This is what happen when you outsource to competent people (in this case, CBS Sports) as opposed to turning to your buddy across the hall and telling him to re-design the website.
NCStatePride
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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^I don't even think they should look at it as 'out sourcing' since there are likely hundreds, if not thousands, of NCSU alumni that would probably be willing to make and manage the GoPack.com website like it's been done. Like I eluded, I knew 3 aerospace guys that actually graduated and started their own web company doing this exact thing and their sites look pretty baller.
Then again, the problem with NCSU management is not that they also default to 'homers'; it's that they find the most inept, incapable 'homers' possible and get upset when their 'home grown talent' doesn't pan out.
mikeD
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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^Kind of like Harrelson. Designed by an NCSU grad student, but is now sinking into the ground. I'm sure we had plenty of capable engineers to design and build an appropriate building. But administration went with the idea of a 12 story spiral with a library on the top. Brilliant!
NCStatePride
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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Tangent: they were suppose to demo that building in 2008, according to the University when I started college. You can imagine my disappointment at first when I heard they were demo-ing the building... then after having a few classes there, you can imagine my disappointment when they didn't demo the building. My mother (Math Ed '80) says she loves that building.
gso packbacker
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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Wow, what a welcome relief! I got so giddy I even borrowed the picture on the main page as my avatar. After some adjustment of course.
newt
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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There are also twitter accounts set up for most sports - click the "follow us" bird...
zwolf
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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Meh.
It still quickly cycles through the first line of each story instead of just putting the text of the stories on the page so I can read them. And there's a ticker at the bottom; I'd prefer a list of recent events and the results. Let me scroll through it myself.
The spacing is well thought out, though.
NCStatePride
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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^I think some of that is just the trends of web design. Yahoo!'s homepage does the same thing with the news tickers and flash-animated headlines. I kind of agree it's annoying, but it just has a crisper appearance and catches your interest more.
WIFF
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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Nice redesign. Definitely an improvement but it still feels cluttered. Can we please get rid of that awful font for "NC State"? It is so cheap looking.
zwolf, I was a little underwhelmed, as well. Still WORLDS better than the previous one, and joining the CBS Network should mean it will continue evolving in the future rather than remaining stagnant.
- Pros: Overall nice layout. The mouse-over menus are easier to use. Looks like it was designed present-day, not in 2003. Nice incorporation of Flash in the main section.
- Cons: Still have the annoying floating pop-up ad on every load. My experience every time I visit shouldn't start off on a frustrating note; Too many different fonts being used. I counted at least 5--the seriffed font "WOLFPACK", the sans-seriffed menu bar font, Helvetica in the menus themselves, Tahoma in the "Recent News" and main section, Times New Roman in the Twitter sections. I'm probably missing some. Needs to be no more than two--I'm hopeful that is a result of merging old content with new and will be resolved in the future. Still EXTREMELY busy. There has to be a way to cut down on some of the content on the front page while still driving folks to it. That many items on the front page screams to me "We're afraid you're only going to visit this page and go no further into the site, so let's hit you with everything we've got (that will fit)." More usually means less. Look at this site, mine, and many other built on Wordpress Software. Lots of white space that draws the reader/visitor to the important content.
I tend to nit pick, so my cons are naturally more harsh than the glowing praise of my pros, but overall I DO like the upgrade. Hopefully we will see continued tweaks as old content is moved over, particularly in the look-and-feel of not just GoPack.com, but the Wolfpack Club's page and the online store page.
@WIFF: I forgot to mention that. That funky font has to go, or at least minimized in its usage. It looks like doodoo, especially paired with the "WOLFPACK" underneath it that doesn't match.
mafpack
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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I totally agree James. That cluttered busy feeling was the first thing I thought of (and noted) when I first came to the site. Granted, a lot of that feels like a hold over from the previous site's design and probably comes from (as you stated) the Athletic Department's desire to have everything made available, all at once, on the main page, the first time you visit the site, always.
Ick.
