The Central Problem with SFWA’s Main Website, And Solutions
Filed Under: SF Business, Speculative Fiction, Web Design
The Central Problem with SFWA’s Main Website, And Solutions
The central problem with the functionality of SFWA’s website is that it doesn’t know who it is attempting to communicate with. This is understandable, as there are several possible audiences for the SFWA website: a potential member, the member, and the general interested public. You might argue that industry members/publishers/editors are also another audience, but I would just group them in with the general public.
A lesser problem is that the site is simply dated in design. A quick look at the html code indicates pretty semantic mark-up, but an odd mix of inline styling and stylesheets. There’s a heavy dose of javascript required for the drop-down menus to function, which I think is just fine. The links mostly lack title attributes, which might cause problems down the road with showing up properly in search engines, but probably not a huge deal there. But the real problem is that it just isn’t very interesting to look at. This is the group of people that have inspired more big-budget amazing action pictures with cool eye candy than any other genre of fiction. Their website should represent this, while still being designed with accessibility in mind, of course. But there is a lot you could do to spice up the look.
The information and tools are organized in a fairly haphazard way. Why is the Search tool grouped with with the member login and contact information? Why does the “Why should I join SFWA?” information take precedence on the front page over the press information? I would rethink the organizing and importance of information here. The piracy campaign stuff? I would remove it entirely. It’s an important issue probably, but does it really deserve such front page real estate? Also, I’m sorry, but web rings went out of style in 1998. This really serves to make the page look dated. Of all the professional writing organizations I looked at, the only one still featuring a web ring is SFWA. That goes for the badge images as well. These are all signs of a designer that hasn’t really kept with the times, and are more indicative of a private website than a professional organization. If you disagree with me, just scroll down to the links entry on this blog from a few days ago and look at the other organizations. Even the worst of them have this right. SFWA’s website should get it right too.
Among other suggestions I will be detailing in the future, I recommend chunking the navigational information together better. Focus the outward-facing website for prospective members and the general public and remove all information for existing members to the log-in section. Prominently feature a log-in screen somewhere on the page for members, but have the site behind that be designed to their needs. It’s a different project and a different site.
Also, I highly recommend using some of the wasted screen space now to include a sidebar that rotates on a random basis from a list of submitted authors. Call this Featured Member and have it include 50 words on an author alongside a nice photo of the author or the cover of their latest book.
Junk everything in the right column and start over, basically. None of that belongs here. And it’s all ugly and outdated in look.
So these are just a few of my initial thoughts on the website. As I am not a member, I can’t really speak for the private materials behind the login page, but I think there is plenty of work to be done on the public-facing side of things.
