Website Redesign Info
After eight years in its previous form, it was time for a complete redesign of our Archdiocesan website. We’ve collected your suggestions over the past 18 months, taken note of best practices implemented by other Dioceses and Archdioceses, and incorporated what we believed necessary to best meet the needs of our Archdiocese.
From a functionality standpoint, we hope that you find the website useful and share your experience with others; whether you are looking for a parish, a Catholic school for your children, or simply checking the calendar for major events in the Archdiocese. But, the website does more than this. Listed below are just a few examples of the new technologies that we’ve incorporated to make your experience more pleasant and productive.
- Parish maps - We overlayed parishes on Google maps with Mass times and the ability to type in your address for directions to the church.
- School maps - Again, we've overlayed all elementary and high schools on to Google maps.
- Email sign-up - We encourage everyone to sign-up for our email newsletter, which will be used to share important information.
- Google calendar -- We are using Google's calendar system which allows you to add events to your own calendar without retyping information.
- Search - For a Priest, School, Parish, or anything. It works.
- RSS feeds - Soon you'll be able to subscribe to feeds for Catholic news (from the Archdiocese) & popular articles from Catholic San Francisco newspaper.
- Parish spotlight - We’ve brought back a long-time favorite newspaper item to the web!
- Rotating annoucements - Important messages will be highlighted on the home page.
- Simplified navigation - We’ve reorganized important information allowing for fewer clicks to get to the information you want.
- Photos / Links - 'alt tags' (pop-up text descriptions) have been added to photos and links, to assist the visually impaired who use screen readers or those who use handheld devices.
- And much more…
From a design perspective, you'll notice the universal color blue throughout. Metaphorically, it represents our Blessed Mother and life and brings together old and new. Just as the beautiful blue stained glass of the great cathedrals in Europe (and churches in San Francisco) told stories of people, events, and principal teachings of the church, we aimed to do the same within our "stained glass" windows on our home page. Here you can click to learn more about the people and events of today's church with the ability to print, email a friend or even change text sizes to be able to read more comfortably.
As this is meant to be an ever-changing website, we ask for your feedback by clicking on the link to the right. Your comments will be posted when appropriate.