The UX team at the LDS church is second to none. They made a concerted effort several years ago to hire the best (within certain ecclesiastical constraints) and I think they've succeeded. I would hire any of them.
They have a strongly, user-driven dev process that brings high fidelity mock-ups into the process well before development starts. UX works directly with the customers (different organizations in the church) to make sure they get what that want, leaving the program managers to ensure delivery.
The underlying CMS (which I worked on), on the other hand, is something else. :)
Their tumblelog (http://northtemple.com/) is also really great. I'm consistently impressed with the links, quotes, images, and other stuff they post there.
Just yesterday they fixed one thing that bothered me about it, which is that anytime you highlight, you would get a fade-in pop-up on the side of the text about journaling or highlighting it. This was pretty irritating since I am in the habit of highlighting text while I read. Now there is a constant black bar that tells me to sign in to journal and/or highlight, which is also annoying, but less so.
Secondly, the new layout is not fluid horizontally -- it is horizontally centered and seems to be tailored for 1024x768 audiences. It's much worse attempting to read scriptures or articles on my 1920x1080 screen with gobs of excess space on the screen, now only occupied by blue gradient. The text used to flow well and take up all available screen space due to the simple layout of the site -- the revision not only horizontally centers everything, but even cuts the container down, with "Share" and "Download" links on the sidebar. The text is spaced awkwardly and it's just a great big waste of screen real estate. I read the print version most of the time (now I use the old one since they brought the old scriptures back), but it doesn't have footnote toggle and the spacing is still weird; at least, however, it doesn't waste 50% of my horizontal screen space. Loading footnotes can be tiresome, as the site makes an AJAX call on load; I'd much prefer preloaded footnotes. The new chapter selection page makes it harder to find the chapter you want -- you can either scroll a lot and use the same number of clicks or click on the jump menu and add an extra click in there.
There are some cool things about the new site, and I like the use of HTML5 font faces and other things like that, but for the most part it's less usable for more shininess. Compare http://scriptures.lds.org and http://classic.scriptures.lds.org and tell me which you'd rather read from.
“There are some cool things about the new site, and I like the use of HTML5 font faces and other things like that, but for the most part it's less usable for more shininess. Compare http://scriptures.lds.org and http://classic.scriptures.lds.org and tell me which you'd rather read from.”
Clearly the first one (ignoring for now that scrolling on Safari was jerky when I tried). The old one is fluid which is just a bad idea for long texts. Much more than about 100 characters per line reduce readability, using all the space on a 1920 pixel wide monitor is just a bad idea.
The new version could maybe have about one third wider lines but the seventy or so characters are a good number for texts on the web. The new version is beautifully typeset and has about the right line length.
Using all the available horizontal space on the web for text is nearly always wrong.
What's wrong with it? As I noted above, I clearly prefer it and have no problems with it. I've also never heard of anyone else finding articles or scriptures hard to read on the old site. It's not like the margins are set to zero, there's adequate spacing in everything I see on there.
On my 1440px wide screen one line has about 200 characters (maybe 30 words) if I maximize my browsers. It’s not so much a problem with the scriptures site because every sentence gets a new line and every line is numbered but there can still be sentences which go on for several lines. Your eye (and neck) has to travel all that distance and then go back and hunt for the right next line which is harder the further you traveled.
The guideline is to have about 100 or so characters on one line.
I guess it's just a matter of preference, though I can't imagine someone liking the wasted screen space. If a website doesn't use all my horizontal space, I zoom it up until the screen is filled. I find vasty backgrounds that take up 50%+ of the window distracting. I don't notice any additional neck or eye strain, and in fact notice less because it's much easier to read words.
I have to agree with you on this, nothing drives me more to distraction with modern web design than the tremendous amounts of wastes space on my screen. I do exactly what you do, zoom the page until the content fills the horizontal width of the screen. (Though often as not, I'm zooming in to the content to push sidebar adverts off the side of the screen like with this site http://www.geek.com/). I have a good solid 6-7" of wasted horizontal screen space ignoring the sidebar adverts, 3-4 if I add them.
