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Amateur Theatre Websites (2)Dateline: 2nd October, 2005In last week's article, we looked at some of the technical problems I came across when checking out a whole load of amateur companies' websites: this week we'll be looking at the design and the content. The whole aim of design is to make the page attractive to the reader and help him/her make their way around the whole site. The latter is so important! A site like the BTG has thousands of pages (that is literally true: at the last count there were close to 4,000), so its navigational needs are very much more complex than those of the vast majority of amateur company sites. We can't, for example, list every feature article on every page, even just every page in the Articles section. We have to have an articles index page, which contains chronological and subject indices. We also have to have a site map which directs visitors to the index pages for every aspect of the site, and that's in addition to the left hand navigation column on every page, which performs a similar function. But an amateur company's site usually has pages devoted to details about the company, its current production, its future productions, its past productions, and, possibly, a few others devoted to, perhaps, the committee, how to join, where it is, and so on. In other words, it probably has a maximum of about ten main pages. Is there any reason, then, for a site to send the visitor back to the home page when moving from page to page? But that's what many do, and it is very annoying to have to hit the browser's BACK button or a link to the home page, just to move through the site. For a ten page site of this kind, it takes 17 clicks (and waiting for 17 pages to appear) to view all the pages, after arriving on the home page. Wouldn't it be better to do it in nine from the home page? Far too many sites (including some professional ones) fall into this category. Beauty, they say, is in the eye of the beholder, and that is obviously very true of web design. I have come across some pages which, to me, are startlingly ugly, but which the designer obviously thinks are brilliant. The golden rule is: keep it simple! Lots of animated graphics are a big no no: they look cheesy but, more importantly, they distract the reader's attention. If you're trying to read a piece of information and there's a spinning drama mask on one side and an envelope continually being sealed and going into a postbox (usually an American one) on the other, you are not going to be able to focus your attention on the text easily. And if the background is a strong image, it's going to draw the attention away from the text and even make it difficult to read. Lots of coloured text, too, (particularly in a number of different sizes or fonts - or both!) is a real distraction and, to be honest, looks childish. Keep it simple! Most amateur sites, indeed, have learned this lesson and are easy to read and attractive to look at, which is a major improvement on the way things were in the lates nineties. Most are pretty good on the content side, too. As we said above, most amateur sites have pages on the society's history, its productions, how to book tickets, how to find it and how to join. Other possible pages are lists of officers and the committee, technical details of the theatre, reviews of past productions, and information about auditions and social events. Some have a copy of their Newsletter online and some give a potted guide to taking part in amateur theatre, often including a list of jobs and what they entail. Some have a password-protected members only section, but I don't have any idea what's in there - I don't have the password! Most use a lot of photos. Some, indeed, are getting very sophisticated and have a Javascript applet which cycles through a number of photos. In short, on the content side it is hard to fault the huge majority (over 99%) of amateur company sites. There are, however, one or two who still make ridiculous claims, usually saying that they produce shows which are as good, if not better, than you will see in the West End. This is so patently untrue that it's laughable. It is no doubt true that their audiences enjoy their shows as much as they would a West End show - there are a lot of very talented amateur actors, singers and dancers out there - but to suggest that the drama club or operatic society of Lesser Thingy in the Bog (and it is always the smaller societies which make this claim) can rival what you'll see at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane is ludicrous and off-putting to an outsider. Such societies do themselves no favours! To sum up, amateur theatre websites have steadily improved over the years and now most are good and attractive, providing the sort of information visitors will find useful, and often provided in an entertaining way. They form a useful part of that great encyclopedia which is the Internet, benefiting both themselves and the theatre enthusiast surfer.
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