Old Ottawa South

The new website looks great. It's a big improvement over the previous website. Congrats to everyone involved. Following are some suggestions for improvements:

Registration
- The Registration link is buried in the text and is not easy to find. Suggest putting a prominent "Register" button at the top of the Home page.
- The "skill testing question" is not easy to find, because it requires scrolling away from the answer field to find the question. The Question should align with the Answer field.
- When logging in, it's not clear which field is the Username and which is the Password. These fields should be labeled.

General
- I find the font of most text on the website is too small. Suggest increasing the font size.
- It would be good to include something about the commercial business district in OOS. Perhaps a link to the "OOS Shop Local" website, and maybe a map of the OOS business district (there was a nice map of the business area on the old website).

Thanks for the feedback, Gary.

- There is a "Create an Account" link in the top-right corner of the page (unless you are already logged in, that is). We are trying to use "create an account" where possible rather than "register", to avoid confusion with OSCA program registration. Still, maybe it can be made more obvious.
- I'll see if I can improve the layout of the skill-testing question relative to the answer field.
- I'll look at increasing the font size. In the mean time, most browsers let you adjust the font size yourself -- usually Ctrl-+ (or Command-+) makes it bigger, Ctrl-minus to make it smaller.
- There is no information on the commercial district because no one has stepped forward to own & maintain that content. The Shop Local site (www.shopoldottawasouth.ca/) is unfortunately just a one-pager with no real content.

C.

As a followup to my suggestion regarding a map of OOS businesses, I've attached a map that I think comes from an old issue of OSCAR. The business names on the map are out of date. It would be good to include the updated map on the OOS website. If someone can find the original source file of the map, I'll volunteer to update the business names.

Gary

Edit - The File Attachment feature on the forum doesn't work, so the map is not attached.

Gary-

Volunteers are always needed! Careful though: if you're volunteering to update the business map, you're also committing to keep it up to date. We are making an effort to not include content unless there is someone willing to keep it current. The old site had lots of content that went very stale because no one was looking after it.

I have a copy of the old bird's-eye view drawing, or at least the image that was on the old site. I don't think it's that useful at this point because the drawing itself is out of date (development at 6 Grove, Bank & Sunnyside) not to mention the ever-changing business names. I think a more easily-maintained image is in order. Perhaps a snapshot taken from Google Earth/Maps?

Anyhow, if you still want to take this on I suggest you coordinate with Gwen at webeditor@oldottawasouth.ca.

Chris.

PS Image upload is disabled for regular users, but file upload should work.

Hi Gary:

Several months ago the original, editable drawing file was searched for but couldn't be found, when someone else (I don't remember who) offered to update it for the old site. I wasn't directly involved at the time, and heard nothing more about it.

I concur with Chris: if it's going to require regular updating, then someone needs to "own" the job. But all hands are welcome!

I also agree with Chris that a Google Earth snapshot would be an excellent start.

Chris as Webmaster and web designer makes menu addition decisions, of course, but if you want to tackle this job, I'd say go for it. As Web Editor I have nothing intrinsically against having OOS business information on the website--in fact, would like to have it--but the upkeep has proven in the past to be problematic.

If you want to take the project on, please email me at webeditor@oldottawasouth.ca.

Gwen Gall
Web Editor, OSCA

I've looked at the site a few times and tried to keep myself up-to-date on the goings on. However, my life is so busy with many things and I don't have my computer on all day; usually only at night. I have a couple of comments/suggestions and am willing to accept some help or suggestions if I'm no longer totally up to date on "social media".

1. Maybe it is only me but, I would find it extremely helpful if the events listed used a name or abbreviated name for the month instead of a number. I am continually confused by dates which vary widely all over the place in best before dates, event dates, etc. Immediately seeing the month as a name would help me not waste time trying to figure out which month is for the event.

2. Although I've got my 19" monitor set at 1024 x 768 resolution and my browser at full coverage, I still have to scroll over to see all the headings or end of sentences. And the text is quite small (similar to 8pt). I notice the boxes to the left of the screen in this response are quite large horizontally. As well, the main page also requires scrolling. Is there some way, I can make adjustments to see the whole page at the same time. I'm using TBird 3.x and most other sites are not a problem.

Maybe the problem is I no longer know all the technical problems with web pages, resolutions, browser interpretation and probably many other things so help would be welcome.

Thanks for your understanding.