IMRA website
| Author | Date | Message |
|---|---|---|
| Robert McEvoy | Mar 4 2019, 6:55pm | Hi folks, just wondering if are there any long-term plans to upgrade the IMRA website and forum? I received a lot of queries via Facebook for the SGM Ultra last month (and in 2017 and 2018 also), despite all the information being available here on the IMRA site (as per IMRA policy). I am quite happy to field the queries, but it does make me wonder about the usability of the IMRA site. Now I've just read a post on the Unofficial IMRA Facebook page where another RD seems to have received a number of direct queries on Facebook regarding an upcoming race. One has to ask why people are continually turning to Facebook to try to get information about races. How easy is it actually for beginners to find the information they need on the IMRA website? Is it unclear that each race has an associated forum post where questions can be asked? Why is it more attractive for people to use a social media platform to seek out information, rather than our Official platform? There are some great features on this website, and I understand (anecdotally) that is it was designed for free by dedicated IMRA members, and continues to be maintained by volunteers. However, loke it or not, the way people interact with technology has changed. Should we be moving with the times, to accommodate these newcomers? I would be interested to hear people's thoughts. Rob |
| Richard Nunan | Mar 4 2019, 8:01pm | Hi Rob, As a Committee we are always looking at ways to improve things. We are currently looking at some improvements, but they are more to improve results and registrations that are core to the way we function. If you have some ideas to add to the wishlist, please send them on to the webmaster. He is always supportive of ways we can improve upon the website. I would like to validate the number of queries responded to by the committee by email, Forum and phone far outweigh the Facebook traffic. We also encourage people to go to the website so that they can easily find the correct response to their queries. The number of new members is increasing by about 60% So the cadence of new people successfully registering for races is far greater than it used to be. So its working for alot of people. Sometimes i have to wonder is it the Technology that has changed or the people :-) |
| Jason Dowling | Mar 4 2019, 8:03pm | Hi Rob, What ‘upgrades’ are you alluding to? As you rightly stated, the web-site was designed for free by dedicated members and continues to be maintained by volunteers. This maintaining and upgrading of the web-site can take a significant portion of a volunteer’s free time. I think we would need to be a lot clearer of what is being proposed before anyone could even attempt to size up the task. Even if the requirements are clear, IMRA then needs the people with the time and technical skills to complete the task, and if the task is a large one, then available resources may suddenly become scare or unavailable. As for “should we be moving with the times to accommodate these newcomers?”, we’ve already covered the issues that can arise if the task at hand is a large one but could we then also look at the opposite of what you are saying by requiring newcomers to adapt to the web-site? Just because some newcomers maybe accustomed to Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter etc. shouldn’t be a requirement for IMRA to do wholesale changes just so people can ‘like’ posts or private message their friends through the site. Accessing information is generally quite simple within the IMRA web-site as a lot of information can be accessed within three clicks at most from the main page. Details for any race can be accessed with two clicks, viewing the forum takes one click and posting to the forum takes 3 clicks (which includes signing-in) and all in my opinion is very clearly labelled and easy to navigate but do newcomers find this too cumbersome? If so, what's the solution to this? Personally, I find the vast majority of the web-site to be very easy to navigate and its simplicity is one of its greatest strengths. You also reference Facebook as being the site that people are posting queries to. This may appeal to people as it’s simpler to post to Facebook as opposed to the IMRA site. Facebook is designed to make posting as simple as possible, it has to because that’s a fundamental of its business model. People probably gravitate towards Facebook as it is a nice shiny app on just about everyone’s phone and is much more accessible to more people rather than posting on the IMRA web-site. The IMRA web-site on the other hand, is designed primarily to give information about its events with posting being just one sub-feature of the web-site so a direct comparison between the two is probably akin to comparing apples and oranges. However, while I certainly think there’s a little bit of room for improvement on the IMRA web-site, overall, I find it very easy to navigate and has all the information I’m looking for. That said, I too would be interested in other people’s opinions on the subject. Jason. |