If sites like Google, Bing, eBay, cNET, Wikipedia, about.com, etc. have taught us anything, it's that consumers like to be able to understand what they're looking at, quickly and accurately, without having to spend enormous amounts of time reading over each pixel of a webpage.
They don't often mind digging into a site, especially if the content is worthwhile, but they'd prefer to spend their time in a smoothly simple browsing experience, instead of feeling like they should be busting out the reading glasses, dictionary and notepad just to make it off of your homepage.
Hopefully with time the site can be cleaned up (fonts, color schemes, branding, etc) and simplified down to what the user really wants to see when they first come to the site. As a thought, I'm just going to jot out what things I would absolutely want links to and what things can just be situated in the site structure.
Must Haves
1. Top News Stories - I think this part is actually valuable and gives great visibility to a variety of sports/athletes. Specifically non-revenue sports.
2. Links to individual sports pages - Schedules for these sports can be found in each individual sections, no need to have it's own very special drop down box.
3. Tickets - How do I buy them, make it easy, make it simple, make it fast.
4. Trend Links - Social media links like Facebook and Twitter can be consolidated and cleaned up, no need to blast 1/4 of your homepage with them. We get it, you're excited to finally be relevant.
5. Wolfpack Club - Simple gif link like they have now is perfect.
6. White space (or black space if it fits the theme) - don't take up every available pixel with crap filler. Just put what you need out there and nothing else.
Must NOT Haves
1. Advertisements. At all. Anywhere on the main page. And yes that includes that God damn annoying pop up 'buy a friggin sweatshirt' creative they keep spamming. Do frequency caps mean nothing to you people?
2. Any more links for that retarded 'WTH' campaign. What kind of moron looked at that and thought, sure the claw looks like enough like an 'i' and sticks out enough so that everyone will think 'WITH' (which is still stupid) and not think, 'Haha, those idiots, they have a What the Hell bumper sticker'. Morons. Try asking someone who understands popular culture about your campaigns first, like, I don't know, a student?
3. GIANT image links to every partner institution and their mother. No. Just stop it.
4. Daily Shows, really? Tune in August 16th... so wait, you're taking up a huge portion of the middle of your site for a series of links whose start date is sometime next month? Oy ve.
5. Yearbooks ... it's a tab, to a link, to an image, of nothing. Sigh.
I'm going to stop now. I think I feel an eye twitch coming on.
mafpack
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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The Grinch
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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You guys are insane. That is a good, clean, well organized and professional looking page.
Sites like ebay and CNet are way more cluttered than this page. I have no clue what the point of about.com, even after going to their homepage. How is that a good thing?
The yearbook thing? Probably an unfortunate typo in a twitter feed, a working link has since been posted there. The 'WITH' thing sounds like a person problem, and an unrelated issue to the webpage design. As for the ads, I've only been able to replicate the pop-up thingy once and in IE, can't get it in Chrome or Firefox. That was really annoying though.
I don't want to get personal, but R&R is a blog. Its a great read, don't get me wrong, but its a series of articles... not exactly a lot to look at. If it weren't for the subtitles it could very well be some HS wrestler's personal blog. As is every other wordpress blog.
I feel like if I sent you guys each $100 checks, you'd complain about having to drive to the bank to cash them.
mafpack
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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That's funny, my 'blank' post above yours used to say something to the effect of, 'And all of that to say, I still like the update and the site in general. Just posting that here closer to my /rant post in case anyone forgot about my initial reaction.'
The yearbook link is still broken, it takes you to a .gif of the same image you just clicked on.
The ads are all far to prominent and large, 300x250 and a 728x90, on the main page and every where else it seems, including in line display creatives on articles... meh. As I said previously, this (internet advertising) is what I do for a living and I realize the ads are necessary to a point. However, I don't personally feel they're really necessary for a page like this, that has external funding beyond the ads themselves, but I'll concede that they'd like to make money on the site itself. Regardless, the design of the site suffers when the site has such distinct color/theme (which is VERY well done by the way) and the creatives (ads) are completely different and in prominent locations on the page. It really takes away from the site design.
