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What happened to all of the Contact and Chapter Information?


MarkYoungCrewChief

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Looking at the web home page, I find it impossible to find out anything about chapter locations, meetings, local and national contacts - any of that.

 

Where has all that gone? If it is available, it must be tucked away in some far away dark corner. (Same as the location of all the decals issued at conventions through the years!)

 

Thinking about it. I do not see a simple "Contact Us" link on the home page. That could be useful for someone visiting the page for the first time and wanting to find out something. Please do not get me wrong. The web site is beautiful and contains a wealth of information. I just think it could stand some reinforcements in the basic contact area. Who are the national officers? How do I contact them? That is the type of information I am looking for.

 

On the old page, there were links to listings of the Regions and the Chapters within them. Then you could link to a particular chapter and find out their meeting times, dates, locations, chapter contacts and a link to their web site, assuming they have one. Within the current web site, I could not find that information.

 

I will say that I found a page with a map of "all" the chapters. Not all chapters are represented. Zooming in on a state, there are dots representing a chapter. There is no hyperlink available for a dot that I could find. In the Dayton Ohio area, there are two chapters. Only one is represented with a dot.

 

What drives this question? I am a Chapter Contact and looking to verify our information as being correct on the IPMS/USA web site. I cannot find anything to check. Please enlighten me.

 

Thank You

Mark E. Young, Jr.

Chapter Contact

Dayton Area Plastic Modelers Society

 

 

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Not sure what you are talking about.....Information is right where it has always been.

 

http://calendar.ipmsusa3.org/chapter/ipmsdayton-area-plastic-modelers

 

Same as the decals from the Nationals.....Same place....

 

http://www.ipmsusa3.org/gallery/v/events/nationals/NATSDecals/

 

:Smile_sceptic:

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Yes, it's all there, but it's NOT intuitive for the general web surfer to use. The info Mark Young was looking for and you linked is under the heading "About"....I wouldn't think to look there for contact info. "About" sounds like it's a link to an explanation of what IPMSUSA is and does (which is a part of that).

 

The other problem is that the drop down menus for each area do NOT appear until you actually click on an area. IF the drop menus could be made to appear whenever the cursor is on the title (without clicking), that might help people find what they want easier, since many are reluctant to click onto something they're not sure of.

 

Also, the Regional map serves almost no purpose. It doesn't have any links or show any clubs. You have to go the "Chapter Map" for that, and then you have to scroll down to the correct region and link for the individual club info; and you can miss them, as Mark Young did, if you don't scroll, because the chapter listings/links are not visible until you do scroll.

 

I would suggest breaking out everything from under the "About" area except the "About IPMSUSA" and "Constitution/By Laws" and put them under a new heading called "Contact info". There seems to be room in the blue bar for at least one more heading, and it might just help people with less computer experience to find the info they need a bit easier.

 

GIL :smiley16:

Edited by ghodges
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I agree with Gil. It took me awhile to find the Chapters map when I was looking. Also there used to be a list of foreign IPMS websites that was useful but I don't find that anywhere.

Eric

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Thank you guys for the feedback. And especially thank you Gil for understanding what I was looking for and the the problems I was having finding it. I did, after a fair amount of playing blind mans bluff, find the Chapters page. I did search on Ohio and found the dots shown. Clicking on the one dot for Dayton revealed it to be for the second chapter in the Dayton area. Not the IPMS/Dayton Area Plastic Modelers. I did not zoom in on the map. With the guidance provided from above I went back to the map and zoomed in. Voila - both chapters were there, but like you say there is no link to a particular chapter's information. You must go else where the find that, and again, I failed to scroll down. While not completely computer illiterate, I am more at the goo-goo, da-da, mutter stage. Mostly mutter.

 

I was looking to see if our Chapter Contact (Me) information is correct, and it is. How a visitor from off the street could find that is beyond me. I agree whole-heartedly on your recommendation to create a separate tab for Contact Us. Within that could be sections for the National Office, National Officers, Non Officer Positions, Regions and Regional Contacts, Chapters and Chapter Contacts.

 

I will look and see if I can find the web-master, but just in case I can't, I will throw it out here. Web-Master, or to Whom It May Concern. The dot denoting the IPMS/Dayton Area Plastic Modelers is not quite in the proper position. I know it is hard to plot exactly, but you have us about one mile too far to the West. Staying on Dayton/Xenia road, come East from the current dot location until you find Research Park Drive on the South side of Dayton/Xenia Road. Directly across Dayton/Xenia Road you will see a building with a squiggly outline. That is the Peace Lutheran Church. Put the dot there and it will be accurate for any new comers.

