On July 1, 2006, Home Dialysis Central will be 2 years old–so it’s time for a complete site revision and update! We want to make the navigation easier, and organize our vast array of content so it’s easier for you to find. You can help. We’d really like your suggestions, tips, and even links to sites that you think do a good job.
What do you and don’t you like about Home Dialysis Central? How can we improve it for you? Here’s your chance to let us know.
P.S. - Don’t worry, the Message Boards will stay the same; we’re not planning to change them.
Wow, finally two years, nice one! Until now a revision… …for the
most part navigation seems it needs some fixing, there’s alot of information but I think some people don’t get to that information easily. Maybe the left-hand nav bar may need some makeover…but really the site doesn’t look bad at all…looks good…just needs a new theme design layout. Bring out the vibrant colors of doing home dialysis…Perhaps you can setup a beta test site for us to test…that way your sure before launching the new site…oh ya, another nice thing is to embed/integrate the forum with the site, maybe with a wrapper or a bridge…so it looks part of the site as well…also don’t forget to make the webpage with variable width, and be sure to center the page…
Just please make sure it is all Mac compatible, There are a lot of us mac users out there (all around the world) and it is really frustrating whensome sites/links consider us expendable! :?
Excellent news then, Mac compatible as well as doze, w Firefox, Exploder, & Safari as well??
Cool…
Actually I’ve only been using the site a while but been finding it useful so far…
Even tho I am in the UK…
I would like to see the layout be brightened up a bit, perhaps some nicer colours. It would also be good to have all the posts sorted into different sub categories, to make it easier to browse. One more thing that would be helpful, not sure if its already here, but some sort of link where you can easily veiw new replies in past 24 hours or new replies to your own posts.
I am with you on this, I suggested this a long time ago but I guess it wasn’t considered priority…
On the other hand I do suggest to have this board replaced with VBulletin, the #1 messageboard in the world…I have one installed at www.wildwestgames.org and must say that board is incredible! Amazing set of Admin features and board management…it literally supports multiple boards with their own style/theme! They provide a tool to import this boards data into Vbulletin… for the long run its best decision…
Glad to hear the suggestions, but I believe that the message board software is part of our ISP hosting, and we prefer to keep the 4 boards as they are–not have them by topic.
We may update the colors, though. And we’re especially looking for suggestions related to navigation and making it easier for people to find what they’re looking for–especially “pathways” to guide folks through the content if they:
– Don’t know what type of home dialysis they might want
– Are looking for info about a particular type
– Need to figure out how to get started
It’s not required that you use this software though, It is an option that was installed during setup either via cpanel or some other admin panel. The host offers the option to use this software, but it is definately not required. The ADMINS of this site will know more about it.
Check your “Profile.” One of the preferences you can check is “to always notify me of replies.” You will get an email every time anyone responds to a message you posted if you choose this option. Make sure that all the other preferences are set as you’d like them to be. You can even set your time zone.
If you want to know about new posts that have been made to the message boards even if you haven’t posted in a thread or there is a new thread, you could go to each thread or you could go to the Home Dialysis Central Forum Index. On the right side above the list of the 4 forums, there are 3 options:
View posts since last visit
View your posts
View unanswered posts.
Check this out by clicking on “Home Dialysis Central Forum Index” in blue text under the red site logo.
Another way I can tell what messages I haven’t seen is that when I log on to the message boards, any forum that has a message I haven’t seen shows up with an orange bell to the left (instead of a white one). The same is true for any thread with unread messages within that forum. If I’m not mistaken, you need to register on the site to have these bells and whistles.
The fact that there is a site for home hemo tickles me pink, period! If it hadn’t been for the few in home hemo who let me know about it I would never have asked about doing it; it’s not like anyone in medical community offered anything other than hd and pd! Since this site I can talk to oodles of folks who are on home hemo; the site is fine the way it is.
It’s doubly great it’s Mac compatible; recently got a Mac because of recommendation from son who was in the field. No more viruses, error messages, ect… yippee! Keep up the good work Dori and Beth.; you two are the best. Lin.
I like the message boards the way they are - but the main site does seem complicated because of all the information that is available. Many people who find themselves at a site’s front page are not sure where to go next unless they happen to see an interesting headline.
I was thinking that a couple two or three minute video tours of the site might be a way to introduce new users to all of the site’s features. It could be very low resolution, fast load video or even a minimalist animated tour that could load fast. I think by conversationally presenting the wonderful features of HDC you will be able to draw people in; a video on how to search the data base, how and why to use message boards, researching modality choice, etc. I imagine that some of the people who most need the site are newish internet users who just received a diagnosis.
You could also have occasional video update tours for those of us who use the site (message boards) all the time but forget to check out what’s new.
Just to make sure all our users are happy, and to make sure it works for everyone, the new site WILL INDEED be Mac, Windows, and *nix compatible, and will be viewable by all standards-compliant browsers, including Safari, Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Opera…
Keep in mind, I will make every attempt to hack compliance for Windows IE users. IE is NOT compliant, and is really a pain for me as a coder to work with – but since it’s the largest browser base out there, I’ve got to make it work.
Nonetheless, the new site will be XHTML valid, CSS valid, and section 508 compliant at every level!!
I appreciate all of your comments so far, and look forward to more.
Sincerely,
Brian Frick
Web Manager (and message board admin!)
Here’s another suggestion on for the new website, please add RSS (News Syndication)…so that I can add RSS feeds from the new site to my blog site…another cool idea is to add RSS feeds for the forums as well…
And finally, if possible…Podcasts on your speaches you hold on the public events…
…for the
