critique of design for BBW site please?
 

I'm looking for opinions on how well this design would convert for the BBW niche. The screenshots are of the index and one of the interior pages of the tour. It's framed with navigation across the top, and laid out with %-defined tables so that it compresses well inside an 800x600 window.

On the 2nd screenshot (the softcore samples page) there is a join/instant access animation between the Previous & Next images, but it didn't show up in the screenshot. (The word "join now" shatters and morphs into "instant access.")

I'm planning to follow the "tease don't please" advice I see given here so much -- not so much that a surfer into BBWs will have enough pics to get off, but enough to make him want to pull out the credit card.

(And please -- don't critique my tits or announce whether you'd "hit it" or not. Like I give a fuck -- I'm designing and producing content for guys who like fat girls -- all I want to know is whether you think this design is successful as an enticement to buy a membership.)

BTW -- this is my first design for an adult site, and I'm a newbie...please break me in gently. :321GFY

index page screenshot

tour page screenshot

I think it looks good. :) I like the less is more minimalistic design style. :thumbsup

I think the best thing about it is it's different, I know the surfers get tired of the same ol cookie cutter sites, thats why when something new and different comes out it converts so well.

Nice tits, I'd hit it.

Hey, you walked into that one...

The site looks nice. I think that guys that like BBW, like soft BBW, Cute BBW. And like to see them as pretty women. I'm not so sure if they like to see them refered to as ugly, or fat... In other words I think you are on the right track.

I like the color scheme, but I think on the 2nd screen cap that maroon color on the greenish bg is a bit hard to read. I'd just make it pop a little more. Maybe turn that into a graphic with a slight glow to it so there is a haze of lighter color around it.

I personally like one page tours. But everyone has their own style. A multi page tour seems to work with this layout.

Nice work for being your first time out. :)

Looks good. :)

:thumbsup

:1orglaugh Yeah, you're right, I practically asked for that one. I just remember how that poor British chick who spammed offering her content got slammed on here.

I agree about BBW surfers liking the soft, more glamourous presentation. I like big women myself, and as a surfer I get really turned off by sites that talk about the models as fat, sloppy sluts, etc. I also think that some of the sites that present their models that way are probably done by guys who don't particularly like BBWs, because the model choice in some of the sites is just atrocious. I've seen sites where it looked as if the photographer pretty much dragged in some 400lb woman off the street, shot some crappy pics of her, and slapped it up online thinking that this was what BBW surfers want to see.

As for the maroon text, I'll try that. I did that originally, but I couldn't find a font that looked good at a small size and was still readable. I tried Arial/Verdana/etc but the edges of the letters seemed to blur together because of the anti-aliasing, and if I turned off anti-aliasing, of course the letters got choppy and ragged. Got any suggestions for a nice font that will work well with the font I used in the top graphic?(it was Eurostile, I think) I've got some bitmapped fonts that look sharp at small sizes, but they're all caps.

Also, what's the general opinion on opening the full-size images in pop-up windows? Right now I have them opening in a new window by using target="new" but I was also playing with having them open via a pop-up.

Thanks also for the compliment about being a newbie at adult design. In some ways I think that is working in my favor, because I'm not so used to what adult sites are "supposed to" look like. I've been doing pesonal sites of my own for about 5 years -- I quit my job to stay home with my kid, and it was either take up a goddamn hobby or sit on the sofa watching soaps and Ricki Lake...so I taught myself HTML and played with Photoshop.

Thanks to everyone else for the comments, too -- I appreciate it! :)

Really pretty site.. I like it!

Site looks good, you look good, it should do well. I like the clean design and that it isn't a knockoff of everything else we see out there. RIght now too many people are tending toward very busy designs thinking that showing more is somehow better. It's a bad misperception currently.

So anyway, being that I guarantee conversion and retention on my design work and a long list of happy clients, I think I can safely say with confidence, you'll convert with decent traffic. =]

Points to consider if your numbers are low anyhow though:

It's all about testing... swap one element at a time and watch the results.

Color of JOIN link could be more stand out. Try yellow or varient thereof.

Text of join link could be played with. Try "Instant Access", "Get Password", "Join Now", etc...

Pixel size... nowadays 102x768 is finally starting to take hold. But sometimes you can pull conversion up designing to fit everything on an 800x600 rez. This means about 730x340 for the total presentation (Taking into account browser real estate).

Mess with number of pages in tour.

I like that you have individual catagories on the top - best if they are linkable. Surfers respond well to tours that go forward and back AND allow them to go to individual content specific pages.

Best of luck!

MT