*rant* Poorly Designed Websites

[Lozza]

Over here Softball Australia has it set up so that each club has their own website. Which is a great idea, but the website they use is SO hard to navigate. I'm currently trying to set up my club's website, but it's SO confusing!

Add to that we have the same name as a club in a different state. When the state webmaster set it up did it tell her that? No! Just told her everything was fine and that's the address she gave me.

Very badly designed too. It's so hard to find things on it. I'm updating stuff and then I can't find it on the webpage!

 

[Lozza]

The sites I have can be made negotiable (I look at the state organisation from back home) but everything is defaulted to the Softball Australia website. So you have to change every little thing in the site.

Then there's my current problem, I'm trying to add photos. It takes 10 minutes to upload ONE. I then discover I need to put a tag on. Except that the tag link doesn't work! It won't put the photo up without a tag.

A well organised website is so, so important.

 

[PA SB Dad]

In the US, ASA used to be the premier org. One of the reasons it has fallen out of favor with the incoming parents and coaches is that usssa, another org mostly interested in making money for the organizers (sad but true), has a fantastic Website.

Usssa lists all the teams, who won against who, who has the most points. And the local sites seem to be inspired by that national site to make local sites that are pretty good. Local usssa regions tend to posts the results right away, for example last night for the seeding pools (I looked). Even PONY is better than ASA.

ASA is hit or miss, and you rarely find out total results, only top two at the end. Some of their sites are just plain awful to navigate, so you don't visit.

In our area, the ASA States have about 1/2 the team entries of USSSA. (Although A is about even.)

Wow, I had never even thought of this as an issue, but you are completely right! I always thought USSSA was popular because they were "easy" tournaments for teams to enter and win, and never considered the possibility that the ready access to information and ease of registration would be real reasons why so many teams play USSSA rather than ASA in our area. It is too bad that ASA has not caught up to the rest of the world in terms of providing real time access to information and results, and will likely continue to slip if they don't do more to to address their gaps.

 

[shockcoach]

I just got done doing all the garbage for ASA state. Birth certificates (no issue here), but they want pictures of the kids copied onto them.

• ACE Certification
• ASA background checks for all coaches (our organization requires this anyway)
• official roster signed by all parents and red-lined by commissioner. Make a copy beforehand to give to local ASA District to keep. Then make a copy of the red-lined official roster to send into hosting district.
• Official ASA National tournament entry form signed by local ASA commissioner. (I forgot to take this with me yesterday and will have to go back today and have it signed!)
• check written to local ASA District and then they write me a check to send into the hosting district.
• Need to make copies of birth certificates to keep and give to hosting district.
• Bollinger insurance policy is required to play in ASA JO championship play.
• Registration form to be sent in to ASA District who is hosting tournament.

Makes me wonder why I am even doing ASA state. Last time I did this, I turned in an official roster, check and birth certificates to the hosting district. DONE DEAL! Now it's more complicated than Little League Allstars.