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: Alta Loma, CA

User Profile:

• Female
• 40 to 49 Years Old
• Caucasian
• Area Resident for 6 to 10 years
• Attends Church 5 or more times per year

Final Grade: Well-rounded site with excellent functionality, content, and graphics, receives an above average score.

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“I did not see anything about weblogs, podcasts or newsletters, and I made an effort to find them. However, I did see sermons and an invitation to write in if you were encouraged by these sermons. The calendar, ministries and programs, all materials related to the family and what to expect when you visit were very easy to find, and in fact, didn’t require much effort at all.”
“Initially, the layout was confusing but only for about 30 seconds. Once I saw the pattern it was very simple. I had a problem with the ‘side-to-side’ aspect of the sight in that I had to use the slide to go side to side constantly for horizontal continuity, even after making adjustments in my own computer.”
“The information at the site is about as thorough as one can get. It truly left no stone unturned. It really is a superior website. There was so much information. Perhaps a little more information in regards to the dogma of the church might have been helpful.”
“Visually, this site was appealing in that the colors were easy on the eye and did not look cheap. Fonts were nice and very easy to read.”

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What is your overall first impression of this site?

“My first impression was that visually, it reminded me of one of those sites you land on that are about making money quickly-vague and ambiguous. But it did look well arranged at the top and the colors were easy on the eye. I would have preferred to have seen a nice photo of the exterior of the church upon landing on the home page.”

What would make this site better?

“A more open inclusion of people of all types. Also, a better side- to-side orientation on the visual aspect and a picture of the church on the home page.”

Would you visit this church based on the site?

“Probably.”

faithHighway Tips for improvement…
…from a design expert:

“Overall, the look of the site is not bad, but the framework of this template is very constraining. A non-flash site would allow them to more effectively use more screen space.”

…from a programming expert:

“The only item I can see is that when you navigate away from the home page and then click ‘Home’ it goes to a different link. Because it is displaying the same page with two different links, that page’s SEO rank is being split among the two links, instead of all being counted for on the main link.”

Photo By: TooFarNorth