Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
The all new FireEngineering.com
Two of the largest, most popular, and longest running fire service websites are in the middle of being redesigned. Firehouse.com is still being tweaked while running live online. FireEngineering.com is live, but I believe still being tweaked although the web site does not say anything to that effect.
A while back, I did a critique of FireEngineering.com. It was not a full critique but more so a small idea of how I would change it to better suite ME. Yes it was very selfish. At the time I did not realize that FireEngineering was actaully going through a redesign. Bobby Halton, Fire Engineering Editor-in-Chief, actually left a comment on the post and offered to let me in on the redesign and offer my thoughts. While Halton meant well, I never got to offer my input because the webteam working on the new site never got in touch with me. However, I have since been in contact with him about the progress.
The all new Firehouse.com
Fast forward to today and we have two very instrumental, prominent, and popular websites being redeveloped. Understandably they will both be having growing pains as they customize their look and fix any bugs. All in all, both of the sites look decent. I will offer one suggestion on each site, if they want more they know where to find me.
Firehouse.com – Lose the quick links at the bottom. They take up too much space.
FireEngineering.com – There is simply too much stuff on the homepage. simplify it.
As a webmaster myself, it is always difficult in figuring out exactly what to put on the home page. Simply put, we want everyone to read everything! It just isn’t going to happen. You have to make it simple but eye catching. People click on images and videos! Thumbnails are a must! In my experience, there are three kinds of readers….
- Regular readers – these are the guys who go to a site on a regular basis and scroll through the new stuff and read what catches there eye.
- First time readers – these people end up on your site and just start clicking. If they find it interesting they might become regular readers.
- Search engine traffic – these people end up on a specific page for a specific reason, cater the sidebar and navigation bar so that they can continue looking/searching once they get to the site.
I think that the FireEngineering did a better job with the overall look but Firehouse.com did better with the content layout.
What do you all think? Do you like the new sites? What do you like and what don’t you like?
