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: Dracut, MA

User Profile:

• Male
• 18 to 24 years old
• Caucasian
• Area resident for more than 11 years
• Attends church 5 or more times per year

Final Grade: Visitor found average graphics and navigation with great functionality and content.

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“I had to scroll down to the bottom to find some basic information about the [church]. Although what I saw when I opened the page was appealing, I did not get basic information that I would like to know. There was plenty of screen space to put the links up top so I wouldn’t have to scroll down.”
“I liked that the site was easy to use and it had a complete array of parish information that I would like to know.” The visitor found that not all of the pages loaded quickly.
Despite not finding some of the content right way, our visitor was able to locate what he was looking for and found it all to be current, accurate, and easy to read.
“I liked the warm greeting of the site […]. All areas of the site were easy to use and visually appealed to me.”

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What is your overall first impression of this site?

“It was very welcoming since the page that it brought up showed a picture of a recent [event] that the [church] had and it clearly identified the church.”

What would make this site better?

“Put some links up top with the picture so basic information like where the church is and the [service] times are readily available.”

Would you visit this church based on the site?

“Definitely.”

faithHighway Tips for improvement…
…from a design expert:

“There is a line at the bottom of the site that says ‘© 1996-2004.’ That alone should be a big indicator that it is time for a redesign.  Web design has changed a lot in the past few years, and this site now looks very, very dated.”

…from a programming expert:

“This church is using a media player, which has a lot of compatibility problems.”

…from a web outreach expert:

“Increasing the site width and narrowing down the amount of content on the homepage would do wonders for the overall look.”