| Warren Swords | Mar 4 2019, 8:09pm | I believe the most recent FB post is telling people that all the information being requested is readily available on the IMRA site. Which is perhaps the best argument for not having an official FB page. I think the homepage should have a clear beginners page. |
| Jenny Lawler | Mar 4 2019, 8:18pm | I'm new to IMRA. I only found an "unofficial"facebook page, so I've been just using this website for my interactions with imra so far. I did sign up for notifications from the forum so maybe that's helping me figure out how imra works, but I've managed to sign up for races, including managing to be in the extra 25 for mm half, I've managed to get a carpool lift to a race, and I've managed to sign myself up as a volunteer for an event. Oh I've managed to tag myself in a photo too! I think that if I can manage to do all that and I literally joined imra a month ago, then the website is probably doing its job. |
| Mick Hanney | Mar 4 2019, 8:37pm | In the main the questions that are raised on Facebook are from those brand new to the hill running scene. Such is the accessibility of Facebook newbies are drawn to ask questions there. The IMRA site is a fantastic resource. Yes, you could argue that a Newbie section on the home-page would be a good start for those looking for information. However, a lot of that information is already there in the beginners link at the bottom of the page and on relevant events. Despite best endeavours to list out information on events some people just don't read the information. Many just jump in and ask the same question. I think given Jenny's example it shows that someone new to the site can navigate around. |
| Paul V Mitchell | Mar 4 2019, 8:56pm | I think the core of the site is grand and does the job just fine., though it is difficult enough to use on mobile devices. Certain stuff could probably be made more prominent while other, less used features, could be relegated. Facebook / Twitter are far better for things like latest news / last minute changes to races, etc. People are far more likely to see such announcements on those platforms as opposed to on a dedicated website. You could keep the website and use such mediums for news / announcements. Also, people like seeing photos of races and they like sharing / tagging etc. Another reason to use Facebook. Here are some small things that might be considered improvements: 1. Ability to post links / email addresses. 2. Make the site more mobile friendly. 3. Make the main contact link more prominent. 4. It’s not obvious how to contact people. Let’s say you want to email a Race Director about volunteering, an email link on the event details page would be good, or failing that, an email link after you click into their profile. 5. The main menu bar has too many options, some of the less used could probably be removed. Reducing noise would make then more important / popular links stand out more. It might also be better if the menu bar was aways visible at the top of the page. 6. There are three separate links to the user’s account/profile. ‘Me’, ‘My Profile’, and the link in the top right. 7. I’m not sure if Carpool and Volunteer are needed either as most probably get to these routes via the event pages. 8. Same with the tabs on the event pages. You could ditch the Slideshow tab. Merge the functionality onto the Photos tab. Users could enter ‘Slideshow mode’ by clicking on a photo. 9. You could probably also ditch the Maps tab. There’s typically a map on the Details tab and a Google Maps link to the start location is the only other thing required. A Google Maps link to the start location would be great to have for every event. 10. Reports could perhaps be moved to the History tab. The majority of events don’t seem to have any reports. 11. The format of the History page is confusing. |
| Rory Leadbetter | Mar 4 2019, 9:26pm | To whom it my concern, Here follows my 2 cents... Love the website, Hate social media! A Few more photos from events would be nice. Please don’t change, Rory. |
| Mick Hanney | Mar 4 2019, 9:42pm | A few suggestions I'd have. 1. On the home page the prominent Latest News section is almost redundant as it doesn't get updated very often. Section could be rethought perhaps. Not sure what the best use of that space is but there should be something that is relevant and updated regularly. 2. Would be great to see a list of race reports, indexed somewhere. 3. Would be great to have the ability to caption or comment on photos. Also, latest photos don't tend to appear through in the home page photosets? |