Which is the very same reason I was so happy when SFN stopped jamming 4 and 5 300x250's down the right column of their pages. The current look is much cleaner :)
As a thought, without the need to jam adverts and links to everything under the sun on one page, a site like http://www.ibm.com/us/en/ can be achieve relatively easily and still contain a TON of useful information. An example of an athletics page would be Penn State's site, also managed by CBS Sports but without so much bulk and clutter - http://www.gopsusports.com/ (but even they still have the stupid popover floating advertisments, gah!) Granted, I looked around the NCAA a bit before posting this and good clean athletics websites really are few and far between, and ours is one of the better ones after looking at the rest. But good can always be better. Just say'n.
And if you'd like to send me a $100 check, I'll be happy to provide a work address where you can mail it! :D
The Grinch
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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Good point about the ads, I forgot that I run ad-block on both Firefox and Chrome (which I use interchangeably). I just get black spots, which seems to fit fine with the theme, and the one time I checked IE I guess I got lucky with Coca-Cola commercials, which also fit the theme. I always forget because I excluded SFN, and have no desire to see any other ads (sorry bud!).
Unfortunately typing this message I have irreparably damaged a part of my arm exclusively used to write checks.
PackerInRussia
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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I also thought it was kind of busy and the pop-up ad was annoying. It looked like all of the same info in a different format, so maybe over time they can cut back a little bit.
goforit
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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So what is taking the place of PackPass?
scott_m99
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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I like the new improvements...but I'm sure that you can go to the site today, read all the info...come back in a week and see the same stuff with no new news
Just because I was curious, I went back and counted all the different elements on the home page to support the "busy-ness" assertion:
- Top bar
- Title bar with eight shortcut buttons
- Menu bar (11 menus)
- Advertising buttons on the side (2)
- Main image section (3 tabs)
- Recent news box
- Large square ad below it
- Section below the main section (4 tabs)
- Store/auctions box (2 tabs)
- Join Wolfpack Club ad
- Scrollable flash box (9 elements)
- Email, FB, etc. box (4 tabs/elements)
- WITH ad
- Long banner ad
- State logo
- ACC logo
- NCAA logo
- CBS logo
- CBS Site finder
- Bottom links (6 links)
- Ticker at the bottom
That's 21 separate sections on the page. If you count up the tabs and elements, that's an additional 33 buttons or tabs on top of that 21 for a total 54 different "things." On ONE page. The most IMPORTANT page of the site.
mafpack sparked a good idea, I think: Structure the front landing page much like Google's. Have one, strong image + web address (the logo, perhaps?) that loads initially. Once the visitor moves their mouse or starts to interact with the page, the most critical links fade into view, perhaps with some additional art. Clean, elegant, and visually striking. Grab folks' attention and then GRADUALLY get them in front of all the links, ads, social networking links, etc. you want with subsequent pages.
But AGAIN, this is a BIG step in the RIGHT direction.
NCStatePride
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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At this point, I actually like the look enough to say this: move on to content. I'd love to see them increment their over-haul efforts between asthetics and qualitative content that is up-to-date and comprehensive of all NC State's sports (at least major sports).
This entire site is completely worthless if come game-day, our score-tracker links us to our opponent's website. I'll never forget that blunder...
For a similar site on the CBS Network that's somewhat less cluttered and better laid out, IMO, visit FSU's site:
There are still a lot of page elements, but they feel more logically laid out and prioritized. And the number of ads, or at least their intrusiveness, is diminished.
phillypacker
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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I don't think it is that much of an improvement.
1. I count 8 different navigation bars. These should be consolidated down to two or three at the most.
2. It has way too many graphic elements that compete with each other. For instance, the top black bar has 1. "gopack.com: the official home of wolfpack athletics," then 2. "buy tickets," then 3. a "shop store," then 4. an NC State radio button, then 5. a web button, then 6. a search bar. The bar below that, count 'em : 1. Block S NC logo, 2. NC State Wolfpack. 3. Pic of wolves, 4. belltower, 5. social networking icons.
