ELCA also launched a new site today. See it here.

Such a dark and rather dreary opening page.

Nothing jumps out to say "read me first".

Nothing jumps out to say "here is good news"

The site is evidently designed for the insider and not for the seeker. Very disappointing to me.

Gloomy -- more easy to navigate but very dark and scary. Compared to ELCA which is welcoming and bright.

Gloomy? A common aesthetic of Episcopal church buildings is splashes of color next to dark stone or wood. I think it looks better than the bland ECLA website (and I'm half Lutheran, so no bias here!). This is a mammoth achievement. It is a website that I immediately want to explore. It suggests depth and encourages discovery.
Matthew Moretz

The language of advertising does not impress me. I am not looking for "many avenues to experience the Episcopal Church." The content, if it is possible to separate content from form, seems the same. I usually look for the map on a website, which gives me an alphabetical listing of everything on a site or I Google what I want to find.

I hope I am missing something.

I usually go the Church of England website for the daily office, both traditional and contemporary services. And I go to the United Church of Christ website when I want to find out about social justice activism, particularly LGBT.

The Daily Office would be a good thing to offer, though missionstclare.com already offers it.

I am no newcomer so again I may be missing something.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Under "ministries" I see no mention of gays or LGBT. There used to be a link to Integrity USA. I understand there has never been a denominational office for LGBTs, but it seems to me there should be an acknowledgement of the LGBT community. When I searched "gay" or "LGBT" I found little of any relevance. And when I searched "Integrity USA" I found nothing.

The ELCA site has an A-Z place to click to get an index of everything on the website, which I found more helpful.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Google doesn't seem to be able to locate the new website and keeps on sending me to ecusa.anglican.org, which then says it is unavailable, offering no link to the new site.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Brother Povey, I would say just the opposite: whether colorful or not, this site has been designed for the outsider, and not the insider. The statements of belief and references to Prayer Book are, for the first time, right up front.

On the other hand, some things that we insiders might look for are not just hard to find, but are actually gone. From my own field, all references to health care chaplaincy or to other heath ministries are simply gone. Not only do they not appear under "Ministries;" neither are they found through "Search." Indeed, "Search" is divided between "Content" and "Location;" but "Content" continues to link to ENS stories, while "Location" links to - well, nothing, or almost nothing. Searching for "commission" I did find a list of the CCAB's, including the Standing Commission on Health, but none of them had a separate web page or other related information. Specifically a form for endorsement for healthcare ministry, required by those of us certified in national organizations, has simply disappeared.

I had hope when I discovered "Archives" at the upper left. It linked me to a version of the previous web site, complete with "A to Z Directory." Unfortunately, there, too, the necessary information had been deleted. "Chaplaincies" linked only to Federal ministries - worthy folk, but not us. "Healthcare and hospitals" links to the old Mission and Ministry page, but there is no information there on healthcare or hospitals at all, much less to healthcare chaplaincy specifically.

In addition, I used links to the necessary form from the web site of the Assembly of Episcopal Healthcare Chaplains, only to find that the links no longer work.

I also am annoyed about the "Search" function leading to news stories, but not to offices or web pages about ministries within the church. The lack of a directory sorted by topic, or to have areas of responsibility included with the names in the staff directory, make it harder to find what I need; and the most beautiful presentation is no substitute for simple utility.

This is striking, even pretty to look at. It has been launched too soon, before it is complete or even useful - at least that is my hope. I found the previous site difficult to use, but at least it was complete. If this is the best a new team can offer, they have only succeeded in making matters worse.

Marshall Scott

Good heavens, everybody's a critic. I'm glad I went there first before reading the comments here.

I loved it, and plan to visit it *regularly* (something I never did before).

