someone that sends me getty photos more often so i can make more wallpapers....or at least let me take my own pics and make walls from them.

5% of the member base is 1400 supporters. I doubt the club would think that 1400 members are insignificant.

It's all about opportunity cost, spending time on 5% can mean that the 95% are then neglected. Time is finite.

It's a moot point anyway, there is no-one at the club with the software expertise to offer a better feedback solution. The feedback form that is used would be the standard issue 'out of the box' offered by Telstra. Unless there is an extra tech savvy resource added to the team of one (one is being generous because updating the CFC site is only one part of his job) that currently updates the site for the club then things will not change.

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Yeah, Jars, Nyah nyah!

Your stats should have told you that!

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

Ok fine I understand the club is restricted by resources and Telstra.

Buy saying that spending time catering to %5 of users neglects the other 95% is a pretty common myth, but really just isn't true.

A properly designed website, following standards and put together with acessibility in mind means that the fix ups to cater to all browsers and platforms are minimal.

Rubbish like the Telstra sites (especially afl.com.au) benefit no one. Hell I'm part of the 95% and the bloody thing still causes me all kinds of technical problems. Then there is the fact you can't find what you want, and it doesn't look like it serves the club well either.

It serves the club well in terms of money, IMO they get paid over the odds by Telstra. Part of the reason why the quality of applications is so poor is IMO because Telstra pays so much for the rights they then skimp on the website itself. Telstra is really only interested in getting their Bigpond ads on the front page of every site, they have very little interest in providing state of the art (costly) facilities and applications to make AFL supporters experiences the best they can be on the club sites.

With the 5% point, in my experience with websites it is often the case that when you fix a problem for 5% of users who are having a problem it invariably causes problems for another 5% of users who previously never had a problem. After a while I realised that trying to get applications to work for 100% of people online is pretty much impossible (unless you have lots of resources of course).

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Yep. It's sad that a site built with proper resourcing offering the features that I believe the club should offer (proper membership area with sign up, sales etc) wouldn't bring in direct returns equal to what Telstra will pay. It makes it a hard decision for the club to turn its back on guaranteed revenue. I think the indirect benefits would be greater to the club, but that's a very hard sell and difficult to prove when someone can just get up and point to the direct returns.



If you don't design from the start with accessibility in mind then you often have the problems you mention. Your left trying to patch up problems, and end up creating more as you go.

But it can be done and doens't require huge resources. It just requires a bit of knowledge and a commitment to high accessibility. Sometimes you have to put accessibility before fancy features, but crap like using Flash for any navigation elements is a really poor idea for many other reasons as well.

The whole "it's too hard to cater to just 5% of your audience" is just a cop out from those who can't be bothered. It might take time to learn how do to things right, but once you do it doesn't take longer to design a website that nearly everyone can access.

That's my point, 100% is impossible for a small operator, especially when software and platforms and everything else are changing constantly.

Even if everything is perfect there will always be a small section of whingers who will compain that they don't like a certain colour or font. It never ends. It is easy to set things up to keep 90% of people happy, the 10% that are not happy can bugger off.

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I got caught out by the 400 letter quota too!!

Good grief...when the site is as bad as it is and you actually ask for help - WHY PUT A @#@$# LIMIT ON IT???!!!

This is supposed to be a good thing!!!!

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"...that's the thing about opinion - you don't have to know anything to have one..." Andre Agassi commenting on Pat Cash 2004
"...the less you know - the more you believe..." - Bono 2006

Ok. I should have been more careful with my words. Those I was excluding were groups like those using browsers 4 or more years old. Groups that are very small, not groups like Mac users, or Firefox users, or anything like that.

Maybe we're talking about different things, I'm not talking about 100% of people loving your design, or even 100% of people seeing a pixel perfect representation of your design. I'm talking about 99% of people at least being able to access all your content properly. Unless you're just a hobbiest, there is no excuse for excluding groups of users.

Anyway, Carlton are a lot bigger than anyone I'd classify a small operator.

You've summed it up to the letter, Mordan. Thankyou.

99.9% of websites render perfectly on my computer, in both Firefox and Camino (Mac-specific browser built by the Mozilla people), so creating a platform or browser-neutral website is easier than people say it is.