| Gordon Place | Mar 4 2019, 10:37pm | The website might need a bit of an update but not everyone is on Facebook, some people get sick of it and take a break for a while. It's very easy to set up email alerts for forum posts to keep up to date so there's no real excuse to miss anything. At least here there's posts to keep track of threads, even if the same things often get asked over and over again, sometimes when a simply look at the beginners section would answer most queries. I think Facebook would be far worse for that and become even more lazy. Photos are great but depend on volunteers who might be busy/needed elsewhere and who'd moderate all the lovely comments? |
| John Murray | Mar 5 2019, 8:51am | In short, life is fast...people don't wait for anything these days and information has to be absorbed at a rate that exceeds the speed of light! Website Forums just don't do that anymore. I wonder how many people reading this thread have actually read every word of each post or just quickly browsed over the comments made? How many overall members have actually even clicked on this forum post? I've been involved with developing club website forums or Bulletin Boards as they were originally called since way back in the very late '90s. As Facebook gained popularity forums slowly became less used to a point were they are hardly used at all these days. As somebody who is a big believer in Forums and tried hard over the years to not be pulled away by all the new social media platforms, I can say that the IMRA forum is probably the only website forum I actually use these days! And when I say use...I mean check once or twice a week. The current IMRA website is based around a content management system which is a powerful tool...yet the website looks and feels archaic in my opinion. There is so much valuable information contained within the Database of this website and it just needs to be prioritized as to what should be slapped in our faces. For example, the most valuable and relevant day to day information on the Homepage is contained within modules on the Right Panel, yet it has only been allocated a small percentage of the screen! The Welcome message and Latest News...which never actually change get about 75% of the screen coverage. Simple changes to layout which a Content Management System can do in seconds! Unfortunately...most Club websites are dead in the water when it comes to member interaction. They have become 'Static' sites which people go to for basic information. Yes, you'll still get a few hardcore users but in reality you'll only ever reach a small percentage of your total membership on a daily basis. Has IMRA ever thought about developing a basic APP? It doesn't have to contain everything on the website but more focused on Events and Updates to begin with as these seem to be the main items of debate. It can then be built on over the years with additional sections as needed? People don't browse websites on their phones anymore unless its important, but they will open and close and APP 20-100 times a day whether they are looking for something or not! lol As the website is based around a Content Management System it should be easy enough to develop an APP that extracts the relevant information from the main database. The website can still remain as is...but a little cosmetic make-over would be good in my opinion. :) |
| Andrew Brett | Mar 5 2019, 11:22am | For what it's worth I'm brand new to IMRA and find the website remarkably simple to navigate. Have had no issues / problems finding whatever information that I'v needed. |
| Stuart Scott | Mar 5 2019, 12:01pm | Hi all, I think the current site is excellent and that all of these issues could be fixed with two very straightforward changes: 1) Inclusion of the forum directly below the event page (rather than having a separate tab). This was the case before but it was changed for technical reasons I think. The back-end of the website has improved so much in recent years so hopefully it could be reinstated. The advantage of this is that someone reading the event page will automatically scroll down to the forum and see the latest info. With any luck a single line of code could do this? 2) Recommend explicitly that those new to running sign up for forum updates by email. The 'those new to running' message on the homepage is excellent so maybe having this as a standing item on the Event Pages too? People might be directed straight to the Event Pages from screen-scraping sites such as RunIreland so maybe they're missing it. Again, that should just take