JC Fisher

Gosh, I'm totally depressed now about the site before I even go there, thanks to the critics, who leave me feeling that the site is totally worthless. I appreciate criticism when it is wedded with action - design a new website for TEC, give it to TEC as a gift, or sell it to TEC, but that way y'all will have the TEC site you want. Or back up the criticisms here - which may justified, who knows - by contacting the TEC web designer and work with her or him to upgrade to what you think the site should be. This is how I work, and when I receive complaints and criticisms I invite the person to be part of the solution. Happy New Year, everyone!

The redesign, while still not perfect, is many times better than the previous iteration. It's good that the "What We Believe" section takes a page from ELCA's site. You couldn't find what the Church believed in on the old version of the site. You could hardly find anything without digging. Good job!

Morris Post

The redesign, while still not perfect, is many times better than the previous iteration. It's good that the "What We Believe" section takes a page from ELCA's site. You couldn't find what the Church believed in on the old version of the site. You could hardly find anything without digging. Good job!

Morris Post

As a newcomer to the Episcopal Church,a former minister in the Evangelical world, as a frequent visitor to the old site, and as a person who has helped design websites for churches, I think the new site is a huge improvment. I could not disagree more with some of the above comments. I can actually find things that are relevant to a new comer like me. I think every stat, and my own expierience show that the Episcopal Church will grow if it reaches out to disaffected evangelicals and the Hispanic community, I feel like this site was designed with that goal in mind. Gary, I think you are right, that they should add an index, but as to your overall concern, someone who is not aware that the majority of Episcopal Church is welcoming to the gay community, has their head in the sand. I Bring a lot of visitors with me on Sunday mornings. As Evangelical new comers visit, either this site, or a congregation for the first time, I think that knowledge is at the front of thier minds. At church I find that they are pleasantly supriseed to see a church that is percieved to be "liberal" saying the Nicene Creed together, or kneeling and confessing sins. I feel like the old site said, "non-profit charity." I feel like the new site says, "church." I feel like thats what it needs to say.

ThomasDahlman

The thing about the new site is less what you see as a viewer and more about what the people designing and adding content to the site can now do.

The old site, design aside, was severely limited in how easy it was for people to post things. I'm very optimistic that this new site, running on different software, will make it much easier to use, maintain and update.

Web designs come and go, but the plumbing that makes the site run is very expensive to change. Kudos to Anne and her team for getting this done at all. I happen to know that this was no walk in the park.

I'm looking forward to seeing how people will make use of the new social elements as well - that's something that very few denominational websites have done to this point, and we have a chance to be the first here.

I notice also that Research is rather hidden (it's inside "Our COngregations", and I wonder how much of the old data is going to be exposed in the new site).

C. Wingate, thanks for pointing out the new location of the Research page. It's a resource a lot of folks have learned to rely on.

It's important to keep Nick's comments in mind. Web design is itself fundamentally incremental, but having a clear, orderly, and efficient way for many people to participate requires incredible patience and time and care in the unseen side of the operation.

Should you run into a dead link while using the site, or otherwise click on something that takes you somewhere you didn't expect to go, I'm sure you the folks who are most directly responsible would love to hear about it. ( I was a web guy for a while, and loved it when a request came across my desk for something I knew I could remedy in the immediate term like that.)

I'm not necessarily a fan of how dark the current design iteration is. On the other hand, the launch will mean a number of other, more important things will have to be done first. (It's probably a long list.)

I say let's commit to living with this and trying it out - especially the open-source social components where we can share ministries.

Torey Lightcap

I love it, not the site but the response. First come the critics, then the defenders then the peacemakers. As long as we get to the last step, I guess we're OK.

I can see how the old structure was limiting; the URLs pretty much told that story. I don't think the new website is BAD but there's clearly a lot of sorting out to be done.

Biggest disappointment: the big "welcomes you" isn't hot-linked.

I have only taken a quick look at the new site. I am impressed by the information architecture which is a vast improvement on the old site. I am impressed by the fact that parishes can control how their information is listed. I am very glad that the churchwide site contains information on what we believe, because that kind of stuff is missing on many diocesan sites. In general, I think it is among the more seeker-friendly church sites I have seen.