I'm not complaining about colours, or sizes, but when entire pages come out as jumbles because some 14-year old work experience kid put it together, then that's really not professional practice for a business the size of the Carlton Football Club, let alone Telstra.

I still don't see why we can't make a decent website part of the Optus sponsorhip package......I know another club has....

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

talk about missing the point and not being able to read.

I said if everything was functioning perfectly on a website then people would complain about trivial matters such as colour and font. I said nothing about rendering being difficult, we were talking about the functioning of applications such as forms etc.

FFS learn how to read.

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Yeah Eliot, ya illiterate poof.

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Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.

FFS can we have some specifics rather than dribble?

How are we supposed to get anything fixed to suit your needs and wants and desires if all I get is 'its crap'?

Carlton will get 5x as much revenue from this in 2007 than in 2006. Think about it. If you've got time to write a post then you've got time to think about what you'd like to fix.

Have already had a chat to them about somehow updating the Bios quickly (if BW and I can update the Blueseum instantly then we should be able to update the main site ... or link it through to the Blueseum?)

molsey, I agree, I reckon we need extra people to keep some sections of the official site updated quickly.

However, the only way that can happen as I see it is if those new contributors are made bonifide employees of the Footy Club.

Telstra have paid millions of dollars and the sites are hosted on their hardware, any person that has password acces to the backend of the AFL website infrastructure presents a security risk. It would have to be done in a very formal way through Telstra and the Club.

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Of course you're never going to please everyone. That applies to just about everything in life, not just websites.

The complaints here are not to do with colours or forms. The AFL designed websites are unusuable for some, and a pretty miserable experience for everyone. Hardly trivial complaints like we don't like the shade of blue they use.

I'd have thought I qualify as a member of Carlton Communications after the past fe wyears!

OK....Specifics...

Links are often broken, or go to the wrong article or page.

Searches are difficult, and often result in anything but what you want

The site, and the home page in particular, is too cluttered, and ad-heavy.

Membership renewal online is a Kafkaesque nightmare.

The site is barely more than a warmed-over rehash of Sportal/Telstra stuff from the main AFL website.

The contributors are good, though.

As a member of the Club, it would be nice to have a "members only" section of the website, and it hopefully could help more interstate and overseas members sign up, and get inside gossip from players, more pics, etc. Something which would be a real "value added" part of the membership and website.

PS: This was from the carltonfc.com.au home page:


What is it belonging to the Boy that we're supposed to meet?

That puts across a very poor image, for mine. (or should that be put's.....?)

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And so while others miserably pledge themselves to the pursuit of ambition and brief power, I will be stretched out in the shade, singing.

Ok. What I'd like to see Carlton do with the website.

Many of the issues I have are with the Telstra implementation of the website. I'll assume there isn't much Carlton can do here, but if there is let me know and I'll happily suggest a range of improvements they should ask for from Telstra.

So if we're just looking at content, here's what I'd like to see:

Website annouce selected teams as soon as they're finalised. At the moment you need to listen to SEN or get the next mornings paper to see the Carlton team. Why can't this go straight to the website?

Especially over summer, the most sought after and interesting information is generally the training reports. A training report about once a week with some photos would be great.

The shop is beyond ordinary. And I can't work out the membership section at all. (This may be more Telstra than the club, but I can't see how they can accept such a poor effort no matter how much money they're paid).

To be honest, I've just had a look through the content and it's pretty good but the website isn't easy to navigate, nor do I find it easy to look at. It's cluttered and way too busy and with far too much stuff competing for attention. Moving a lot of the stuff off the front page and putting it one level deeper in the navigation would be a big improvement in my opinion.

So I think there is more good stuff there than people realise, it's just hard to find it through the clutter. Of course, more is better, especially anything the players can contribute (directly, or indirectly).

While the clubs hands are tied by a fat contract with Telstra, I think it's going to be hard to achieve a great result. Things do seem to be improving though, I only had to kill off my browser once during this visit to the site and afl.com.au. That's better than it used to be.

I'd love to see this also.

Something like spurs lodge for Tottenham Hotspur - links to videos, wallpapers and exclusive player interviews.

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Richard Pratt - A Carlton legend.