YHA website relaunched
SPAMHAT...@tiscali.co.uk
www.yha.org.uk
Nigel
replace SPAMHATER with n and t*sc*li with totalise
Chris Hunt
page, now it seems to have died altogether.
First impressions are pretty underwhelming. When did orange become the
YHA colour?
Fran
that, but I confess I haven't been through the whole site. 'Ere, what
happened to camping at Manorbier? I mean, I know the ground's as rocky
as a very rocky thing and tent pegs have a tendency to get as bent as
very bent things an' all that, but even so I was surprised not to see
Manorbier listed as one of the YHs with tenting facilites.
--
To reply see 'from' in headers; lose the domain, and insert dots and @
where common sense dictates.
Jacki
SPAMHAT...@tiscali.co.uk wrote:
> The website has been refurbished and relaunched. Same address
> www.yha.org.uk
First appearances are encouraging; it's more user-friendly than the
previous edition, but not sure about the orange. Is YHA going to
transform into easyHostel?
Getting the thing to work at the moment is problematic - I'm also
getting intermittent "server busy" messages, but that may be down to
teething troubles.
While the new site changes won't affect the average user, the one thing
that annoys me, and will no doubt annoy the myriad of other webmasters
out there who have sites that link to individual pages on YHA's site is
that they've changed ALL the URLs. This means a lot of work to update,
and also there will be a lot of sites out there suddenly returning
those annoying "page not found" results as the links to YHA pages no
longer work.
Google will also be well pissed off with YHA :-)
underco...@hotmail.co.uk
Oooooh, where do I start with this one eh?
Within 20 seconds I found my first error, and 30 minutes later I felt
like writing a letter to the YHA communications department with a long
list of errors. Do YHA check the site content before publishing it?
YHA Okehampton lists Step Bridge as another nearby hostel in its list
for instance - now closed! I have many more I could list - but won't. I
keep getting a default picture of Earls Court when I click on a B+B
where no picture of that B+B is available - thats very misleading! The
booking engine has become much worse - You can no longer view a
calendar of availability reds/ambers/greens for hostels - Thats poor -
really poor. You have to try every single date until you hit an
'available' night. There are lots of dead links - like 'book now'
'buttons' in various places and the update on the governance review has
links to a blog etc at the bottom - all are plain text - no link at
all.
Bloody hell, all this waiting for a super site and its still got plenty
of errors from the old site. If I find out this shite (sorry site) cost
more then a few hundred quid of my membership money I will go quite
mad.
Why did YHA not ask a few NG readers/members to test drive a new site
and ask for feedback before making it public?
SPAMHAT...@tiscali.co.uk
> The
>booking engine has become much worse - You can no longer view a
>calendar of availability reds/ambers/greens for hostels - Thats poor -
>really poor. You have to try every single date until you hit an
>'available' night.
You can see the availability if you use www.yhabooking.org.uk direct
rather than the version on www.yha.org.uk
underco...@hotmail.co.uk
No, I've obviously not made myself clear enough here. If you want to
see the week, month, year ahead of available nights for a particular
hostel you use to get a bar divided up into each day and it was
coloured red,amber or green - indicating general availability. So it
was easy to see opening patterns and routine closed nights for example.
If you get a 'not available' for a specific date you don't know when
its next available unless you go through each day manually. Removing
this calendar view for an individual hostel is a step backwards. Also,
you use to get a list at the bottom of an availability search of all
hostels not available for the date selected and you could click to see
their calendar views very easily - these have been removed too. A long
term calendar view for each hostel was really useful for planning.
underco...@hotmail.co.uk
Actually I take back most of what I've just said. There is a 'book now'
button under the stars logo (which is under the hostel picture) on each
individual hostel page. That link takes you to a calendar view of
availability at that hostel. So I was wrong - I'm very sorry.
Mike Jones
Also I got 404 for Lawrenny from the map
I note that YHA-branded accommodation is re-available in Monmouth!
(from £27.50); bit more than last time I stayed in that town.
Jacki
underco...@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
> Bloody hell, all this waiting for a super site and its still got plenty
> of errors from the old site. If I find out this shite (sorry site) cost
> more then a few hundred quid of my membership money I will go quite
> mad.
Better get your straightjacket on then. It won't have been cheap.
After a bit more clicking around last night, I agree the new site is
still full of errors. Links don't work or link to the wrong pages;
it's full of spelling mistakes and errors from the old site haven't
been corrected.
BrianW
Orange is the default. You can also select two disgusting, lurid colour
schemes, yellow on black and black on yellow - as well as black on blue.
You can also select the desired text size, although most browsers let
you do that anyway, so there's no point.
Designed by the same people who did the Prince of Wales' web site I see.
High on effect, low on substance. :-(
--
Brian
Chris Hunt
with certain visual disabilities find black-on-yellow (or vice versa)
an easier combination to read than black-on-white. It may be helpful
for dyslexics too. (I've been looking around for a link that explains
further, but without much success as yet)
Of course, on the YHA site they still have to contend with text that's
pretty small, even at the largest setting offered to them.
SPAMHAT...@tiscali.co.uk
>
>
>Actually I take back most of what I've just said. There is a 'book now'
>button under the stars logo (which is under the hostel picture) on each
>individual hostel page. That link takes you to a calendar view of
>availability at that hostel. So I was wrong - I'm very sorry.
Actually the book now isn't on all the pages yet. I suspect that's
awaiting the rollout of Orion to all hostels.
