Better to go wide and new design?

[gaydemon]

I'm working on a new design for gaydemon.com, which is going to be wider and more suitable for 1024px wide monitors and look better hopefully.

But I keep changing my mind and thinking its better to stay on the old 800px wide design and just go with the old. After all what's up already works well and there isnt exactly anything wrong. Sales are good etc.

So is it better to stay with what I have rather than update and change? Is it better to stay "stable" for a long time than keep changing and updating a site?

Or does updating and changing your site mean that you also keep on top of what goes on and stay fresh?

How does it work for membership sites?

[NeteQuette]

If it isnt broken dont try to fix it is what i say.
But you do have a point when you say keeping fresh and ontop of things. Will be interesting to see what others have to say.

[Gaystoryman]

I'd look at what your stats say. If they show increased numbers using the modern sizes, I'd go ahead and redesign upwards. I mean most new computers are out with 19inch and 20inch stuff, even up here in the boonies, called Canada.

We are always behind in that stuff, just ahead on more important stuff, like having a cute World Champion figure skater... 666

[MaxPower]

Ya its a kind of Damn if U do and Damn if U dont, even though many ‘like me’ seem to be running around like chickens with their heads cut off. But hell what would U really expect from me :) Many of U guys know me by now, I am rather ‘excitable’ seem most are going to sit tight for a while and see from what I know

I do not even see that many member site owners upping to 1024 yet, and my guess would be just this small change could take another few years to really catch on.

Now am I updating YES :) But that’s what us ‘small’ guys do :)

[BBD]

I like them wide :-)

[basschick]

less than 10% of our traffic is at 800x600. almost 80% is at 1024x768 and some are at larger resolutions. since a site made for 800x600 is usually more like 725 or 750 pixels wide, it looks very skinny in a 1024 browser, and it makes sense to me to let your site look its best to the largest number of people.

[gaydemon_jr]

I would go for wide. Also means you can get more above the page fold.

[gaydemon]

See thats exactly what makes me think twice..

But then again its also about evolving. Isnt there a chance that you get behind if you wait and not recreate your sites. If you keep your sites the same, no changes in looks or code wont you then be far behind the day you suddenly do need to change.

Visually its big change im planning but code changes etc are minimal. Most of it is just removing more redundant HTML code and the bigger changes are CSS only.

This is a preview of what it will probably look like:

http://www.gaydemon.com/cgi-bin/directory/page.cgi?g=424&t=new



If it isnt broken dont try to fix it is what i say.
But you do have a point when you say keeping fresh and ontop of things. Will be interesting to see what others have to say.

[MaxPower]

I like it, its clean and easy to use/read. Looks about the same too, and at first that is a good idea too.

Seeing U have a LL, and the fact I have not looked at your numbers, its hard to say what % of your viwers are at 800. But if its less than 8% or so I would just go for it :)

[Gaystoryman]

less than 10% of our traffic is at 800x600. almost 80% is at 1024x768 and some are at larger resolutions. since a site made for 800x600 is usually more like 725 or 750 pixels wide, it looks very skinny in a 1024 browser, and it makes sense to me to let your site look its best to the largest number of people.

I think that says it all. I remember starting out, when the standard size was 640 by 400 I think, and the change upwards was gut wrenching, as so many were using it, but as monitors changed, design tagged behind.

Hell, I still get one old coot that shows up on my stats as using webtv, and I thought that got canned eons ago. If the number is minimal, like 10% or less, I'd seriously go wider. :cool:

[gaydemon]

Ok, I got to go wide.. Even BBC News website has gone wider!!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/

Looks great too.. if they can change to a wider layout so can I lol

[Bec]

I'd have to toss my 2 cents at the go wide decision. Just don't replicate that changing of the directory naming thing that hurt your Google listings the last time you upgraded the site! whistle

[webnet]

my paysite show me this.

45.45% 1024x768
25.91% 1280x1024
14.57% Unknown
10.53% 800x600
3.24% 1152x864
0.20% 640x480
0.10% 1600x1200

[abostonboy]

my paysite show me this.

45.45% 1024x768
25.91% 1280x1024
14.57% Unknown
10.53% 800x600
3.24% 1152x864
0.20% 640x480
0.10% 1600x1200

11% is a lot to royally piss off (no pun intended).

The questions are:


Will you gain in design the revenue lost from the 10%
Of those 1024s, how many actually surf maxamized? Right hand docking is becomming the thing to do. Look at the dang width of MSN.
I still think surfers like white space.
Is what you are doing necessary for future features.


There are advantages to going wide if you need the space. Some sites that have had 10% of their surfers at 800 by 600 have lost as much as 15%-20% when they went wide.

It's scary. And a tough call.

[gaydemon]

I totally agree, 10% is a lot to loose or piss off. Which is why i cant make up my mind. well i have but why im worried or thinking about it twice.

