www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Parish Life & Evangelization Using the internet as an evangelical tool

In my opinion, the website of St. Therese Byzantine Catholic Church in St. Petersburg, FL is outstanding. I especially like the weekly bulletins.

Every Byzantine Catholic Church can have an attractive website at a reasonable cost.

http://www.sttherese-byzantine.com/

The site-layout isn't bad, and it is easy to navigate. The colors are nice too. And, the basic parish information (contact data, liturgical schedule, etc.) is easy to find.

Otherwise, I can't agree that this is an outstanding example of an Eastern Catholic parish website. It's ok. It's not outstanding.

Items:

-- There is almost nothing that states the basic faith of the Gospel.

-- There is almost nothing that discusses the basics of Eastern Catholicism.

-- There are almost no photos of parish life which illustrate the Byzantine Tradition and the Life in Christ. Showing the parish team and the altar boys doesn't completely cut it.

-- Rosary instead of Matins before Sunday's Divine Liturgy ?


Instead, I think a truly outstanding example of a website of an Eastern Catholic parish is St. Elias' parish:

http://www.saintelias.com

-- John

P.S. I very much agree with this: Every Byzantine Catholic Church can have an attractive website at a reasonable cost. A parish website doesn't have to be huge. But, it should be a kind of narthex to the faith and to the community.

-- John

Harmon 3110:

While a Church's clergy and congregation can discuss specific content, my point is this: Every parish in the Byzantine Catholic Church in America should have a website.

I was astounded to find out when I looked at the parish directories section of byzcath.org and found out that less than 10% have a website. And some of those were outdated!

Unbelievable.

JP

Harmon3110:

You are right - "outstanding" was the wrong word. I should have said the website of St. Therese is "shocking", in that it even exists.

It makes me wonder about the few websites that I did find. Are the addresses and telephone numbers even correct, much less the time of the Divine Liturgy?

I tried to look up which Churches say the Rosary and which say Matins. I gave up after finding out that 45 of the first 50 or so had no website at all. Either that, or I am an incredible dunce when it comes to looking up a website. I don't know - it may be the latter.

JP

JP,

You're not a dunce, and you are probably just as good as the next guy about finding stuff on the internet.

And, truth be told, I probably shouldn't have criticised the parish for having Rosary instead of Matins on Sunday mornings. Even though Matins is the more Eastern tradition for Sunday mornings, maybe Rosary has become their tradition for Sunday mornings. Maybe that's what works for them, as a parish, to get closer to Jesus. If that's the case . . . well, it wasn't my place to criticize them for that.

And I agree with your main point: Every parish can have a decent looking website at a reasonable cost -- and they should.

Be well.

-- John

Would be interested to know what others think of St Stephen's (Phoenix) website. We're very open to suggestions that wouldn't be beyond our technological expertise to implement.

StStephen Homepage [ststephenbyzantine.org]

Thanks.

OK, I visited your website. I think it is basically good: a solid source of data plus good design.

You asked for constructive criticisms, so here are some ideas that I hope will be helpful to you.


1. Font Color

I would suggest using black font instead of colored font. Some people (especially men) are color blind to one degree or another. Thus, they cannot see certain colors or they cannot see certain contrasts of colors, or they cannot see them very easily. On some of your pages, you use blue font -- and some readers will not be able to see that easily or at all. So, I would suggest changing all the text on your website to black font.


2. Font Size

Some people, especially older people (who are often the ones who are most likely to visit a parish website), have difficulty reading small sized font. So, the font should be 12 point everywhere that it can be managed. In practice, that means you should use 12 point font on all of your website's pages.


3. Font Size and Tables

The exception for using 12 point font would be a table with lots of information. By definition, a table has to squeeze a lot of information into a limited area; and a smaller font size might be the only way to do so. So, a table can be written in smaller sized font: such as your table of liturgical events. However, I would strongly suggest experimenting with 12 point font anyway for that table -- so that it can be easily read, both online and in print (if the reader chooses to print the table for reference).