two seconds. While IMRA has lots of money, I'd be very reluctant to change the website in any other way. Too often projects start with the best of intentions but then stall once unforeseen complexities appear. There's a wealth of information on this site and it'd easily be lost forever. The look and feel could possibly be changed but does it really need to? I've used the fancy phone to look up results and buy vouchers and the site works perfectly. The modern design of a website seems to involve a single page with lots of scrolling but there's probably a new fad just around the corner. As for bookface...I don't have access to it on my fancy phone so the forum is where I turn to for information and last minute updates. I think all members should be encouraged to sign up for email updates and then they'll get all the posts in real time. Plus you also get the odd juicy controversial post that then gets pulled from the website :-) Ironically Rob, if you'd posted this on bookface you probably would've gotten a very different response! Stuart |
| Brendan Lawlor | Mar 5 2019, 12:29pm | If its not broke why fix it ? A lot of the difficulty stems from the laziness of some people who won't bother to take a look around the site and spend a bit of time looking for the information they want, nearly all of which is up here. Race Directors like Mick Hanney and Richard Nunan, for example, show incredible patience with the constant stream of ' customer service requests' from some IMRA members. Richard posted several times to warn about the MM Ultra closing date but he was/ is still being hassled both on the Forum and Facebook about this race. Mick has gone well above the call of duty to try to facilitate MM Trail people but its still never enough for some .. these lads are volunteers not professional race organisers as some people seem to think. Just read the instructions and warning they put up on the site (and the same for all RD's) I think the Beginners Information could possibly be updated and posted as a 'Pinned' News Item in BOLD TYPE on the home page of the site and encouraging New Members to sign up for email updates of Forum posts is another worthwhile suggestion. But theres no coding needed for that. A lot of the requests on this thread are personal preference.. Mick Hanney and some others love Race Reports, I never read them. Some people love photographs and getting tagged on this site or on Facebook, again others don't bother. I do think that the IMRA committee will have to decide what to do about the ' Unofficial ' IMRA Facebook group. Personally I'd prefer to see the word IMRA removed from the name of that group as its not run by IMRA but by hillrunners who may or may not be members of IMRA Good controversial thread though ! |
| Gordon Place | Mar 5 2019, 1:08pm | That's it Brendan! And Stuart. Updates by email can be quickly read or ignored if the post is of no interest, but you won't miss a race related announcement. The beginners page could also be updated a bit to cover some recurring queries about vouchers and numbers etc. Could it also be a fixed first post listed in the forum? I think up to fairly recently the facebook page really was only social with photos and sharing articles that might be of interest, with most responses to any real queries directing people here for official info. The recent dual posting and copying and pasting of race and other info to facebook has made it seem more like an official page, inviting further traffic and responses needed by directors on two fronts. |
| Gary Warnock | Mar 6 2019, 9:22am | Paul Mitchell made some fairly sensible suggestions, though I can't comment on them all I certainly agree that the site is very difficult to navigate on mobile. There is an increasing trend of mobile use, personally I rarely use a PC outside of work. Secondly, and perhaps more relevant to the OP is how people access the site. To an IMRA member it seems very logical and straightforward to come to the IMRA website and navigate to events to find information about a race, but that's not what people do - they use google. And (to pick an example) when I google 'Maurice Mullins Ultra' the first link brings me to the 2016 results page. If I click details it brings me to the 2016 race details. Apart from the date there's nothing obvious to tell me the information is not current, and there's no direct link to the current race info. The second link brings me to the runultra.co.uk site, which links to the 2018 race results - with the same issues. The thrid link is an article. The 4th is the trace de trail site, which links the 2017 race results... Perhaps it would be better to have a single landing page for each event? This could then link to the most recent information. Lastly, some sort of break between forum posts would make them much easier to read ___________________________________________________________ |
