HW: Mission Control Website

[Jon Jarrett]

On Wed, 28 Aug 2002, Rik Rx wrote:

        <Rich--Rik beer-powered abuse frenzy snipped>

> ------------------------------
> MISSION CONTROL UPDATES IN PROGRESS:
> For those that missed it before, MC is being updated to give it a cleaner,
> fresher look, and will address most of the
> issues that people have raised as constructive critisism. (HOWEVER, -

        <snip> I'll raise a voice then.

> IF YOU GET 'LOST IN SPACE' - CLICK ON THE EYE
> The "hard to navigate" MC site has one very, very simple concept to grasp:
> click on the eye that appears on every
> page to return to the central, 'mission control' launchpad, from where you
> can access all the site's key areas. No page
> is more than two clicks away from Mission Control, as per the 'traditional'
> conventions of web-design. As this
> appears much too radical for some to grasp, the new site will have a choice
> of an updated graphical rich interface,
> and a very basic one for those who don't like to think too much. :-}

        It shows how long since I've gone in the front door on this site
rather than just turning a text browser onto the updates page that I
didn't know that things I was going to complain about, like the launch
console page and the absence of user navigation tools and stuff, had
gone. So rah for Rik. And launching the console only gives me four
Javascript errors :-) I expect these using Netscape Navigator 3.0 Gold
because it only has Javascript 1.1, but FWIW they are:

<up_.html>
line 83 dS is not defined
line 83 object is not defined [twice]
line 67 undefined is not a number

        Now then. If I try and click on the eye I get another Javascript
error on mouse-over, to wit:

line 83 Window.Document.logo has no property named 'top'

        This used to work for me and now doesn't, so boo for Rik
there. But there's a conceptual problem too. It's not intuitive what the
difference between Mission Control and Home is, nor where the eye takes
you. If it works. Misson Control takes you to a menu graphic as we know
(line 49: event is not defined), but these things duplicate each
other. What is the Noticeboard if it doesn't contain tour dates, or
updates, and so on? It isn't clear whether updates is a list of updates to
the site, or to the actual content; and if the latter, as it actually is,
why does one need to look at the other pages? What's the line between
Friends and Cool Links? If a friend has a cool site which do you look
under? And who's a friend anyway? Some people might think of Friends and
Relations and expect links to, say, Nik's site... Boy would they be
wrong! This is the biggest problem with this site. There's no clear idea
where information belongs and it goes everywhere or nowhere.

        Furthermore, that alien screen-saver is really annoying. Still. It
tunrs up after a mere thirty seconds on this page because the images all
take so long to load. Then, it buggers off again to give me the Misson
Control page--not the page I was on beforehand--and the same Javascript
error again. This cycle repeats every twenty seconds or so. What's the
point of that exactly?

        Now then. Examples of the information confusion. The updates page
(line 67: undefined is not a number) currently has the MH/Anthrax
doubleheader as top item, the Xmas Party as second and the War of the
Worlds gig as third. All of which could be said to be tour dates. But the
tour dates page (line 52: undefined is not a number) only has a little
more information than this on it, some of which is out of date (plans for
a summer tour). Duplication, and you don't know which to check, except it
more or less says at the bottom, this is not the page to look at for up to
date information. So why have it at all? And when you add the fact that
the Home link actually takes you to a different copy of the Updates page,
seemingly identical in information (and Javascript error, except from
some places, when you also get line 161: xyz is not defined, and I can't
be bothered working out which links give you that one too, it just shows
the duplication is broken), that's three places on the site now. But
there's more! Have you tried the Releases link at the top of the page? It
takes you to a point on an older version of the Updates page which is
still kicking around despite having nothing newer than Autumn 2001 on
it. Except the releases section. Now, a stupid person might think that was
out of date too, in fact anyone might unless they check the site regularly
enough to know what's what. So we have four news pages now, two of which
are in date and two not, but all duplicating in part at least not just
each other but the Tour Dates page. Someone needs to get on top of this.