There is need for more space but its also to make room for more white space.. which sounds a bit strange but white space can make a page look much better and be easier to use.

I've already tried to account for some side bars as the width is quite a bit below the normal design width for 1024 resolution.

I'm definitly going to go wider but it will always be scary to do such a change.




11% is a lot to royally piss off (no pun intended).

The questions are:

Will you gain in design the revenue lost from the 10%
Of those 1024s, how many actually surf maxamized? Right hand docking is becomming the thing to do. Look at the dang width of MSN.
I still think surfers like white space.
Is what you are doing necessary for future features.
There are advantages to going wide if you need the space. Some sites that have had 10% of their surfers at 800 by 600 have lost as much as 15%-20% when they went wide.

It's scary. And a tough call.

[gaydemon]

By the way, my stats for gaydemon and user monitor size is:

1. 1024x768 - 42.20%
2. 1280x800 - 17.64%
3. 1280x1024 - 10.28%
4. 800x600 - 7.87%
5. 1440x900 - 6.18%
6. 1680x1050 - 3.02%
7. 1152x864 - 2.75%
8. 1280x768 - 1.56%
9. 240x160 - 1.24%
10. 320x396 - 0.92%

[basschick]

11% IS a lot to piss off, but he has almost 25% at 1280, and i wouldn't imagine they're too happy with a skinny vertical strip.

btw, my surfers like breathing room but not wide areas of white on the sides.


11% is a lot to royally piss off (no pun intended).

The questions are:

Will you gain in design the revenue lost from the 10%
Of those 1024s, how many actually surf maxamized? Right hand docking is becomming the thing to do. Look at the dang width of MSN.
I still think surfers like white space.
Is what you are doing necessary for future features.
There are advantages to going wide if you need the space. Some sites that have had 10% of their surfers at 800 by 600 have lost as much as 15%-20% when they went wide.

It's scary. And a tough call.

[gaydemon_jr]

If the BBC have gone wide, then they will have debated this themselves. The outcome being that they have done. So they must think there is enough ground to do it. Be brave and go wide! :D

[Adam Mason]

The first version of BLAKEMASON was optimised for 1024... but had automatic scaling. The second version is fixed width at 1024... my wallet hasn't been hurt (IMHO!!!)... also, many people seem to be going widescreen, especially on laptops... 800 is not worth staying with if your designing for now or the future.

[gaydemon]

I think thats very true, definitly a big trend to wide screens rather than just big monitors. Almost every laptop now is more or less widescreen when it comes to aspect ratio or what its called.


The first version of BLAKEMASON was optimised for 1024... but had automatic scaling. The second version is fixed width at 1024... my wallet hasn't been hurt (IMHO!!!)... also, many people seem to be going widescreen, especially on laptops... 800 is not worth staying with if your designing for now or the future.

[Fister]

Have you considered using a fluid design with CSS for gaydemon.com? It will adjust the width according to the width of the screen.

[Gaystoryman]

Have you considered using a fluid design with CSS for gaydemon.com? It will adjust the width according to the width of the screen.

Now that would make sense, though fluid designs can be tricky in how some browsers render it. Certainly worth a thought though.

[gaydemon]

Yes I did consider it, its not that hard to do and I tried.

The problem is that the site wont look very good. Since its mostly text it also means most text lines if maximized will be far to long and be difficult to read. Plus in a column based layout you end up with a gigantic left colum (in my case) which doesnt need to be that big. If if fix its width you end up with a enourmous main centent area and again have problems with usability.

The "Max width" CSS property isnt widely supported yet, when it is, then I might do it. Until then you simply dont have enough control over how things look.

The second major problem with a fluid layout is that you cant easily use relative width or %.

And finally, gaydemon isnt really suited to fluid layout. The site is fairly clean and not busy enough.. there isnt enough to fill out a very large area since its mostly all text with just a few pictures. Fluid is more suited to a site like Amazon where there is a lot of stuff fighting for space

What I might do once the new design is online, is to do so users can switch between fluid and fixed width if they wish by click a option.



Have you considered using a fluid design with CSS for gaydemon.com? It will adjust the width according to the width of the screen.

[Johnny]

Is there an easy way for you to do a test where people are randomly sent to one or the other sites? Following conversions might be tough, but you might be able to see which one encourages more click throughs.

[gaydemon]

Its a good idea, but it probably wont be possible.

I wouldnt actually be offering 2 versions of the same page, instead it would be 2 different style sheet, where the users can switch between which one to use with a button / javascript (normally called style switching)

Because of that, there would not really be any way of checking who does what on what version since it would be the same page.


Is there an easy way for you to do a test where people are randomly sent to one or the other sites? Following conversions might be tough, but you might be able to see which one encourages more click throughs.

[xstr8guy]

The way I look at it (and Patti has heard me say this before, lol)...