 

As I said in my original post, the Web Site looks great, but it can stand a bit of tweaking to make it more user friendly. Especially for us goo-goo, da-da, mutter types.

 

Thank you and Happy Modeling

Edited by MarkYoungCrewChief
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Yes, it's all there, but it's NOT intuitive for the general web surfer to use. The info Mark Young was looking for and you linked is under the heading "About"....I wouldn't think to look there for contact info. "About" sounds like it's a link to an explanation of what IPMSUSA is and does (which is a part of that).

 

The other problem is that the drop down menus for each area do NOT appear until you actually click on an area. IF the drop menus could be made to appear whenever the cursor is on the title (without clicking), that might help people find what they want easier, since many are reluctant to click onto something they're not sure of.

 

Also, the Regional map serves almost no purpose. It doesn't have any links or show any clubs. You have to go the "Chapter Map" for that, and then you have to scroll down to the correct region and link for the individual club info; and you can miss them, as Mark Young did, if you don't scroll, because the chapter listings/links are not visible until you do scroll.

 

I would suggest breaking out everything from under the "About" area except the "About IPMSUSA" and "Constitution/By Laws" and put them under a new heading called "Contact info". There seems to be room in the blue bar for at least one more heading, and it might just help people with less computer experience to find the info they need a bit easier.

 

GIL :smiley16:

I agree with Gil.

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Fwiw, I've used the Chapter Listing pages and maps frequently and l have a different opinion than expressed above. I've found this part of the website easy to find (perhaps that is due to frequent use) and easy to use. In my view, Eric's done an excellent job, laying out the entire website in a functional and understandable manner.

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Hi Dick, As you are a frequent user, yes, the Chapter Listings Page would be easy to find and use. On the other hand, not being a frequent user, I had considerable trouble finding and using the page. Hence, my question. Now that I know how to get there, easy peasy.

 

Now, think about the prospective member coming to the home page, looking for a point of contact or information on the possibility of a chapter near them. Nearly every business home page out there has a "Contact Us" button. If that is not readily available, our potential member will quickly get discouraged and move on.

 

Beyond a doubt, Eric has done a wonderful job with the site. It is far beyond my pay grade and skill level. I have no intention at all of demeaning his work. All we are trying to suggest is a way to make contacting the people of IPMS/USA easier for the new guy just looking around and some of us old fuddy duddy members that are not all that hot at ferreting out what we are looking for.

 

Thank You All, for your dedication and support of IPMS/USA

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I have found that on a first visit to almost any website requires some searching to be done. As a 1st timer, I expect to spend a little time fishing for the information I'm seeking. After the initial visit, familiarity with the scheme and organization allows one to navigate easily.

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Unfortunately, if we put everything on the front page that gets requested to be put there by the members of this Forum and add in the convention and normal national business stuff, everything would be on the front page. Seriously, even Eric admits that the page could use some work, but the problem is time. It all takes time and to use a well worn phrase around here, we're all volunteers and time is limited. We've tossed around the idea of just coughing up the dough and paying the money for a consultant or even a web designer and we still may. We'll see.

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I guess I am the oddity here. If a website/forum/page changes that I frequent, I play around until I am comfortable with where everything got moved.

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My 2 cents:

 

Agree with Mark & Gil that the Home Page dashboard could use a re-look, to make finding this info more intuitive. I'm also a frequent user & a chapter contact, looking at the event & chapter maps to see what's on & how far, as our chapter is rather isolated. One has to dig a bit for the great Galleries, to see what's new. Less frequent: The officer contact info, to pursue some admin question, and things like the ABC course, which our club (still) wants to try out. It's all there, but I frequently forget which menu the desired pages are under and spend a few extra clicks finding that stuff.

 

It's not horrible, just a little cumbersome...IMHO.

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  • 2 weeks later...

For us Baby Boomers, indeed no website is intuitive. We have not grown up learning from computers. We learned from Dick and Jane readers, lessons on a chalk board and maybe even an abacus! Eric and the E-Board do a great job providing us with these services, but they are as constrained to use modern methods of communication as we are baffled to understand those methods. I was educated with books that had tables of contents and indexes. Computers are a second language for me and I will never be as facile with their use as my daughter has been since she was ten. Rember there was a time when people thought that they would be electrocuted if they made a phone call. So thank you again Eric for doing a job I could not begin to know how to do for very little money. Oh, yeah! That's right! You don't get paid at all! Think about websites like a relationship with the opposite sex. Push the wrong buttons and your getting nowhere. Push the right buttons and you will be rewarded for your patience and effort. You just gotta figure out which buttons are which! It has only taken me 40 years of marriage to figure this out. I told you I was a slow learner! Nick Filippone

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