        By contrast, say that you were naive enough, as I was several
times at first, to want to know who was in Hawkwind these days. You'd
think it would be obvious to find this but no. Tour Dates, Guestbook,
Catalogue, Friends, Updates, Noticeboard, Passports, For Sale, Gallery,
none of these seem obvious places to look. Do you know where it is? It's
on the Gallery page (line 39: undefined is not a number). Not very clear
why but there it is. There are the Personnel Files. And if you click on
that (no Javascript error! Hallelujah!) you get to find out, in the same
words that were on this site when it was all Dave's work, that the current
line-up is Dave, Richard, Ron and Jerry. Nice one Rik. I realise you
didn't provide this content; maybe this is where Andy went wrong, trying
to be right. The Ron page is actually quite interesting, and came on-line
after Rik took the site over. Jerry's page contains nothing newer than
1997 and nor does Dave's or Richard's. Sum message: no-one cares. And yet
this is the first question that one generally gets asked if someone sees a
t-shirt and goes "Are they still going then?", "who's in the band now,
then?" Trust me I know. Mission Control doesn't. Someone should get on
top of this also.

        And you can say similar things about the catalogue page (line
66: undefined is not a number, and you also get this at line 81 if you
let it refrsh a few times) : it's interesting that on the core album page
(line 49: undefined is not a number), for which the main graphics never
download on my home link, though I know they're there from using other
computers, the band list _Thrilling Adventures_ and _Live 1990_ as a core
album but don't list the CDs actually marked as being Collector's Series,
or _Spacebrock_ which the site doesn't tell you exists, even though it's
the last album to come out under the name of Hawkwind with original
material on it... The Collector's Series are similarly unacknowledged, and
the implication is that because the core albums are "core/approved" what
isn't listed isn't "approved" even though it's half the Voiceprint HW
catalogue. So this strange set of pages doesn't fulfil either the function
of a discography, or a page that tells you which albums the band are happy
for you to buy, and you'd hope it did at least the latter given all the
dodgy product out there. Also, no compilations, even though there are a
few legit ones out there. Someone should get this properly updated as
well.

        It's about information, fundamentally. I don't want nothing but
text, though I do read it that way sometimes; of course Hawkwind should
look good, it's Hawkwind. But it would be nice if there were, say, one
news page, one tour dates page which only had dates and links to venues,
not rants about Nik and dates the band didn't play, a discography page
with comments (combining the two functions) and an about the band page and
the rest of the stuff could go hang, frankly, except maybe for
sale and links. The problem is I guess that it's not Rik that provides the
information, even if he does provide the layout; the updates always have
Dave's style about them and often jumble several items together so that
the thematic sorting of the Mission Control page is defeated straightaway.

        I'd love to suggest someone should sort this out, but...

> The site on relaunch will include many more pages, much better navigation, a
> password protected area for HW
> passport holders, audio and video streaming, a web-board, on-line
> merchandising, a java chat facility, an e-mail
> announcement facility, WAP extensions, a chillout zone, an upgraded
> guestbook, a text only option (oh, hi Arin !),
> downloadable HW screensavers and browser skins, and loads of other updates
> and fixes for  those visitors with
> electronically or digitally challenged connections (You know who you are !
> :-)
>
> As the site is >75mb over 1800 pages, with filters, XML and all sorts of
> stuff that has to work over a huge
> combination of browsers (of various versions), operating systems, Platforms
> inc. webTV etc etc it's taking a while -
> but hang in there......

        Well, I think you might be able to cut down on those 1800 pages
somewhat by reorganising the information and not the presentation for a
moment. Your main page appears to be duplicated all over the shop and
loads of stuff is out of date behind it. The whole thing needs its
infrastructure and internal discipline rearranging and then I might be
able to forget Andy Gilham's calling it "Mission out of Control" and your
job might be considerably easier... Yours,
                                           Jon

ObCDs: The Heads - _Relaxing With_ & Man or Astroman? - _1000x_. This has
been a long time in the composition, this message...
--
"I recognise that I have transgressed many of the precepts of the divine
law, and that I am subjected by various vices and iniquities, disobedient
to the words of the divine mystery brought unto me and a worshipper of the
delights of this military age." Marquis Borrell of Barcelona, 955 A.D.

             (Jonathan Jarrett, Birkbeck College London)