Designing Non-professional Diving club

• Website URL:
  http://www.plongeursmasques.fr
  
  
• Website description:
  I made this website to give visibility to my small non-profit diving club. We try to demonstrate that diving is open to everybody, and can be done in a serious-but-funny structure : we freely provide a lot of diving gear, we try to open to kids, women and people with disabilities (Diving is still considered as a sporty male activity for wealthy people, which is not the case at all). We focus on training (I am a Diving Instructor myself), so that students can learn in the most comfortable way.
  
  But more importantly, the website is used on a daily basis by registered members to handle their diving activities : this part is quite straightforward and efficient today.
  
  
• The Structure of my website:
  Before going in details on the structure, I'll summarize the biggest challenges I had so far (my lack of talent set aside) :
  
  - the website should offer a fancy look for newcomers, but a practical one for registered members. In member section people can book diving gear, register to courses and download learning material. As of today, 95% of my website traffic is from members.
  - due to this administrative part, lots of menu items, and in some pages, lots of information. It is possible that scrolling is heavily used. Therefore the main area ina typical page should support nice resizing
  - menu structure is based on the type of member : regular, instructor (can see/do extra stuff related to diving), administrator (can see/do extra stuff not related to diving)
  
  Public part (I consider this is already too many items, but have no good ideas on how to summarize) :
  
  Home
  Club presentation
  Diving spots
  Agenda
  Press clips
  Galleries
  Who's who
  Useful links
  Registration information
  Contact
  
  Member part :
  
  Registration
  - Natural spots (*)
  - Artificial spots (*)
  - Courses (*)
  The Club
  - Internal news (*)
  - Download documents
  - Course material
  - Ads (*)
  Member
  - Progress
  - Personal details
  Administrator
  - Manage personal details
  - Manage gear
  - Manage polls
  Instructor
  - Manage progress (can see and act on all individual progress pages from members)
  
  Plus a little gizmo indicating your current id + disconnect button + change password button
  
  (*) As of today this full menu is expanded because items with an asterisk (*) can have a blinking indicator showing that something new has been added to the corresponding section : my users like this a lot
  
  As you can see, this is a mess Another problem is that, in many templates available here, a few items are described in an extensive way (some text + image for instance), while on my side I have a lot of items accessed by knowledgeable members ... May be I should I build a public part that follows this "classical" pattern, and then a single "member" menu item that opens to a different world ? That would address the duality of my intended audience
  
  
• My favorite template designs on Free Website Templates:
  Diving school template : first page is very neat and I like the blue mood. I'm not sure how pages could fit a classical "enumeration of stuff" scheme though
  
  http://www.wix.com/website-template...t_id=ma_html_fwt_temp_15_5&utm_term=education
  
  Preschool template : layout is classic but efficient, and generic page layout should adapt nicely to my needs ... but I don't honestly know if I need this kind of classical layout or if I'm just being too old-fashioned :-(
  
  http://www.wix.com/website-template...html_fwt_temp_4_4Preschool&utm_term=education
  
  Consultant template : for the readability, but it lacks the fun I would like to introduce ...
  
  http://www.wix.com/website-template...nt_id=ma_html_fwt_temp_11_4&utm_term=business
  
  
• Other websites whose design I like:
  http://www.yootheme.com/demo/themes/joomla/2012/subway : I like the general blue mood, and the way squares are used to produce a neat design (must be my developer background talking)
  
  http://peekaboodesign.co.uk : clean, sleek design
  
  
• Preferred colors:
  As main color the blue in the shark logo, then any other color as long as the main section being stretched does not produce a blinding effect, and it still gives a general impression or water.
  
  
• Notes:
  I'm still torn between sexiness and efficiency, sometimes my screens are a big enumeration of stuff (calendars, courses), they have to be there in some way but it's so boring I'd like to avoid classical column display but I don't know if I'll have other choice ...
  
  - Of course many of the members receive new course notification via mail and immediately apply via their smartphone, responsive design would be a plus.
  
  - Shark logo (available in any size) must show, at least on first page.
  
