Thoughts on Lightbox
 

I've seen only a few sites using Lightbox style scripts in their free areas. Is this because they're kinda cutting edge and we're not keeping up with the curve, or do they hurt conversions or maybe some other reason? Have you tried lightbox on your site/blog?

I tried out light box images on my forum and the members were angry, they didn't like it at all, it was in use for all of 3 hours.

bodybuilding.com uses it and I hate it

It's cute twice, then it's annoying as fucking hell.

Remember when Internet Explorer started making the 'click' noise whenever you pressed a button?

Gah! That bad, eh?

Worse, because it assaults your eyes, rather than your ears, which are used to it.

Having to see it do that for every picture is beyond reproach. Imagine someone wants to browse and not wait 4 seconds for the opaque fade or slide or whatever worthless effects there are. They want the porn. Give them a usable members' area, and a way to find their content; they'll do the rest.

What about in a free area like a tour? Hmmm.. probably still annoying, just on a lesser scale. sigh.

Think about it. How many pictures are there? How many times is it going to run? If you use it to fade out the background 10%, that's tolerable, but not horribly necessary. You do much more than that, and people aren't going to want to click through the whole thing, much less sign up thinking the whole member's area is going to be the same way.

Thank you for the reality check, GA. I hadn't thought of it that way before.

There may be people who feel otherwise; this is just my take. However, if you want someone to 'stick around longer,' you don't take them to Chuck-E-Cheeze, you take them to Olive Garden at least! :1orglaugh :1orglaugh :thumbsup

hahah I guess it all depends on how many quarters you have in your pocket :)

is you set speed to 0 its not slow. My visitors love it.

Well, Dave & Buster's is another option.

GRUMPY? There can be only one! WOOOIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!

Bump for any other thoughts on Lightbox and its variants.