3. Why is there a cardinal in the block below the main slide? If I want to use Twitter, I see the icon up in the social networking menu.
4. Why do we need pictures in picture in the larger slide? Those 6 boxes on top of the main image?
5. The ads on the right are not meaningfully distinguished from the content portion of the site.
6. The state logo or NC State appears 8 times on the page.
I think it looks like a grocery store circular, just lots of chaos all over the place. Simple elegant design says valuable. A chaos of boxes, birds, flags, text everywhere says cheap. I could not be more disappointed. This site neglects the most basic notions of web page organization and aesthetics. FSU's site is not great but it leans more toward what I am talking about.
NCStatePride
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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I think you guys are over-analyzing it a bit. Actually, go to FSU's site, then navigate to GoPack.com. Am I the only one that noticed these sites are just templates of each other (with subtle changes)? Multiple toolbars? I see a lot of "layers" with tabs, but that's a bit different from a toolbar. The bottom line is that not everyone is ever going to be pleased with the GoPack site, especially in a community with so many tech-saavy people. To me, you want a site that the lay-person can come to, identify all information they want quickly, and easily navigate to deeper layers to get more specific info. I see a similar toolbar to what we had before under the logo banner, a ticker for scores, headlines, upcoming events, and social networking plugs for those into that sort of thing. I can't imagine what else you do or do not want on the homepage of the site. The only complaint I have, at the moment, is it looks like the layer containing "Recent News" is broken, i.e. it doesn't have the same height as the "Headline" block and it appears that it should.
Saying you don't care for it is fair and probably even saying things could be better is completely fair, but come on, let's not over react. If some of you guys have already forgotten what the old site looked like, I envy you.
GoldenChain
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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IMPORVEMENT WHAT FREAKIN' IMPORVEMENT?????!!!!!
For example. Talking about running backs since Ted Brown I wanted to look up Billy Ray Vickers stats.
I run a Yahoo search and get this list.
The second of which is supposedly a video on GOPACK. Click it...."We're sorry, the page you requested does not exist".
SOoooooo, since I'm on the site I run a search of Billy Ray on GoPack, come up with this crap! .
Go to the Football Page.
Side menu right says TEAM LINKS.
There is a PDF listed as YEARLY RECORDS.
Click it, "We're sorry, the page you requested does not exist".
GREAT IMPORVEMENT!!!!!
Billy Ray, you simply don't exist anymore in the history of NC State.
AND WE'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A FRICKIN' TECHNOLOGY SCHOOL???!!!
I hope NASA, or the Defense Department, or any major corps don't check out our web sites before awarding grants!
NCStatePride
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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^I was looking at the ticketing pages and they are the same old pages, as well. I think this homepage is just an introduction for the site. What I hope the GoPack system does that most other NC State systems DON'T do is follow through with the update. I can't tell you how many websites NC State has that, once you dig into them, you start finding non-functional fragments of older website versions.
NCStatePride
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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BTW, I looked at the web addresses you posted, GC, and I think this is a bug with how they defined their links.
http://www.gopack.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/ncst/sports/m-footbl/auto_pdf/yearlyrecords
That link was embedded in the longer address you posted and gets you (I think) to where you wanted to go. Basically, someone made a bunch of updates and overlooked some of the more simple mistakes made.
GoldenChain
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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I don't know what you do to screw up PDF filed pages. Even if the site changed I would think all the archived data is the school's property.
NCStatePride
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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^Its a problem with how they set up the links. Looks to me like they added some quotations where they shouldn't be in the code.
mafpack
Member
Posted 1 month ago
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LoL - they pointed the Yearly Records link to:
http://www.gopack.com/sports/m-footbl/Your PDF has been successfully uploaded http://www.gopack.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/ncst/sports/m-footbl/auto_pdf/yearlyrecords
Just take out the nonsensical part (copy+paste fail!) at the beginning and the actual URL works:
http://www.gopack.com/auto_pdf/p_hotos/s_chools/ncst/sports/m-footbl/auto_pdf/yearlyrecords