If someone is still surfing at 800x600 on a 13" Packard Bell monitor, they are cheap bastards that do not pay for porn. Let them go somewhere else to get free porn. ;)

[Gaystoryman]

The way I look at it (and Patti has heard me say this before, lol)...

If someone is still surfing at 800x600 on a 13" Packard Bell monitor, they are cheap bastards that do not pay for porn. Let them go somewhere else to get free porn. ;)

But then again maybe they can't afford to upgrade their monitor because they are spending so much on memberships instead of a new monitor ? 666lol

[xstr8guy]

But then again maybe they can't afford to upgrade their monitor because they are spending so much on memberships instead of a new monitor ? 666lol

Hehe, possible but unlikely!

[Johnny]

I get what you are saying about offering two versions. My suggestion was (if you're wondering about performance) to see if it is possible to do a side by side test.

So, randomly sending people to two different pages (wide and not wide). If those that go to the wide version tend to convert more (over a reasonable sample amount) then you know that wide serves you better. If there is no difference, then you can decide whether you want to expend the energy.

Hopefully I haven't been beating a dead horse here. :)

[gaydemon]

Ah ok, I get you. Yes that would work. Will have to think about that. Could be a interesting way of testing and see what does work or not.


I get what you are saying about offering two versions. My suggestion was (if you're wondering about performance) to see if it is possible to do a side by side test.

So, randomly sending people to two different pages (wide and not wide). If those that go to the wide version tend to convert more (over a reasonable sample amount) then you know that wide serves you better. If there is no difference, then you can decide whether you want to expend the energy.

Hopefully I haven't been beating a dead horse here. :)

[RottenRay]

Several very valid points have been made here, but I'd like to weigh in with some considerations:


1) I know several guys who have upgraded their computers, but continue to use their older ones for porn.

2) Don't discount the old coots using WebTV, et cetera - they still tend to join, and perhaps are more likely to join since they still think in terms of the "classic" paysite model.

3) A great majority of news sites still play fine at 800 x 600, as do a great number of merchant sites.

4) I know many, many folks who have large monitors but resize their browsing windows to rather narrow sizes, for whatever reasons.

[basschick]

sorry to bump an old thread, but i thought that my latest findings on analytics were worth mentioning in context of this thread from last april. here's my latest monitor resolution stats:

40.97% of my review site's surfers are at 1024x768
16.77% are at 1280x800
10.29% are at 1280x1024
7.36% are at 1440x900
7.02% - yes, only 7.02% are at 800x600

the rest of the majority are bigger than 1024x768 but there are a few portables or cell phones weighing in - the one showing the most is 240x320 with 0.41%.

[ucbearcub]

Bjorn:

I know I'm still new here but I will add my two cents.

Having reviewed a few porn sites as well as non-porn sites, I know that a site is all about the look. It's one of the reasons why I will be redesigning my other site now that I've re-done my blog.

I like this version of gaydemon very much. It is easy to read, not memory intensive and best of all, IT WORKS! However, I do love the look of the other; I have ever since you suggested I sign up with a story to help promote my book. Here's why.

It makes the gaydemon presence stronger and let's the reader know exactly where they are. Kind of like the Disney "D", the Target logo or the way the Harrod's name appears in print; sorry, the one thing I took away from a branding class I had years ago.

In the end, you are correct about the evolving part. That's something I'm quickly learning from everyone here! However, I like the "warmth" of this place because there's a sense of community. Does that make sense?

Anyway, I hope I haven't confused you further. Are you a Libra by chance? : )

In the end you should follow your heart. You will never go wrong that way. Besides, you can always go back to this one if the other doesn't work, right?

Good luck in your decision.

Ben

[ucbearcub]

As an addendum:

I don't know much about the technical end as everyone else does. But also remember that the human eye can not tolerate a line width past a certain point before losing interest. Another thing I remember from that branding class years ago.

So the white space is DEFINITELY a necessity; and a decent point size as the age range of your demographic might be well . . . let's just say that I'm 46 and don't like to wear my reading glasses when I'm surfing and find something where I just HAVE to get off. The image is not at all attractive or sexy.

[gaydemon]

That is very true, which is one of the reasons my right hand side column on www.gaydemon.com (http://www.gaydemon.com) is so wide. There is simply no point having a main content section which is wider than 500-600px. The text can not be read easily anyway. Same goes with why I have not used flexible width design since line length isnt quite supported yet through CSS.



As an addendum:

I don't know much about the technical end as everyone else does. But also remember that the human eye can not tolerate a line width past a certain point before losing interest. Another thing I remember from that branding class years ago.

So the white space is DEFINITELY a necessity; and a decent point size as the age range of your demographic might be well . . . let's just say that I'm 46 and don't like to wear my reading glasses when I'm surfing and find something where I just HAVE to get off. The image is not at all attractive or sexy.