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: Knoxville, TN

User Profile:

• Female
• 40 to 49 years old
• Caucasian
• Area Resident 3 to 5 years
• Attends Church 1 to 4 times per year

Final Grade: Our visitor found the graphics and functionality to be about average, but both the navigation and content were lacking.

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“It was easy to find out the church’s beliefs; however I found no information on the pastor. There was a link to some family photos and his name is throughout the site, but there is no actual information about him or his background.”
While the site functioned well for the most part, the visitor did find some slow loading pages.
“I did not like not being able to find anything out about the pastor or the rest of the staff. I also found a couple of grammar errors.”
“The site was well set up for visitors. The site was clean, neat, and visually appealing.” Despite saying the site was visually appealing, the visitor rated the it low it being personally appealing.

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What is your overall first impression of this site?

“The home page was comprehensive and informative. The only thing I do not care for is the pastor is front and center. It makes it seem like the church is all about him and his leadership. The actual setup is easy on the eyes and easy to navigate.”

What would make this site better?

“This site could be improved by providing more information about the pastor, adding a blog about church activities or a forum for members and visitors to inform and interact, and more information on its affiliations. The only information I could find about the church is that is independent.”

Would you visit this church based on the site?

“Probably not.”

faithHighway Tips for improvement…
…from a design expert:

“This church obviously has a lot going on – which is great. For a website though, it is usually a good idea to simplify things as much as possible. Give visitors no more than 2-3 options for what you really want them to do. The whole website should be accessible, but a website can be much more effective if you drive visitors to a specific call to action.”

…from a programming expert:

“This site is very well put together.  There were a couple pages that had broken images, but other than that, I do not see any problems with it.”

…from a web outreach expert:

“There’s two main navigation bars on the homepage. Combining them might help making site navigation easier.”

Photo by MyklRoventine