Media Outreach

First Impressions is facilitated through Guest Reflections. People are asked to pick a website from a church in their area at random and review it. These sites may or may not be powered by faithHighway.

Church Location: Starkville, MS

User Profile:

• Female
• 40 to 49 years old
• Caucasian
• Area Resident for less than 1 year
• Attends church 2 or more times a month

Final Grade: Many coming soon pages, outdated content, and bland graphics lead to a failing grade. ____________________________________________________________________________________

While the visitor was able to locate directions to the church and contact information, she was unable to find any kind of statement of beliefs.
“I was able to click on each ministry and find out a little about each. There are small black, empty squares by each ministry listing that may be for a picture. Under each listing is a “coming soon” message. There is a listing for Church leaders with their job title, but it lacks information about the leader’s background or their involvement and staff position. Each listing says ‘READ MORE’, but when I click on this there is no additional information. The news and events tabs have no information available and have a ‘coming soon’ message.”
“The site listed a Church calendar of events. The calendar was only updated through August 5, 2009.” Despite some out dated information, the visitor felt the information reached all kinds of people and was for the most part free of typos or errors.
“The visual flavor and/or vibe is a little boring. The colors are not eye catching, the information is not complete in some areas and although there is a WELCOME comment it is not personal and is lacking in variety and sounds routine. The site itself is bland and boring.”

_____________________________________________________________________________________

What is your overall first impression of this site?

“The very first impression I had was that the home page is very plain. There are three shades of a bland brown color. The logo for the Church is original and interesting. The tab headings are clear and simple enough to begin navigating with. There is a NEWS and an EVENTS heading. The news heading says it is coming soon and the events heading says there is no featured event in the date range. To the right is a small photo with VIEW GALLERY under it.”

What would make this site better?

“The site needs a personal touch. The welcome was not warm and inviting. The incomplete information needs to be finished and the events brought up to date. Even though I enjoyed looking at the pictures, they loaded slowly. Changing the colors of the site would be an improvement.”

Would you visit this church based on the site?

“Definitely not.”

faithHighway Tips for improvement…
…from a design expert:

“This site just seems unfinished.  It’s better to go live with a smaller, complete site and then launch a larger site when it’s ready.  Also, black text on dark brown is very hard for a lot of people to read, especially with the white background right next to it.”

…from a programming expert:

“The ‘Home’ button should probably be the first thing in the menu, instead of the last thing.  Poor usability. Site is lacking a lot of content. Url’s are complicated, which is poor practice for good search engine optimization.”

…from a web outreach expert:

“The homepage needs to have fresh content immediately!”

Photo by Takomabibelot