Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
The new site!
You may remember my critique of Fire Engineering’s website a while back (read it here). The whole thing was kind of impromptu at the time and was done because I got pissed off one day. I look at the site everyday and I always had to scroll down just to see what was new. I was surprised to find out that they were actually working on a brand new site at the time. As a matter of fact I got a comment directly from Bobby Halton, the editor of Fire Engineering.
The new site is live. I like it. I feel as though I was the catalyst for change and they listened to my every word. Ok, I am full of s@#$, but the look in the end is exactly what I wanted. I doubt I had much to do with it, but I am happy. As with most new websites or redesigns, there is a honeymoon period where the readers get used to it and find bugs with it.
One thing I do hate is that damn ad that unravels the homepage. I hated it on the old site, I hate it on the new site. However, I understand completely why it is there. It pays the bills. I can only imagine how many accidental clicks that darn ad gets.
I think the new navigation is tops! I think they got the right for sure!
Old Fire Engineering Site...blah
Then there are the guys who just hate change. Any change at all. They get pissed off then they have to change their underwear once a week. Those guys piss me off. They will be there in the forums somewhere lurking wanting the old site back. Blah…
The biggest problem I have seen with sites like FireEngineering.com and Firehouse.com is trying to keep all the information organized. We are talking about 10+ years of information. If you don’t plan well in the beginning you will fall prey to poor navigation and poor organization. I think that both sites have this problem somewhat. Maybe not due to poor planning, but due to having so much damn information on them. How in the World could they have planned 10+ years ago for technology today…I only hope I have that problem with Fire Critic in 10 years!!!
Take a minute to check out the new FireEngineering.com site here.
Then feel free to shoot over to the new Firehouse.com beta testing site here. Let me know what you think.
