]

Your community needs YOU!

As you have probably noticed a little lower down the forum, there is a new topic for Website Development and sub-sections for Content and Design.  We're now at the stage where we're looking for volunteers to help us in these areas.

Design
Whilst not a complete description, the design function will consider several important aspects of our website, including our front door to the world (the home page), how best to structure our sections, the FAQ & reference information, how we best provide our information to members, the linear (or otherwise) flow of visitors around our site etc.  It's more of a top-level function to see how we best structure & deploy the many CMS functions of our forum software for the benefit of our existing members and to help attract & retain new members to support gaming habits, whilst making sure we provide what is wanted or needed by both.  

Consideration of the design will need to take into account the overhead required to maintain the site content for the preferred design and this will form part of a decision making process when coming to design recommendations.

Parts of the design aspect will also include production of our own artwork so that we can use our own images to to customise the look & feel of our website with our own custom-graphics.  So if you graphic skills then this might be an area you are keen to help out with!

Finally, the design team may also require experienced website coders if specific custom pages or elements of the website are required. If you have experience in writing websites then this might suit you!

Content
This section is a little more obvious as to what will be required.  Some elements of the existing forum will need re-writing to better suit the new layout/design.  Other parts of the forum might move from a stickied forum post to an article in a separate section or an FAQ.   Volunteers will need to be available to help re-write these or write new content from scratch to meet the needs of the community.  So if you have a flair for words and want to get involved in the new dMw website then this part of the website development might be for you.

And there's no reason you shouldn't help out in both areas if you want to do so!

The Obvious!
It should not need saying, but to avoid unintentional offence at a later date:

• the Design & Content elements will need final sign off by the Community Admins who hope to monitor & where necessary participate in the discussions in each section.
• if you volunteer to help with the website development there is no guarantee that your work will make it into the final website - there might be something better submitted or the design might change and your contribution no longer needed, but whatever happens please do not get offended in such situations.
• just like 'Vision On', your efforts will be appreciated even if we might not be able to show them all on the new website.

If you want to volunteer to help out then please post here in this thread and note if you can commit to helping with the community with either the Design aspect, the Content aspect or both.  

We decided to restrict access to the new Web Development sections to those that will be helping with the workload.  We did this not to hide what is being done (after all, anyone can volunteer), but to make sure that we had only stakeholders involved in the discussions who would be motivated to reach conclusions rather than becoming an enormous talking shop that would then struggle to reach conclusions.  

Members of each team will be readily identified by a temporary 'forum award' so that people can see who is involved in which elements of the project.

So, if you think you can help then post in this thread please. (noting which aspect(s) you want to become involved with)

Thank you in advance for supporting our new website development!

[GhostMjr]

I am more of a content person and am more than willing to help out!

I can write articles organise interviews photos shoots if needed and help get things going on the content side of things.

I have a few ideas once we're ready to group and post things up maybe a new section could be an idea we can go from there as a team?

[T-Bag]

I don't mind going through the forums and making a list of the branches I think would make things more streamlined. For instance the number of times I've found a post via the "New Posts" button and had no idea how to browse back to it.

Basic idea is to break the unsupported games section into several catagories: Bargains, FPS, Strategy, Indie, RPG and then an upto date thread in the main directory mentioning games (with links to their forum page) that are being considered for trial or adoption by dmw etc.

[Zootoxin]

Artwork here

[Penfold]

Talking of which Zoots, would you mind please knocking us up a couple of badges for Website Design and content? Don't need to be too heavy duty as they're only temporary.

Thanks

[Benny]

I'll help with content if I can and it's up to scratch. Expanding on Ghosts posts...(I've already coined a phrase there) how about people actually start writing content, reviews/whatever and posting in the forum, then it's just a lift and go as and when needed.

As a side note I see TG have changed to the same format..

[smilodon]

Just to clarify, we're lookin for help with the static content (community info, game info etc.) as well as any possible ongoing contributed stuff (articles, reviews etc). So even if you don't relish the idea of making regular contributions there's still plenty to do with the existing stuff we have. Much of it is in good order but I'm sure some of it will need re-wites and updates.

[Sparko]

willing to help in artwork, reviews ect...:g:

[kregoron]

im not really a artwork /coding guy xD

But ill help with whatever i can, reviews, forums clean up (CS section needs a overhaul badly, but no admin rights in main section) and general tech support

[TeaLeaf]

Keep the offers of help coming please folks, we'll be opening the sections shortly and getting on with the task ahead.

[delankster]

Artwork is my thing, but i'm happy to help out in any way thats needed

[suicidal_monkey]

Can't promise anything but I may be of some help wrt coding or data processing type stuff, depends what you need really :-)

[TeaLeaf]

Badge access to those who volunteered should be coming out this weekend, so we can start discussing issues in the private Web Development topic imminently.

[Lexander]

I'm with Kreg, not extremely good in anything but I can help with something hopefully

[b00n]

If you need another pair of hands for coding... well, I only have one that works very well just now but if it helps to spread the load, then count me in.