RE: [WSG] Good radio station sites?
Title: FW: [WSG] Good radio station sites? Thank you Peter, thats exactly the idea I had in mind. I could design it myself but I think its an opportunity for a designer starting out in standards/css/xhtml design. Its a project that doesnt pay anything in money terms. But therell be credit on the site, and the designer can put it in their portfolio. There is no restrictions on the design, except for good sense, and the fact that we don't want to change our logo because its used in lots of places. So a designer has a pretty wide brief. Its a way for a designer to learn to design a site that covers a lot of different types of pages, and using only CSS for styling. On a resume thats going to look pretty good. A media site, designed to the latest standards. Looks good to me. Not many people have time to take on probono projects, but I have 3 I look after, as part of my commitment to my hobbies and a way of adding back to organisations that do a lot for me. But it also offers me the way to use my skills and learn to do things where I don't have a client wanting that done right now. For example, when I needed to learn how to convert a site from old fashioned tables based layout to CSS based layout, I didnt have a client ready to do that at the time. But I have these probono sites, and I picked one for a re-vamp. I needed to learn how to make a content management system, and didnt have a well-heeled client ready to build one, so I built one for one of my probono sites. If this site works out as well as we hope, were going to be making an issue of it on the station. Our listenership covers most of the Sydney metro area and we run ads pointing to the site 8 times a day. Were going to be raising its profile a lot in the national radio organisation CBAA and other media groups. Were going to be putting effort into making it a feature of the station. Our station is one of the oldest community stations in the country 25 years continuous 24hour a day broadcasting and we are technically very advanced. For example our sports calling equipment is more advanced than 2GBs. We might run the station on a shoestring but the equipment we use is state-of-the-art. Its an all-digital station and our gear isnt old second hand cast-offs from other stations. Were one of the few radio stations in the country that can run 3 outside broadcasts simultaneously with no one back in the studio in town. (we recently had a group doing crosses from a hospital fundraiser, and calling the NRL game at Panthers Stadium at the same time as running the station from the Hawkesbury Show from our OB bus). The station is prepared to have a go at things. As to the design brief, the station management has accepted my idea that we should rebuild our pretty boring site into something thats a showcase an example for others to follow. Weve laid out a pretty ambitious siteplan for the content were going to have, and I have ambitious plans for how Im going to build it. I want to use the latest coldfusion techniques, and use XHTML strict if I can manage it, so the resulting code is right up to date. And we need a design thats eyecatching, up to date, and cuts some new ground in media web sites. I hope someone sees some personal benefit from committing their time to doing a design for it. Ive found doing probono work gives me the confidence to say yes I can build a site like that because with probono I can take risks and try things I wouldnt be game to try on a clients dime. I havent had any offers so far Peter, but if I don't, Ill definitely take you up on it. Thanks for your offer. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com From: Peter Ottery [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, 16 July 2004 10:52 AM To: 'Michael Kear' Subject: FW: [WSG] Good radio station sites? Hi Michael, sounds like a really worthwhile cause and good on you for taking on the challenge! :) I'm guessing (and hoping) you get a few offers from young designers that have some time on their hands and are willing to contribute some design talent to the project. But in the event that you dont - let me know and I'd be prepared to contribute a design for it. What i mean is - theres potentially some young and talented kids out there that could really benefit from adding something like this to their portfolio (and get something out of the exercise for themselves) but yeah - i know what its like, and everyone is busy - so if you dont get any offers to help out - let me know and I'd love to help out. pete Peter Ottery Head of Design f2 Network (02) 8596 4450 [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.f2.com.au
Re: [WSG] Good radio station sites?
I'd be interested in John Horner's comments on this, as he's a member of this list. Hey, put me on the spot why don't you? Given the ABC is a government organisation shouldn't they really be fulfilling some requirements of the DDA? Yes, yes we should, though traditionally Triple J has operated very much as their own unit, both in terms of online and the organisation in general, and that's probably as it should be. I really can't answer for their decisions or even be sure what they were. Nice design tho'. Well exactly. The only comment I feel I can make about ABC Online in general is that we're changing, if slowly, and if websites don't validate and aren't standards-based or accessible, it's definitely not because the web-developers don't understand the issues. Have You Validated Your Code? John Horner(+612 / 02) 9333 2110 Senior Developer, ABC Online http://www.abc.net.au/ * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Good radio station sites?