4. Font and Background

The textured background which your site uses looks good, especially on the front page. However, that textured "look" also tends to diminish the clarity of the text. Specifically, a textured background visually "absorbs" the text into the background. There are two easy solutions. (1) Don't use the textured background at all (or only on the front page), substituting a simple color that is similar in hue to the intended background texture. (2) Keep the background texture, but make the all the text in bold face type. Bold face type adds enough contrast to make text readable when set on a textured background.


I don't have more time now to add more comments; I have to get to an appointment. Hopefully, I will be able to make some more suggestions later. In the meantime, good luck and may God bless you for trying to glorify Him online.

-- John

OK, I'm back. Here are some more suggestions to improve St. Stephen's website; I hope they are helpful.

There are five reasons that people visit a parish website:

1. Location of the Parish
2. Schedule of Services
3. Parish Identity
4. Religious Identity
5. Curiosity

Now I'll analyze the content of St. Stephen's website according to these categories.


1. Location of the Parish

You give the address and telephone number on the front page: Good ! You also have a page for a map. Also good ! I would suggest, in addition, another map on the map-page which shows the greater Phoenix area and a red star showing its location. In that way, strangers to Phoenix can get a sense of where your parish is in the metropolitan area. Bonus: You could include driving directions to St. Stephen's from the major arteries of traffic.


2. Schedule of Services

You have a page which lists a schedule of services throughout the year: Good. You also list on that page the times for Divine Liturgy and Confession: also Good. However, the times for Divine Liturgy and Confession should be at the top of that page, instead of at the bottom, because that is what most visitors to your website will be most interested in.

For the same reason, you should also give the times for Divine Liturgy and Confessions on the front page of the website. Preferably, that information should be "above the fold" (the part of the page that is visible without having to scroll down, similar to a top half of a newspaper when it is folded) along with the parish address and telephone number.


3. Parish Identity

You have a history of the parish and photos of parish life. Well done !


4. Religious Identity

I think the essay about Byzantine Christianity should be rewritten to make it easier for strangers to take it in. Eastern Christians will be able to follow it. Others won't.

Instead, I suggest that you break up the essay into sections and add descriptive headers. Although that is stylistic, it will help keep the attention of a reader who is not Eastern Christian and who would otherwise click in, be overwhelemed, and click out. For examples of headers, "We are Catholics", "Of a Different Rite" (history), "What You Will Find Different Here" (description of interior of the church and the liturgy).

Also, there should be a one sentence statement of religious identity on the front page above the fold. For example, "Welcome to St. Stephen's Byzantine Catholic parish ! We are a Catholic parish, in communion with the pope, of the Byzantine jurisdiction (Eastern "rite"). Again, that is for non-Eastern Christians (especially Roman Catholics) who don't know what Byzantine Catholcis are.


5. Curiosity

I think your site does a reasonably good job for addressing someone who is just curious. In addition to the above comments, I suggest adding some brief descriptions of the websites that you have links for on your links page.


In closing, I think you did a good job with the website for St. Stephen's parish. The comments I suggested are intended as helpful suggestions to improve an already good piece of work. Thank you for sharing it with us.

-- John

John, thank you so much for your comments. I will forward them to our webmaster.

In addition to the very appropriate "end-user" comments supplied by John, you might also suggest to your webmaster that he visit the World-Wide Web Consortium's website validator [validator.w3.org] . This website validates that the underlying HTML code conforms to the official standard. The number of different hardware platforms / browser combinations is mind-boggling. Most browsers try (with varying degrees of success) to gracefully recover from non-compliant code, but the best way to make sure your content actually gets displayed as you intended is to adhere to the standard.

For instance, the home page alone has 66 violations of the HTML standard.

-- Ed

John Patrick,

Check your private messages. I sent you the the Third Hour with the Troparia for St. Therese.

Fr. Deacon Lance

From http://www.ststephenbyzantine.org/History_of_the_Church.htm


"Who are we?

We are the Byzantine Church or Eastern Rite Catholics, and yes we really are Catholics, not Orthodox."

You aren't Orthodox!
Then you must me proud Heterodox!
A dreadful explanation of Byzantine Catholocism!

What Clergy serve St. Stephen's? This should be easily locatable on the website.

St. Elias's website is wonderful!

Yes the explanation of the different liturgical traditions was very poorly put, even as a thumbnail explanation.

St Elias in Canada has the very best of websites.