| Douglas Barry | Mar 6 2019, 9:57pm | ______________________________ Regarding the website, I’d prefer it was kept going rather than slipping into social media. While I appreciate that many people have a vested interest in social media through work or other connections, I’m personally wary of donating my details to Mr Z or his ilk. I prefer the website run by the dedicated volunteers of the Association. As for the site, I’d agree that the News section should be updated. Seeing a blank page for 2019 is a tad offputting. If there is information that the committee deem important, the News page should be updated with it as a matter of course. Douglas _________________________ |
| Robert McEvoy | Mar 7 2019, 10:50am | _________________________________ Thanks to everyone who replied, it is very interesting to hear everyone's thoughts. Reading back over my original post, I realise that it might sound like I was proposing a move to Facebook or another social media platform, which was not my intention. Personally, I don't even like FB. I am more interested in empowering people (especially potential new members) to find the information they need, as easily as possible. Richard's stats show that difficulties accessing race information have not had an impact on the number of new members signing up. Jenny and Andrew's comments as new members are also encouraging to read. So maybe there is no real need for upgrades to the website. I appreciate Jason's point that maintainence of the website is carried out by dedicated volunteers. I volunteer in a number of areas myself (unfortunately web design isn't one of them!), and I can understand how one's free time can be swallowed up by projects. I still believe that information could be made easier to find. Out of all the suggestions mentioned, I believe the following would be useful: - More prominent information for beginners on the main page - More mobile-friendly site - John's suggestion of an IMRA app - I think this could actually be really useful if it could draw its content from the main IMRA site. It could allow app users to interact with the race officials, post on the forum, sign up for races, and receive push notifications with last-minute race information. This would obviously require investment. I will contact the Webmaster as suggested. Thanks. Rob _________________________________ |
| Brendan Lawlor | Mar 7 2019, 12:11pm | IMRA Millenials and Gen Z members may not know but Douglas Barry is the Godfather of IMRA's online presence. He set up and ran the original IMRA website for several years. That old site was well ahead of its time in terms of content, acerbic Douglas race reports and race information and results. Another IMRA visionary Justin Keatinge was largely responsible for gifting IMRA the current site. Justin's company Version 1 wrote the code for the site several years ago (at no cost) and several of his staff over the years have provided various upgrades etc So a big shout out to Douglas and Justin ! |
| Brendan Lawlor | Mar 7 2019, 12:25pm | http://www.iol.ie/~imra/index2.html Douglas's old IMRA site |
| Shane O'Malley | Mar 7 2019, 12:35pm | Hi Brendan, Not sure why but my anti virus blocked access to that link. May be over cautious but it seems to be blacklisted. |
| Brendan Lawlor | Mar 7 2019, 12:44pm | Hi Shane It shows as a Not Secure site on my browser, so that might be the reason It wouldn't be the first time Douglas was blacklisted, eh Douglas ?!! |
| Shane O'Malley | Mar 7 2019, 1:25pm | Seems to be for Phishing but i suspect it is out of date. Just had it scanned again and results at https://www.virustotal.com/#/url/f630dcad1a62bc91fc7660a94a371ef7263ba21c13b652f382d6e12ca71f6378/detection |
| Stuart Scott | Mar 7 2019, 2:09pm | The website is grand Shane, it's probably just the IOL bit your browser doesn't like. Thanks for sharing it again anyway Brendan. It reveals gems such as this! http://www.iol.ie/~imra/pic99xmas_gavandoherty.html While we're on the topic, compare Douglas' beginners page with the current one :-) http://www.iol.ie/~imra/index2.html |
| Alan Ayling | Mar 7 2019, 11:36pm | Haven't been on there in a while but I remember Douglas' race reports fondly. One in particular gave a detailed account of bringing an American guest to a race down Brockagh direction; most of the race report centred around running late and the quite heroic overtaking of a tractor on the way... a brief token mention of some hilllrunning was probably included. A mighty read one way another. From a time when posts were tales of adventure, rather than what shoes will I need? |
