Let me preface, what will appear to a non-objective thinker; to be a major slam, with this: I think the assembly of folks we have here is outstanding. I find this forum to be invaluable and I truly have a desire to see it grow, in both its usefulness and its membership.
Now......
Comment 1:
The brochure is a poor product. It should be a first class pamphlet that provides the reader with an overwhelming desire to pursue the NACAFC, which is the entire objective of the flyer.
Support for Comment 1:
The logo detail is poor. It has jaggies, the copyright text is not legible and it sits in a square box with a 5% gray shade that doesn't look good on the white background.
The "Chevrolet Avalanche Fan Club of North America" heading on the front page is difficult to read, it should be in another font.
On the FAQ page, the quote uses poor English and in the FAQ area, three of the four question are completely irrelevant and serve no purpose in trying to entice someone to stop by for a visit. (Remember its goal...?)
On the "Best Options Come Free" page, the pagination in the first and third paragraph make reading the text extremely annoying, the large white spaces need to be removed. This section also includes mixed-tense thoughts and improper use of font styling.
The "What We Provide" page; poor statement structure and a typo. (Can you find it?)
The "How we Can Help" page; one of the four items is NOT a "How we can help" statement because of poor sentence structure.
The "How to Find Us" section; the URL should be on one line.
These are picky items, indeed. But you are not posting a flyer for a lost cat or local pancake breakfast. This is a national organization that promotes the support of General Motors.
Most people will see this flyer and not do anything with it. If you ask them why, they will not be able to answer you. The fact is, it just doesn't generate any enthusiasm. There's no "WOW" factor.
Comment 2:
The Web Site is very slow, most Avalanche owners live and work in a fast-paced world, they don't want to wait for page rendering. The search area is not user freindly. The search engine is slow. It is VERY difficult to find what you are searching for. There are way too many topics "pinned" to the top of the individual forums.
Support for Comment 2:
Well, sometimes it takes a minute to load the front page. The front page should be the fastest page of all. I have been to this site from a variety of computers with a variety of connection types. I have an OC12 at my office, so when anything is slow, I know it is the site or the server that site is on.
You cannot get to the Search page for searching posts from the front page, sad.
If I wanted to find all the great comments posted by Goo929, I would go to the search page and type Goo929 in the "by user" field and the scroll all the way to the bottom and press search, right? Wrong, this generates and error. I can't search for all of Goo's posts, I have to search for keywords by Goo. The problem with this, is that I remember Goo posted a great thought about dressing up the AV last week, but I cannot remember what is was. I can't find it because I must fill in the "Search For" field, but I don't know what to put in there. I DO know that if I could see all of Goo's posts from last week, I'd have my answer in about two minutes.
The "Check All" box and the "Search" button should be DUPLICATED at the top of the form so you don't have to scroll all the way down even when you are not going to change any of the lower settings.
There are many other issues with the search engine here, most of them are mentioned in the forums. I only feel the need to mention one to support my thoughts about the poor search engine.
Most people don't give a second thought to the words they choose for the SUBJECT of a post. Finding a topic six months from today should be considered when wording your subject. Take the subject of this thread for example; I thought someone was complaining about the lack of a response to a question they had posted in a forum. Nope.
Too Many Pinned posts; It is annoying to have to scroll down a whole page to get to the recent threads.
See these samples:
Sample 1
Sample 2
I have to admit, I swear off this board at least once a month, it shouldn't be that way. I use this board as a resource, I don't appreciate the all the little aggravating nuances that come with it.
So, in a nut shell, I think most of your tags are tossed aside; but those that do show up here, get turned off before they see what an invaluable resource it really is.
I said "your" tags because I will not hand out the currently available flyer. Since we are requested to not change it, I simply don't use it.
A final note on the flyer,
The more educated the Avalanche driver the harder it is to grab his interest. The less educated the Avalanche driver, the easier it is to grab his interest.
The current flyer simply doesn't capture the attention of a large enough audience. Enhancing the flyer will grab a larger audience.