New Website?

[devonrz]

Hello, I'm a newbie! I just registered so I could ask if anyone else thinks the new official website is crap! It appears it's not my computer on the blink then, other people have issues with it?

[Upper West Ginger]

Hello, I'm a newbie! I just registered so I could ask if anyone else thinks the new official website is crap! It appears it's not my computer on the blink then, other people have issues with it?

Yes, it is crap. It is slow, maddeningly cluttered, and evidently designed by a teenage geek with ADHD.

And in the time honoured tradition, fcuk off newbie

[bobby1413]

The website is disgraceful.

The dynamic content, the plug-ins, the fancy stuff on eveerrryyyyy single page makes the site almost unusable.

It's terrible terrible terrible!

[Wycombe Royal]

I don't even look at it any more. It is a massive step backwards. Whoever designed should not get paid for their work and whoever approved it at RFC should be disciplined.

Absolutely shocking.

[Platypuss]

Tries to look pretty for the tabletorati and is ridiculously slow to load as a result - even on 20Mbit cable.

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

It seems entirely concerned with how it looks, with minimal thought to what it actually contains in terms of information, or how easy it is to use.

It has an awful habit of putting up background pic, putting up some content, then seeing it all vanish 2 seconds later to be replaced with something else. A total mess.

At least Sheffield Wednesday fans wouldn't have found it any easier to find details of their win against us - they have exactly the same site designers.

[The Real Sandhurst Royal]

I have come to the conclusion the new web site is unusable.

Even where they have corrected errors or missing content the fonts / sizes used need binocular to read the content (see away Fixtures).

What a disaster the web site is for RFC just when the team raised the profile of the club around the world with promotion back to the Premier League.

Football fans in England and around the world must be as frustrated as we are using the new unusable RFC web site.

[EPR]

It has an awful habit of putting up background pic, putting up some content, then seeing it all vanish 2 seconds later to be replaced with something else. A total mess.

This is the biggest single problem IMHO - it loads so much external, unsized content; the result of which is that when the content eventually loads (I do chuckle every time I see Firefox say "waiting for content-delivery-network.**** ) the page re-renders and EVERYTHING moves; just as you'd homed your mouse in on where you wanted to click - it's GONE!

What tends to happen in the development process is that all of the external stuff is already cached in the developer's browser, so they often don't appreciate how slow and unresponsive the site is on a browser that is visiting the site for the first time.

I hope RFC aren't tied into this contract for too much longer. I think me & TBM should put forward a proposal. It will be very good value as TBM comes for free.

[andrew1957]

I wrote to the club and complained about the awful website about a week ago and have not even the courtesy of a repsonse.

It has not got any better. I see a lot of other clubs are using the new format as well!

As for content the entire news archive seems to have gone. The player profiles are a mess - the new squad numbers have not been used. There is no section for inward and outward loans. And I am sure a lot more but I just decided to give up viewing it. This must be the least succesful website upgrade in the history of the WWW. I thought the BBC went backwards with theirs .... but it is a king to the abortion that RFC have gone live with.

[Yahoops]

Probably one of the worst websites I've used in years. I used to use the mobile site which was great but that now fails to finish loading. I wrote to the club about the speed soon after the launch but have heard nothing back. I expect that someone will be fired for this massive cock-up. Who is the current marketing manager?

[2.8 lita injection]

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

Shambles.

I guarantee the traffic to the new website is less than the old one.

[Yahoops]

The traffic is probably higher as people return again and again driven by a forlorn hope that someone at the club actually cares about it.

OK, maybe that's just me

[stickywhisky]

Don't know if this helps?

Dara Thomas
Marketing and Events Executive

Reading Football Club
Madejski Stadium
Junction 11, M4
Reading
Berkshire
RG2 0FL

Tel: 0118 968 1310
Fax: 0118 968 1315

[richierock]

I doubt whether RFC have much say over the design of the web-site. It appears to be run by a company called FL Interactive, whose address is c/o The Football League so I assume it was set up to provide website design services to FL clubs and share the development costs. Most of the league clubs seem to use this company so they all have the same look-and-feel. Some clubs - e.g. Soton and Birmingham still have the 'old' FL Interactive design where as some, e.g. Shrewsbury, Wolves have been 'upgraded' to the new design like ours. Some of the so-called "bigger" clubs don't have the FL Interactive style website so presumably they can afford to source their own website design.
If anyone has a suitable email address at the club, maybe we can use crowd-source up enough messages to force a re-think?
Rich

[Yahoops]

Emma Pierce is the Marketing Director, I don't know the email format possibly:

emma.pierce@readingfc.co.uk

Can anyone confirm?

[Wimb]

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

[stickywhisky]

Emma Pierce is the Marketing Director, I don't know the email format possibly:

emma.pierce@readingfc.co.uk

Can anyone confirm?

I think its emmapierce@readingfc.co.uk

[Yahoops]

Both of the above failed

[stickywhisky]

Both of the above failed

Oh well, I guess calling them is the best bet - any takers?

[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!