One concern and one quibble. I like the concept of the homepage, but I agree that it broods rather than smiles, and think this is a significant problem. You don't want an off-putting homepage, and I fear we have one.

i wish the folks behind the site had given some thought to figuring out how lay people could be included in the twitter streams. In a similar vein, the choices of featured blogs are also overwhelmingly clerical. The one lay person featured (who is excellent) writes to the Episcopal Church Foundation's site.

Just to follow up: I did comment, using the "Contact" page, and I have already received an acknowledgment and promise of a response.

I do think it is an improvement to be more accessible to newcomers and seekers, and to be less focused on what is coming through the Episcopal News Service. It is also easier to find the names of staff at the Episcopal Church Center (although, again, it isn't nearly as specific as it could be about the responsibilities and portfolios of those staff persons).

The thing is, though, that this "seekers" vs. "members" thing is a false choice. It could and should be accessible to seekers and to let folks know who we are and what we say, and to share resources. It should also maintain links and information about existing ministries, and provide important support to existing ministers. I know I'm involved in and sensitive about healthcare. It's my bread and butter. At the same time, we in the Episcopal Church are involved in healthcare in many ways, both institution and parish based (think how many of our dioceses have associated retirement and long term care facilities - many more beds than we have in hospitals, and also health care!); and to lose what information and resources the old site provided doesn't serve members or seekers either.

Marshall Scott

I think the website is a way better improvement of the old. I especially like the We Believe section created. Before this site it was really tough to find such information.

My only criticism is that more organizations need to be added to the list (yes, including Integrity).

Eric

Google cannot even find the new website if one searches "Episcopal Church." It takes one to http://ecusa.anglican.org/

which says

"Site off-line

The site is currently not available due to technical problems. Please try again later. Thank you for your understanding.

If you are the maintainer of this site, please check your database settings in the settings.php file and ensure that your hosting provider's database server is running. For more help, see the handbook, or contact your hosting provider.

The mysqli error was: Unknown database 'ec_seeker_stage'."

Wikipedia, however, has the right link

http://www.episcopalchurch.org/

It is unacceptable there is no mention of Integrity or LGBT concerns. I don't think that is an accident, considering the denomination has failed to come up with an official national list of pro-gay congregations, unlike 11 other denominations.

Gary Paul Gilbert

It isn't uncommon for a new site to take a couple of days to "resolve." I can't exactly explain what happens when it "resolves," I just know that we have expected that process to take up to 72 hours in sites that I have launched.

'

Thank you, Jim! Yahoo already finds the right url address.

Gary Paul Gilbert

Integrity USA may be found on the denominational website at

http://archive.episcopalchurch.org/8020_61662_ENG_HTM.htm

One has to click on archive, A-Z directory, groups and organizations, fellowship and support, then gender and sexuality.

This is not easy to find. The search feature on the website turned up nothing when I searched groups and organizations.

Google almost found it when I searched Episcopal Church groups but it was the wrong url address.

There is an A-Z directory but one has to go to the archive first.

Gary Paul Gilbert

I have worked a lot with clients who have in launching new websites or interface design for distance education.

Design is one area where people feel passionately, feel free to express their opinions, and rarely think about the human connection when doing so. Don't get me wrong; we techies love feedback. So where you see a possibility for feedback, let them know.

Just remember that this launch is a gigantic milestone for the team which created the new site. I have worked with some challenging organizations (hospitals, universities, government agencies, corporations) with stakeholders, each with various vested interests to try and gain consensus on major design changes. I can't imagine doing it within the church, where change takes place at a rather, um, slow pace. Designers have to be peacemakers, diplomats, whipping boys and girls, testers, and are constrained by decisions that must be at least approved by a cast of many.

For this feat alone, like the site or not, this web team deserves a pause and our congratulations. I hope they are enjoying some time off, because I bet they've worked some late nights.

Joe Brewer