All that being said, I do find that raw text that spans the screen to be harder to read...mostly because it's easier to get lost ending a line on the far right of my screen and returning to the far left (especially if the font it small, something that zooming the page up doesn't seem to have as much problem with).
I think the science on characters/line is sound. It would be really nice if they would add columns for wider screens though (or at least two columns like the print scriptures). Actually, the printed scripture is a good example of following the guideline to not have too many characters per line.
The backlink profile for the church site must be pretty impressive as well. There must be thousands of LDS bloggers out there, not to mention Deseret News etc, etc.
But yeah, in terms of site architecture, it's an impressive website.
I am LDS, and it's true that there are a lot of very competent techies who are members.
The two major factors that likely influence the high ranking are : as mentioned. (1) the SEO is affected by links pointing at the site from external sources like LDS bloggers, and (2) the comprehensive system of cross-referencing that the site has implemented through its web-based scriptures. For example:
because the LDS Church's major "message" is how the Book of Mormon is supplementary and complementary to the Bible, as it is a record of God's dealings with people on the American continent during "ancient" American times.
While working for an enterprise server management startup, I met with some of the LDS folks and was impressed with how well they know technology and IT across the board. http://tech.lds.org/
I think they just hire great people and trust them. The designer of the LDS website is someone who I look up to, wrt/design: http://www.cameronmoll.com/portfolio/
> While overseeing the redesign of LDS.org, the LDS web team asked me to step in towards the end of the project to add my take on the visuals, resulting in a few comped ideas within a very short timeframe.[1]
That sounds like he did just a bit of work late in the game. (Maybe you meant that, but my first take was "designed the whole site" from reading your "The designer of the LDS website.")
A Google evangelist recommends following the example of a site which pushes its page menu through uncrawlable JavaScript. I'm disappointed.
And did they just reach a high rating with their front page (which is not impressive considering the tremendous backlinking they must have), or are all their pages and all the terms on all their pages ranking equally well?
http://mormon.org/people/ is interesting to check out. It's the LDS Church's attempt to have it's own "social" site, and add a human face to their faith.
That's odd with it being mid week. The traffic to LDS.org is the opposite of most sites - it actually peaks on Sunday with lulls during the week. There are two significant peaks during the year, one the first week in October, the other the first week in April, when the church holds it's semi-annual General Conference for all members to see.
Edit: to note that I eventually realized that it was the article, not the LDS.org site that was slow. I'll leave my notes in place, because it's an interesting traffic pattern to see.
semi-annual General Conference for all members to see
which is video streamed in several languages and audio streamed in many dozens of languages. It has been getting better every year for at least 7 years now. It's now to the point that it doesn't really matter whether I'm watching it on my TV through satellite or over the internet.
The linked article just states "Yes the mormon church know SEO". Does anyone know what techniques they use? How do you know they "know SEO". Details please!
the fact that a multinational organization with revenues in the billions can do SEO is not at all impressive to me.
furthermore, you really need to question your belief system and analytical processes if you follow a church founded by a guy who thought he could find treasure by looking at a rock in a hat (he was also a convicted fraudster).
You made a valid argument with your first comment, but your second comment ("furthermore...") has nothing at all to do with the article or SEO. Go troll somewhere else.
it's pretty funny that you revisionist history mormon apologists will claim that his 1826 trial records are fake, but think gold tablets sent by angels and never seen by anyone are real. that's super consistent.
You're not being downvoted because you disagree with Mormonism or their so-called prophet, I'm sure many of us here do as well, but because you're being abrasive and incredibly off-topic. Save your trolling for someplace else, or start a "Tell HN: Mormonism sucks" thread and see how far that gets you.
I'm having trouble finding any other churches that exhibit good SEO practices. The catholic church doesn't have such a strong presence, the closest I can find is the westboro baptist church.
