LET’S VISIT SOME WEB SITES

By Charles E. Vasoll

Hooray! The APTA web site is open for business (www.platformtennis.org). (Well, some business at least. The promised use of a credit card for tournament entry is still being developed.). The season is a few months old and the site finally became available around Thanksgiving. We should, as APTA members, give “thanks” for its arrival. A quick look at the site indicates that there have been some improvements but, looking closer, I find that it still has a way to go.

There are only a few web sites that relate to platform tennis. You are visiting one of them. It is a very small player in the field. Most of the local associations have their own web site to report on their league play and local tournaments to their membership. The principal competitor for the APTA to get the attention of all players is paddlepro.com (www.paddlepro.com). Let’s compare the two.

CONTENT – Both locations provide information and access to tournament information and entry. Paddlepro does it in a more effective manner on its home page.

PRESENTATION – I find the APTA too “artsy”. It is the same comment that I have made about the Platform Tennis Magazine although the two are not connected. The Paddlepro web site is free of extraneous pictures and navigating boxes that clutter up the APTA site.

OBSOLETE MATERIAL – To some degree both the APTA and Paddlepro sites frequently have old material that should be placed in an archive location rather than be part of the current presentation or they should be deleted. It is important that the information highlighted can still be acted upon. Tournaments, for which the entry deadline has passed, as an example, should be removed promptly.

EASE OF GETTING AROUND – Navigating the Paddlepro is a cinch. It is straightforward with no fanciness to keep you waiting or diverting your attention. The APTA site has, for example, a “back to top” on many pages that I did not find to work. The same navigating device on paddlepro worked well.

SUMMARY – I believe that the APTA site needs some more attention. There are typos in some articles and outright errors in others. For example, in the article entitled “The Game of Platform Tennis”, the last sentence in the paragraph about “The Court” has “racquefull” where the word was meant to be “racquetball”. In the list of APTA Presidents, the period 1994-1997 should have Charles J. Stevens, not Stephens. This kind of information will be there forever and errors like these should not be missed in the proof reading.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of good information on the APTA web site. For example, I found the “National Championships Rules” to be a great presentation. Unfortunately, a visitor looking for this page is not easily directed to it.

The paddlepro site has a lot to offer. While it is a commercial venture, (they are trying to sell platform tennis products) the sales effort never gets in the way of the information being presented. If anything, there is too much information. A somewhat briefer site might fill the purpose just as well or better.

Meanwhile, I look forward to your visit here each month and welcome your comments and opinions.

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