My research of radio station sites in the last 48 hours has told me that the vast majority of them are ... well to put it bluntly, they're a wank. Few of them provide content that's relevant to the activities of the stations, aside from program guides and some pictures of some of the hosts. But of course that could well mean that the stations don't have much of an idea themselves about a purpose for their existence. No sense of involvement with their communities, and trying to engage the activities of their listeners. I haven't found a single one yet that's even close to being built on web standards. The notable exceptions would be the BBC and the Australian ABC sites and the US NPR sites which have heaps of content related to the station's shows and activities. The ones that do provide relevant content are pretty dismal in web standards terms - pretty awful looking and the code is amateur for most of them. So we're embarking on what we hope is going to be a different kind of radio station site. Our station is a community station, running on a shoestring, but our sound isn't amateur so our web site can't be. Our station is supposed to be a part of our local community and we're going to have a go at involving the community in the web site as well as the station. Community events, local news that sort of thing, if we can figure out the way to do it without taking a lot of ongoing effort. And we're going to build it using XHTML. Strict if we can go that far. We're going to fully separate content from logic from presentation so updates in the future will be easy. In other words it's going to be a proof of the concept that building to web standards saves development time, effort and ongoing maintenance. Even though it's a probono site for me, we're going to keep records of the time spent. Does anyone want to have a go at the design side of it? We want to produce a flexible, outstanding standards-based site and have few limitations on what we can and can't do, other than functional limitations. We can't pay money - there's no money for the project. It's my contribution to the station, but we can pay with ads on the station. It would suit someone working around western Sydney if the ads would mean something to your business. Cheers Mike Kear Windsor, NSW, Australia AFP Webworks http://afpwebworks.com -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of John Horner Sent: Thursday, 15 July 2004 5:32 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [WSG] Good radio station sites? I'd be interested in John Horner's comments on this, as he's a member of this list. Hey, put me on the spot why don't you? Given the ABC is a government organisation shouldn't they really be fulfilling some requirements of the DDA? Yes, yes we should, though traditionally Triple J has operated very much as their own unit, both in terms of online and the organisation in general, and that's probably as it should be. I really can't answer for their decisions or even be sure what they were. Nice design tho'. Well exactly. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
RE: [WSG] Good radio station sites?
Miles wrote: gt;Driving to work yesterday I heard JJJ talking about the site redesign. gt;I was really hoping that I'd find something standards-based but it gt;wasn't to be... Doesn't validate at all and even things as simple as gt;alt parameters are nowhere to be found. I thought that, being a radio gt;station, they might hold their sight-impaired listeners in higher gt;regard. I was also eagerly awaiting Triple J's redesign - for the same reasons as yourself. I thought for sure that they would have smelt the change in the air and gone for something better...Alas, I was bitterly dissapointed. Their content has always been great, aswell as the fact that the presenters really do read messages/requests posted on the site while they are on air - making the site a true part of the station. I'm seriously considering sending them a detailed list of small alterations that could have long-term benefits, but time is just too precious at the moment. _ Love Movies? You'll love HomeScreen. Rental DVDs - no late fees! Go to: http://www.ninemsn.homescreen.com.au/account/freetrial/?.promo=9msn_hotmail_ tagline * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
[WSG] Good radio station sites?
Does anyone know of any decent standards-based radio station sites? Ive been looking around lately for a project and I havent found a single one that is any good at all from an accessibility/standards standpoint. It seems for the majority of radio stations theyve either let their promotions department go crazy and produce something totally off-the-wall in design terms, then tried their darndest to force html to reproduce that on a screen, or theyve gone to the other extreme and got Billy Jones from next door to do it, because he does HTML at high school and hell only cost them $50, a tshirt and a couple of free CDs for the project. Can anyone point me to any really professional, high-quality, standards-based radio station web sites? Cheers Mike Kear AFP Webworks Windsor, NSW, Australia http://afpwebworks.com
Re: [WSG] Good radio station sites?
JJJ just revampted their entire site, but its 100% table based. nothing that neat Michael Kear wrote: Does anyone know of any decent standards-based radio station sites? Ive been looking around lately for a project and I havent found a single one that is any good at all from an accessibility/standards standpoint. It seems for the majority of radio stations theyve either let their promotions department go crazy and produce something totally off-the-wall in design terms, then tried their darndest to force html to reproduce that on a screen, or theyve gone to the other extreme and got Billy Jones from next door to do it, because he does HTML at high school and hell only cost them $50, a tshirt and a couple of free CDs for the project. Can anyone point me to any really professional, high-quality, standards-based radio station web sites? Cheers Mike Kear AFP Webworks Windsor, NSW, Australia http://afpwebworks.com * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
Re: [WSG] Good radio station sites?
Hi I'd be interested in John Horner's comments on this, as he's a member of this list. Given the ABC is a government organisation shouldn't they really be fulfilling some requirements of the DDA? I'd have thought making the feature image (Chris and Craig at the mo) a non background image would be a good idea (i.e so blind users can 'get the picture'). Nice design tho'. Cheers James Miles Tillinger wrote: Driving to work yesterday I heard JJJ talking about the site redesign. I was really hoping that I'd find something standards-based but it wasn't to be... Doesn't validate at all and even things as simple as alt parameters are nowhere to be found. I thought that, being a radio station, they might hold their sight-impaired listeners in higher regard. Cheers, Miles. * The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list getting help *