It’s quite funny to me that the Catholic Church (of all churches) has a very decentralized internet presence. Every church, every diocese, is responsible for their own website. They each have to find someone who does it and they have to pay. The Vatican’s website doesn’t seem so much like website for the whole Catholic Church, it’s much rather all about the Vatican and only about the Vatican. What you find on the internet is very much patchwork.
You might be right on the first comment, but you are fully wrong on the second. I suggest if you plan on ever making a comment about the Mormon church again, you at least do it justice by reading The Book of Mormon.
I know that this comment section isn't supposed to be about the church itself, but I can't help but be baffled by the way people are able to separate analyzing SEO optimization from the fact that the church itself is a fundamentally terrible organization. The church is full of racist scripture, institutionalized sexism, and dangerous sexual repression; and has been a major proponent of denying rights to gays. As long as they continue to have such regressive and backward policies, I don't care how good their SEO is.
Again, it's not that I doubt their SEO prowess, but how are people able to separate what an evil organization the LDS is from their SEO practises? I don't want to side-track this thread too much, but I'm genuinely curious about the way people are coming at this.
I don't necessarily think you're trolling, but I totally understand why you're being downvoted.
Being able to compartmentalize and analyze different facets of something is (I think) an important intellectual tool. Example: I can enjoy Richard Wagner's music even though he was a demonstrably terrible person.
I'm not an LDS, and I don't like some of the things that the church does, but I can still appreciate the things they do well.
I definitely see what you're saying, and that's a very good analogy. I guess the difference for me is that Wagner's music and anti-semitism were two mostly separate things -- his music wasn't being used to promote his prejudices. On the other hand, the LDS's SEO, by its very purpose, is promoting their ideology.
I just find this casual discussion about the self-promotion of a group which at its very core believes that friends of mine are inferior, sinful, damaged goods because of the way that they were born a bit upsetting. Even if SEO practise is a separate topic from their scripture, I think that this kind of discussion attributes to them an undeserved level of legitimacy.
> I guess the difference for me is that Wagner's music and anti-semitism were two mostly separate things -- his music wasn't being used to promote his prejudices.
Actually, Wagner's music was used to promote his prejudices, however Wagner himself didn't have much of a role in said promotion (as he was dead long before the 1930s).
Hey, grantheaslip, I know this is offtopic, but I'm LDS and just fwiw, we aren't "a group which at its very core believes that friends of mine are inferior, sinful, damaged goods because of the way that they were born." In fact, the LDS church doesn't think anybody is damaged goods, gay, straight or otherwise. I have a few really good friends who are gay and LDS and would take issue with that statement, too. That doesn't mean that we see things the same way you do, but we wouldn't call anybody damaged goods. People are just too good and precious to be thought of that way.
To be fair, they just recently slightly improved their stance on homosexuality, but saying "the LDS church doesn't think anybody is damaged goods" is whitewashing at best. Here's the new, improved policy:
In short, gay people are sinners, are "subject to church discipline", but can be forgiven if they repent for their sins (i.e. stop being gay -- i.e. stop being themselves). Church leaders should tell them to "control unrighteous thoughts". And they aren't allowed to attend Church. The only substantive positive change is that church leaders are no longer told to send gay members to counselling, which they were up until a month ago. How is telling someone "you can't be a real Mormon or go to heaven unless you stop being gay" not telling them they're damaged goods?
I don't want to say you're lying about your gay Mormon friends, but presumably they can't actually go to church, and through some kind of Stockholm syndrome consider themselves a member of an organisation that thinks that "Homosexual behaviour can be forgiven through sincere repentance".
Sure, you can talk about how you think everyone is good and precious and deserves love, but beyond platitudes, the Church's policies on homosexuality are pretty clear.
2 quick responses and then I'll bow out. First, nobody is told they're not allowed to attend church. In fact, people who are excommunicated from the Mormon church are in fact _encouraged_ to keep attending so that they can come back into what's called "full fellowship" of the church by changing their lives to meet the standards of the church.
