New Website?

[richierock]

I'll send an email to webmaster@readingfc.co.uk, copied to customerservice@readingfc.co.uk. These appear to be the contact email addys (according to the infamous website)

[Platypuss]

I imagine the club must have signed up to some silly 10 year contract or something similar

ISTR a 20 year contract way back!

Originally a 20-year contract back in 2000!

http://www.football-league.co.uk/latestnews/20020716/league-considers-ntl-approach-over-internet-deal_2293301_240144

[Barry the bird boggler]

Only 8 more years to go!

[Platypuss]

Just tried to look at some match reports from last season and before, they dont exist anymore.

Shambles.

Deffo a shambles, but the content is still there - it's the links from the results that haven't been restored. Match reports can be found if you do a search, eg: Reading 1-0 Forest from April:

http://www.readingfc.co.uk/fixtures-results/match-report/?matchid=3409700&tcmuri=147808

[Alexander Litvinenko]

They'd probably welcome as many emails as possible - so they can forward them onto PTV to show evidence of how much people dislike teh new design.

[richierock]

Here's the (swift) reply I received from Paul Collins, at the club:
================
Thank you for your email. We are aware that supporters are currently experiencing some issues with our new website. We are taking all feedback on board and making Sapient - the central company - aware of slow loading times and functionality issues.
Many other clubs have also launched their new website using Sapient, and are also currently experiencing similar issues.
I am very sorry for the current inconvenience.
=================

So at least they're aware of issues!

[Yahoops]

Maybe we should target Sapient?

http://www.sapient.com/en-gb/news/press ... a1793.html

[Wimb]

I imagine the club must have signed up to some silly 10 year contract or something similar

ISTR a 20 year contract way back!

Originally a 20-year contract back in 2000!

http://www.football-league.co.uk/latestnews/20020716/league-considers-ntl-approach-over-internet-deal_2293301_240144

Around the time of the ITV Digital CoLOLapse no wonder they signed up to it

[EPR]

If you click on:

http://www.readingfc.co.uk/tickets/away-games/

It loads this image:

http://www.readingfc.co.uk/cms_images/n ... 211949.jpg

Which is a 3,098px × 2,323px over 1.5MB image file!!

It is then left to your browser to struggle to scale that to just under 500px width every time you view the page, even if the image is already in your cache.

Now it would seem from the image URL by virtue of the keyword "cms" (Content Management System) that this image has probably been uploaded by someone at Reading FC via the club's back-end interface to the website. I've no problem with that. Reading FC should be able to upload pictures and other media without having to worry about website optimisation - and then the CMS optimises / re-sizes uploads to make them appropriate for where / how they are included - not just sent out raw!!!

[ZacNaloen]

The end user is typically a moron, and typically the designer should assume this. 1.5mb image

[EPR]

In a set-up like this, there should be no expectation of your CMS users (the club's employees or agents uploading content) to be aware of the intricacies of media optimisation for online delivery. It's not their job - they're not website designers, developers - but have more of a journalistic role - which is to provide the information in the best quality they can!

In fact, there are many valid reasons for media upload to be in the best resolution possible - as this allows maximum flexibility in the delivery of that content - which SHOULD be scaled and optimised to suit!

[ZacNaloen]

I still can't believe they are touting player as going under an upgrade and still advertising it as a flash video service. A 2MB FLASH VIDEO SERVICE. no less. So it will still look shit without some proper encoding. Which it won't have.

Flash is dead, HTML5 is the future. And with the current design makes the site completely useless for Ipad owners, not least because performance on the main site is piss poor.

[SLAMMED]

Surprisingly I had no problem buying my Chelsea tickets using my mobile earlier.

Still shit though.

[Squelchy2507]

I have just submitted the following to Sapient via the 'Contact Us' page on their website. http://www.sapient.com/en-gb/contact-us.html

I am contacting you following a recent update of the official website for Reading Football club, for which I am informed you are the central provider. Well all I can say is the new design is ABSOLUTELY DREADFUL. The site takes an age to load and graphics keep re-sizing and moving around as it does so. It is horrible to use and some of the images loaded are of ridiculous file sizes, so no wonder it takes such a long time to render.
PLEASE SORT IT OUT.
You may be interested in some feedback at the following noticeboard on the supporters fan site.

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=113281&start=160

I belive that supporters of other football league clubs are suffering from similar frustrations.

Others may want to do similar.

[SLAMMED]

[Alexander Litvinenko]

According to someone ITK at another club there are 3 templates available to select from, and the one Reading is using is the one which their media team considers "the best."

Which instantly raises the question of how bad must the other two be!

[Platypuss]

According to someone ITK at another club there are 3 templates available to select from, and the one Reading is using is the one which their media team considers "the best."

Which instantly raises the question of how bad must the other two be!

Or possibly totally functionally excellent but don't look "fresh and modern". ie just like like BBC Sport.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

BBC Sport was, I'm pretty sure, redesigned because the cuts meant they they needed a website that could be managed by fewer people. All the talk about user improvements was pretty much BS.

[Hoop Blah]

Is it normal to be able to call up images directly from the sites CMS from the outside world like the one above?

Obvioulsy the CMS has to be able to deliver the image to the browser but now you can access them directly and get hold of the images for yourself once you know the file name (this certainly wouldn't have been possible under the old site when you couldn't, from what I remember, view the source code or right click on the page for the image names etc).

Seems a bit sloppy to me compared to the old site being totally locked down.

[EPR]

Is it normal to be able to call up images directly from the sites CMS from the outside world like the one above?

Obvioulsy the CMS has to be able to deliver the image to the browser but now you can access them directly and get hold of the images for yourself once you know the file name (this certainly wouldn't have been possible under the old site when you couldn't, from what I remember, view the source code or right click on the page for the image names etc).

Seems a bit sloppy to me compared to the old site being totally locked down.

If it can be viewed by the browser as you say it can also be viewed as is - that's all perfectly normal / acceptable. Any "locking down" from an end user point of view on the previous version would have been purely Javascript based - disable JavaScript and you'd be able to right click on any image and view the source URL as normal.