SPAMHAT...@tiscali.co.uk
I think that old pages have been pasted in wholesale without review. I
understand that the next step is to allow staff to edit pages relevant
to their own areas making updates hopefully more dynamic and timely.
I quite like the orange, it makes a change from the ubiquitious green.
It's been one of the colours listed in the corporate style guide for
some time now.
Nick Pedley
<SPAMHAT...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
news:i8t4q2d0frvnf67jv...@4ax.com...
Not wonderfully impressed within 2 clicks. I asked the site to 'Inspire Me'
with Beautiful Countryside which took me to a list of hostels. Doing well so
far.
'Wildehope Manor' is spelt wrongly in the list but I chose it because I have
tried unsuccessfully to stay there on numerous occasions.
The text and photo was OK but then I looked at the page header. Whoops.
'Youth Hostel, Bradwell Village' is not what I am reading about.
The actual hostel site pages have about 5 different fonts and sizes in use
which doesn't make for easy reading.
The regional maps are rubbish, they should bring back the old versions with
the large towns made clearer.
The YHA have screwed up by not allowing the site to be fully proofread
before launch. I would have been very happy to be part of such a process
even if it meant logging in securely to prevent too much being given away
before launch.
And those are just the start of my thoughts.
Nick
--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com
SPAMHAT...@tiscali.co.uk
<nichola...@npedley.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>Not wonderfully impressed within 2 clicks.
see the contacts page http://www.yha.org.uk/contact-us/ for loads of
email addys to write to. Whether they are work or not is a different
question :)
Nick Pedley
<SPAMHAT...@tiscali.co.uk> wrote in message
news:ri18q25m4dpp2e58f...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 9 Jan 2007 20:49:56 -0000, "Nick Pedley"
> <nichola...@npedley.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>
>>Not wonderfully impressed within 2 clicks.
>
> see the contacts page http://www.yha.org.uk/contact-us/ for loads of
> email addys to write to. Whether they are work or not is a different
> question :)
>
of my above posting with suggestions as to what I think needs changing.
Mainly it's those useless maps of the regions where it's near impossible to
name the towns or click on the correct overlapping hostel icon.
Jacki
Nick Pedley wrote:
> Not wonderfully impressed within 2 clicks. I asked the site to 'Inspire Me'
> with Beautiful Countryside which took me to a list of hostels. Doing well so
> far.
> 'Wildehope Manor' is spelt wrongly in the list but I chose it because I have
> tried unsuccessfully to stay there on numerous occasions.
> The text and photo was OK but then I looked at the page header. Whoops.
> 'Youth Hostel, Bradwell Village' is not what I am reading about.
That's not the only silly mistake. I just loaded the 'Find
Accommodation' page (without clicking on the drop-down menu). The
'Yorkshire Wold, Moors and Coast' link goes to 'Yorkshire Dales & South
Pennines'. Ooops!
underco...@hotmail.co.uk
MrX
---
Starts:
YHA is ringing in the New Year in style by launching this brand new
website to tempt travellers of all ages with budget breaks in top
countryside, coastal and city locations.
The aim was to create a site that helped the user navigate through the
choices offered at more than 200 Youth Hostels that provide value
accommodation in England and Wales.
The new site went live this week and was created by Reading Room.
Duncan Simpson, Head of Communications at YHA said: "We decided to
overhaul our website to help promote a more accurate representation of
what YHA represents - flexible, quality accommodation, representing
great value at excellent locations all over England and Wales. "What
we needed to communicate such an attractive offer was an attractive
site with greater functionality and that's what Reading Room has
delivered."
Margaret Manning, Reading Room's CEO, said: "YHA requires a highly
complex transactional site that delivers targeted and personalised
content and is fully integrated with back-end systems.
Reading Room is working with YHA on the online communications strategy
and advising on the way that technology can support this strategy.
"This is an incredibly interesting project that will significantly
enhance YHA's online business,"
The award-winning digital agency fought off stiff competition to win
the project, and has worked closely with YHA to ensure the new site
meets all its requirements.
The site will take into account visitor feedback and develop the online
offering while maintaining the existing loyal visitor base.
A greater emphasis has also been placed on customers being able to
tailor their YHA experience according to their needs.
The agency is also currently working on an intensive online marketing
programme that will encourage discovery of all that YHA has to offer.
:Ends
Chris Hunt
http://www.yhagroup.org.uk/archives/yha-website-review . Please take a
look and leave any comments you may have.
Jacki
> >Found this on the new YHA website - release date of 1st September 2007!
>
> MrX
> Duncan Simpson, Head of Communications at YHA said: "We decided to
> overhaul our website to help promote a more accurate representation of
> what YHA represents
A more accurate representation? What's accurate about copying/pasting
all the errors from the old site to the new one?
> "This is an incredibly interesting project that will significantly
> enhance YHA's online business,"
Right! People are really going to think highly of YHA when they click
on a link from a tourist board website, only to get a "404, page can't
be found" error. Joe Public will give up at that point and search for
somewhere else to stay. That's really going to enhance YHA's online
business.
>
> The award-winning digital agency fought off stiff competition to win
> the project, and has worked closely with YHA to ensure the new site
> meets all its requirements.
If the new site truly met "all its requirements" they'd have
implemented redirects from the old pages to the new ones, so visitors
are seamlessly transferred to the new page. Come on guys, it's not
rocket science for heaven's sake.