Secondly, there is a distinction between being gay and having sex. Mormons, gay or straight, can't have sex outside of marriage. If a gay person has outside of marriage they are subject to the same discipline that a straight person who has sex outside of marriage would have. Some of my gay, believing Mormon friends are simply chaste. Some of my gay, believeing Mormon friends are in heterosexual marriages. They do this with the full knowledge of their spouses, and with no hope of becoming straight, just because they feel like it's the right thing for them.
Nobody is telling anybody they can't go to heaven or be a real Mormon unless they stop being gay. They're saying, "be chaste." I know that's a distinction that will probably be lost, but it's a real distinction, and a real requirement that all Mormons try to live up to when they're not married.
All that notwithstanding, I assure you I'm not lying about my gay Mormon friends, if you're ever in the Salt Lake area look me up, I'm sure they'd love to meet you :) One of them is always looking for good hackers for various projects.
> First, nobody is told they're not allowed to attend church. In fact, people who are excommunicated from the Mormon church are in fact _encouraged_ to keep attending so that they can come back into what's called "full fellowship" of the church by changing their lives to meet the standards of the church.
You're probably right here. I've heard contrary, but I haven't done my research on that, and I know there's a tonne of misinformation on both sides.
> Secondly, there is a distinction between being gay and having sex. Mormons, gay or straight, can't have sex outside of marriage. If a gay person has outside of marriage they are subject to the same discipline that a straight person who has sex outside of marriage would have. Some of my gay, believing Mormon friends are simply chaste. Some of my gay, believing Mormon friends are in heterosexual marriages. They do this with the full knowledge of their spouses, and with no hope of becoming straight, just because they feel like it's the right thing for them.
By "just because they feel like it's the right thing for them", I'm assuming what you mean here is "because they have no other option". I can't imagine an openly gay person choosing to be in a heterosexual marriage because it "feels right". What you just said might sound perfectly natural in Salt Lake City, but it would be an utterly ridiculous, and possibly offensive idea in, say, Toronto.
> Nobody is telling anybody they can't go to heaven or be a real Mormon unless they stop being gay. They're saying, "be chaste." I know that's a distinction that will probably be lost, but it's a real distinction, and a real requirement that all Mormons try to live up to when they're not married.
But if you say "you can't get married to someone who's the opposite sex" and "you can't have sex unless you're married", what you're really saying is that gay people are never allowed to have sex with the gender they were born attracted to. I consider that cruel and inhumane. And I'm not buying the "gay people can go to heaven thing". The church's stated policy is that "Homosexual behaviour violates the commandments of God". That's a pretty clear indictment.
> All that notwithstanding, I assure you I'm not lying about my gay Mormon friends, if you're ever in the Salt Lake area look me up, I'm sure they'd love to meet you :) One of them is always looking for good hackers for various projects.
If I'm ever in SLS, I might, I really do want to understand the thought processes here, but I can't say that it's at the top of my list of travel destinations, with all due respect :).
I'm not an LDS by any possible stretch of the imagination, but I must say, SLS is actually a really nice town in a fantastically cool and wonderfully bizarre geographical setting. Flying into the city and over the salt marshes, is like flying into another planet. If you can get over the heebeejeebies of flying into LDS central it's really worth the trip. Kinda like visiting the Vatican in Rome in a certain sense.
Comment threads on HN aren't always about exactly what the article was about. I tend to see the article as a conversation starter, not a rigid, immutable topic. Sure, some people might disagree with what I wrote, but I don't think expressing a thought I had while reading the comments that isn't precisely about the article counts as trolling. Your opinion may differ.
On the same line: "Don't say things you wouldn't say in a face to face conversation."
I might not word it quite as nicely, but this is stuff that I would say face-to-face. I'm not really an abrasive person when it comes to most topics, but there are certain things which I have absolutely no patience for, and the LDS is one of them. Any group which sees gays, blacks, and women as fundamentally inferior loses its case for respect in my mind. Civility has its limits, and doesn't mean that we're never allowed to express negative opinions (sometimes using strong language) toward anything.
"Any group which sees gays, blacks, and women as fundamentally inferior loses its case for respect in my mind."