| Anthony Alexander | Apr 26 2019, 1:23pm | One further website improvement suggestion: the IMRA website is currently [rightly] blocked by my company because of an "insecure" SSL certificate. The SSL certificate chain is missing. I notice the current SSL certificate expires in 2 days (28 April 2019), which means the webmaster will have to upgrade soon otherwise everyone will be blocked. Please could you consider upgrading the SSL cert so that is has a valid chain and a trusted source? Then it will be more widely accessible. I think the website is very good, and thanks for the excellent work! |
| Stuart Scott | Nov 11 2019, 11:31am | Has the stylesheet for the website changed recently? Or is it just me? It's awful! |
| Brendan Lawlor | Nov 11 2019, 11:37am | Hi Stuart Yes I think it has changed alright.. you are not going mad. However I think its an improvement and makes the site look fresher.. chacun a son gout as the French say |
| Stuart Scott | Nov 11 2019, 11:42am | It's definitely giving me gout! I'm not sure how it looks on a fancy phone but on a computer the menu is huge and takes up half the screen. But to compensate the text size is tiny so it's almost unreadable. Has anything else changed? Perhaps the stylesheet could be allowed to change depending on what browser one is using? |
| Conor O'Farrell | Nov 11 2019, 12:55pm | Hi Stuart The term “website consumption”, does not literally mean to eat the website. The fact that you are only getting gout is a minor miracle. Yes, there has been some work going on in the background to improve things. The fancy phone stuff should have improved a fair bit, but with the myriad of different platforms, there are obviously a few tweaks to be made. Bare(bear?) with us while we look into sorting it out. Again, all feedback is welcome. It’s difficult to replicate every different platform out there, so some people might get different formatting views and some might pick up an arthritic foot disease. ;-) Do let us know of any (non-medical) anomalies that you may notice so that we can address them. Thanks Con |
| Stuart Scott | Nov 11 2019, 2:08pm | Hi Conor, Thanks for the reply. I have no intention of baring all, don't worry! I understand it'll be impossible to please everyone but hopefully we can find a happy medium. One specific bug (to continue the medical theme) is that you can't see what you're typing in the 'Log in to MyIMRA' boxes. Presumably the font colour is set to white (on a white background)? In the meantime, I shall visit the opticians and adjust my dietary habits :-) Thanks regardless to you and the others involved for all the hard work. I know there's been high demand for a change and fact you're giving up even more of your free time is something we're all grateful for. Stuart |
| Paul Smyth | Nov 11 2019, 3:45pm | In my browser it looks awful. Garish shades of green. |
| Gordon Place | Nov 11 2019, 4:04pm | Thanks lads, looks a lot better to me, both on PC and mobile. Although I have difficulty trying to type my password into the login box on mobile. Text other than the titles is a bit small on the PC. Slightly brighter shades of green than previous but hardly much of an issue |
| Gordon Place | Nov 11 2019, 4:06pm | login box issue ok if I switch to desktop site on the mobile |
| Val Jones | Nov 11 2019, 5:46pm | Looks OK to me, colour is always subjective, but could the regular text size be increased? (Also, any chance of bringing back the base points?) |
| Jeff Swords | Nov 11 2019, 6:25pm | I like it, the most important thing is the massive performance improvement. I do get a bug however when trying to view my profile but I'm sure these things atá all on the kanban board. |
| Jim Fitzharris | Nov 11 2019, 6:27pm | Hi all, The website looks OK on a PC but a few tweaks needed re font sizes. Logging into the MyIMRA has become a dark art ........ Also, I just tried to post a message on another topic but I am getting an error message. Let us see if this one works! Cheers, Jim. |
| Alan Ayling | Nov 11 2019, 7:58pm | I got into myimra first go. Would this be a good time to reintroduce Enduro Points? :-) |
| Mick Hanney | Nov 11 2019, 8:04pm | I like it. Kudos to the website guys working away to do this. Enduro points are passé. Ayling points worked out as a % of where you finished in relation to Alan! |
| Rory Leadbetter | Nov 12 2019, 9:45pm | Hi Folks, just a bit of feedback on the website update. 99.9% of the time I view it on a mobile. It’s difficult to read the forums. I’ve had no other issue so far. Thanks Rory |
| Kevin O'Riordan | Nov 14 2019, 4:08pm | Thanks guys. Will take a look at the font sizes issue. I pointed out the password issue to Dave, the guy who did the refresh work and he sent back a fix for it. Inputting MyIMRA password shoudl be easier now. Kevin. |
