Site re-design

[Vid Dude]

Hiya folks. Abby and I have decided to change the way the site looks, hoping to debut the new design on the first anniversary - October 11th or thereabouts.

What we'd like is something that looks totally cool and funky, but functional. So I thought I'd start this thread to get some feedback on our ideas as they develop. Abby may also put a survey or two on the site about some topics related to it later on.

The first thing I'd like to ask you guys, though, is a visual oriented one:

Do slick fancy funky looking sites make you think:

a) wow, these guys are professionals who must have great content
b) wow, these guys are flashy superficial try-hards trying to dazzle us with their fancy photoshop tricks
c) wow, this site looks just like that piece of crap I visited once before that just had standard content in, I will avoid this site now
d) wow, don't these guys have any originality? It's just a cookiecutter franchise site that will be all blind links and popups.

My point here is that I don't want our site to be so slick it dazzles and obscures who we really are. I don't want to scare people off because we look too much like the flashy (yet empty) sites already out there that dominate the market.

When this site first debuted, our design got very favourable remarks from many people - both in graphics and navigation. We've slowly improved and refined those factors as suggestions were made. I don't want to compromise that with a new design, but it does need a fresh start to get some of the glitches out.

One of the negatives about our nice design, though, was that to some people it looked just a bit too fancy - and it made them instantly think we were just like all those other sites. Which, as you now know, we are not. We are quite individual, and have very high standards. High standards mean high quality web design - so you see my problem?

So thanks if you can answer my first question regarding this - go into as much detail as you like! - believe me, your advice or suggestions on this will be very welcome!

(videoman has the right to not use any of your ideas if he doesn't want to http://www.abbywinters.com/discus/clipart/wink.gif)

[sybiandude]

Well, this is probably a bit of an unhelpful answer, but I'm really not that sure you need to change anything, i.e. it's fine the way it is. Nice & quick to load, just the right side of flashy, easy to navigate etc.

If it's not bust, don't fix it?

[arsby]

I agree with Sybiandude. Anything more flashy and I'd probably surf away.

As a matter of fact, when I first came here it was like a breath of fresh air. I *hate* glitz. All it does is slow down my surfing.

And as anyone who has read my posts knows, I'm very impatient about things.

It's easy to navigate. It's easy on the eyes. What more could I want?

[Vid Dude]

Actually, that is very helpful. What that means is, I could just take what we have here, do some minor rearranging, change some colours (we will probably go for dark text on light) but basically keep things the same.

But then again... there are reasons for the change, so some things will need to be different.

[kumaraguy]

Well, do that then.... Change what you have too and leave the rest as it is, as I also like it as it is .....

While I am here can I ask, as the model gallery is getting rather large now, if all the pics that have been posted to date will always be available or whether some will eventually be removed or archived? ... What are your long term plans regarding the availability of pics?

[Abby]

Hey, welcome back, K - not seen you posting for a few weeks!

With regards to the model galleries always being there; the only issue is Mb delivered by the site to people. At the moment, I am allowed 100gb a month on the current plan, and we're not coming close to that (so long as I steer clear of TNG sites like the Hun!).

In the future, when I get more members, and deliver more Mb a month, I may have to consider removing some models, but that's a long way away for now - at least six months. By then, I would hope that I could afford to simply get more bandwidth.

I'd really like to leave all the models there, cos removing models from sites was a pet hate of mine, andone of the many reasons I wanted to do it myself - cos I thought I could do it better. What I have learnt, however, is that momney is the most importan thing. And that's why web sites remove models - cos it's cheaper to do that, than it is to pay for more bandwidth.

abby