  - I like flat design

• Photos:

Galeries section is public on my site, I guess the sexiest photos can be found in the following ones (Egypt, French West Indies, ...) :
​

http://www.plongeursmasques.fr/galerie.php?gal=2010&album=20100223 - martinique
http://www.plongeursmasques.fr/galerie.php?gal=2011&album=20110305_Maldives
http://www.plongeursmasques.fr/galerie.php?gal=2012&album=20120211_martinique
http://www.plongeursmasques.fr/galerie.php?gal=2014&album=20140306_Guadeloupe
http://www.plongeursmasques.fr/galerie.php?gal=2013&album=20131025_oceanos

Screenshots of members section in next post​

 

Screenshot 1 : http://imgur.com/Ma1zNLk

List of diving sessions : on top administrators have a formular where they can create a new sessions, "normal" members see the second part (only one visible here, but many below) where they have details (availability...) and can register

Screenshot 2 : http://imgur.com/OUyGGUs

"News" screen, once again a potential enumeration of stuff

On the left-hand part of both screenshots you can see the whole menu, with some items (red triangle) having new content since my last visit. This makes a lot of menu entries ...

Last information if it can help : website is PHP5 + mysql

 

Wow, Stéphane! This is probably the most detailed request I've seen in FWT – you've certainly put a lot of thought into it! It sure does look like quite a big project, though. I'm going to go ahead and approve your request, so do watch this thread to stay updated, as you'll be notified here when your request joins the template production queue or if our designers have any further questions for you.

 

ishkey : no problem with the HTML/CSS -> PHP translation, considering my lack of HTML5 skills and overall artistic talent, that will be the easy part

My PHP code already clearly separates the background processing from the HTML generation, and the generated HTML separates the document structure from the presentation. Moreover, I don't rely on any template engine as I wanted to have full control on the whole chain, so I guess everything is set so that this step goes smoothly.

 

Any time ... but don't forget : anybody could write proper PHP, it is nothing compared to the artistic skills required to design all the beautiful templates found here

 

Hey Stéphane (@Gonzoide), just wanted to say this for all the tech support/know-how you're providing around here...

YOU'RE AWESOME!

You deserve a medal for being Most Helpful New Member of 2014. Keep doing what you're doing! You're a gem!

 

Seconded! Thanks for helping out, it hasn't gone unnoticed

PS. To anyone who's reading, it's not the end of 2014 yet, and we'd more than welcome anyone who'd like to make a competing bid for that title

 

Thanks

Over the time I made a few useful PHP scripts for my web site, I see no reason why people should not benefit from them if interested ... especially considering I myself made a request for help

 

Congratulations! Your template request has been successfully added to the template production queue.

While your request is now in the queue, this post does not guarantee the completion of your request.

In order to better understand the needs of your template request, the FWT team may post you enquiries on this thread from time to time. Should your reply be later than 7 days of our question, we regret that your template request will lose its place in the queue.

As such, please watch this thread and set your preferences to receive e-mail notifications. This way, you will be notified immediately when any of our staff members posts an enquiry.

We will do our best to post the ETA of your template ASAP, and we look forward to working together with you to create a template that best suits your needs!

 

Cool, thanks

I hope I'll be able to answer potential questions within 7 days : I'm currently on holidays in a foreign country, with bonjour internet connection apart from random free wifi hotspots such as the current one in a restaurant

 

@Gonzoide No worries! Just reply us whenever you can. We can wait if you can wait.

 

Back from the Great Unknown ... feel free to ask questions

 

Welcome back @Gonzoide! No questions as yet! How was your holiday? (Oh dear that's a question, isn't it? Now there're two. )

 

Holidays were ... unexpected but good : I went to the northern shore of Germany (i.e. Baltic Sea), not the first location you would think of when planning holidays, but really nice indeed.

Of course you have to keep a raincoat close to you wherever you go just in case, but countryside is really nice, beaches are superb, and there is a lot of stuff to visit ... anyway the kids enjoyed it, so it was a success

 

I'm a bit surprised this request is still at 'Queuing' stage while Gonzoide has already shown he's a pretty active member...

I'm just trying to help him

​

 

Sorry about this, @Gonzoide! You haven't been overlooked, I promise it's just that @Mildju's analogy is more appropriate than he realizes – we're a bunch of little fellas trying to overcome a very large workload, bit by bit

We do however really appreciate all your contributions to this forum and are trying our very best to expedite your request, so thank you for your patience and please do hang in there! I'm sure it'll be worth the wait

 

As promised

Congratulations @Gonzoide! Some of our designers have begun designing your template request. It has been moved from Queuing to Designing.

Again, this post does not guarantee the completion of your request, and the FWT team may post you enquiries on this thread from time to time. Should your reply be later than 7 days of our question, we regret that your template request may lose its priority.

Keep an eye on this thread for more updates!

 

Yes

Thanks