It's a good thing the LDS don't believe that. They have actively come out to defend against gay harassment. The injustice to blacks was fixed back when slavery was abolished. Men are taught to cherish and respect women, not that they are inferior. Stop your trolling.
As far as I'm concerned, in any country with a separation of church and state, any group that opposes the ability of gays to marry is no friend of the gay community. They may have made some token gestures, but that doesn't change their core thoughts on gays, which is that the way they are is unnatural, and must be fixed. As long as they see being gay as a disease, and not a natural tendency, they're homophobic.
Their scripture is still full of outright, undeniable racism, and they consider the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. That's all the proof I need. They may have eased back on public racism, but for them to disavow their religion's racism would be to disavow their church entirely.
Mormon men may be taught to respect women, but women are taught that they should more-or-less stay at home and make babies, and for most of the community, if a women gets past her early twenties and isn't a housewife, it's seen as a failure. I consider that sexism.
thats actually not what separation of church and state refers to. What it means is that no church is suppose to run the government, voters are allowed (and suppose to) vote according to their beliefs, including religion. And religions are allowed to have a stance on issues.
The rest sure, you can interpret it that way, but most mormons are very nice people. They don't take the scripture literally and is instead suppose to be symbolisms.
Actually only in the very beginning of the Book of Mormon is the dark skin used to identify "sinners". Later on, as in past the first 50 pages, skin color was a non-issue.
And finally, women can get past their 20s and be perfectly fine people. They can never marry and be normal people. LDS people do put a strong emphasis, if possible, on a traditional "stay home mom and working father", but that is not sexism.
grantheaslip, thank you for standing up for real morality; for "holding to the rod," as they teach the children in Primary to sing. The LDS general authorities hold to the rod of subterfuge and you hold to the rod of truth.
The LDS church is a devastating force of oppression to millions of people. Thank you for pointing it out for what it is. Thank you.
Please stop your own trolling - or should we just call it for what it is: lying.
Women are treated as inferiors in the LDS church. Polygamy would have continued for generations without the intervention of the federal government. The LDS church spends millions of dollars to support continued discrimination against gays.
Until 1978 blacks could not hold the priesthood in the LDS church. Some quotes from the "Book of Mormon":
2 Nephi 5:21-23:
"And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them."
"And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities."
"And cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. And the Lord spake it, and it was done."
"And because of their cursing which was upon them they did become an idle people, full of mischief and subtlety, and did seek in the wilderness for beasts of prey."
3 Nephi 2:15 reads:
"And their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites."
Mormon leader ("Elder") Mark E Peterson:
"The reason that one would lose his blessings by marrying a Negro is due to the restriction placed upon them. 'No person having the least particle of Negro blood can hold the Priesthood' (Brigham Young). It does not matter if they are one-sixth Negro or one-hundred and sixth, the curse of no Priesthood is the same. If an individual who is entitled to the Priesthood marries a Negro, the Lord has decreed that only spirits who are not eligible for the Priesthood will come to that marriage as children. To intermarry with a Negro is to forfeit a 'Nation of Priesthood holders'...."
"If that Negro is faithful all his days, he can and will enter the celestial kingdom. He will go there as a servant, but he will get celestial glory."
Etc etc.
Notwithstanding the cowardly, brain-dead, head-in-the-sand intellectual compartmentalization others are advocating here, I doubt any of us would be commending the SEO efforts of other organizations that have the kind of sordid history and unfortunate social passions the LDS church has had...and isn't shy about paying for.
babalicious, you know those statements from the book of mormon are about Lamanites which are American Indians, right? Not Africans? Just checking to make sure you didn't read them out of context..
No doubt. That's the whole point of HN: Intelligent discussion. Your comments, however, are SO off-topic (SEO and how an organization like theirs has done so well at it) that it comes across as trolling.
They have a strongly, user-driven dev process that brings high fidelity mock-ups into the process well before development starts. UX works directly with the customers (different organizations in the church) to make sure they get what that want, leaving the program managers to ensure delivery.
The underlying CMS (which I worked on), on the other hand, is something else. :)