best website ever???

[custardfish]

I can't disagree with what your saying, what I was talking about was choice to suit readers preferences. The simplest way I'd think in doing this, is to have on the index page a choice of styles to visit.

Bad idea on a index/home page - plenty of people will think your offering multple sites/content - not designs.

Its not really a userbility issue anyway... this site is all about the images.. no-ones really interested in the 20 words desc! Not every websites main content is the text on the page.

And userbility studies don't show major differences in black/white white/black.. its more to do with kerning and font size/type than colour pallate. And those users with real userbility problems are likely to employ browser side CSS to overide ALL websites they visit.

What your suggesting is giving users choice over a design they like or don't like - well you could do this for EVERY site out there, it becomes a problem of budget - how many alternative designs do you do 2, 3 - 10?

Also the marketing will (hopefully) be a well crafted, planned, coherent and consistent beast..with letterheads, brochures, gift tags, magazine ads to match - your just going to confuse and water down the corporate/product image and brand.

Basically for this site its all about the mood and the images.. and it does that really, really well.

A white bg will create a totally different feel and product image, which I don't think would sell half as well considering the subject matter.

Ask people for adjectives of the current sites and it will be: expensive, sensual, sultry, desirable, torrid, passionate, exciting, humid etc - you can almost smell the JD and hear Hotel California playing in the bg.. its all about creating desire in the end user to want to buy this. Its basically lifestyle advertising.

Put it all on a clean white bg and it'll look like M&S latest range.

Look at:

http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/pr...6098031&page=2

compared to:

http://www.agentprovocateur.com/natalia.html

The outfits themselves are pretty similar - but do they comes across as the same? MS is all about function, AP is all about desire, fun and feeling sexy!

Even though the product is probably 99% the same women will buy from M&S for everyday use, but they'll goto AP or similar for that one special night (or more! ) in the year when they want to feel special, ultra sexy etc... its all about a carefully well crafted image.

[fbm247]

Having a website with different style sheet selections is something which i think could work great if it was planned from the start creating 2 stylesheets which work equally as well with the content and images being used on the site.

Simply having a site created on a black background and then changing it to a white background at a later date could have some horrible looking results. I guess it all comes down to the content and how the structure was built but if it was something which was planned during the design stage then you could acheive some good results.

I suppose the question is, if someone dislikes black background sites will they really spend the time to look for a feature which allows them to change it to a white background? I personally beleive that if a website doesn't grab the visitors attention in the first 10 seconds then they will be quickly moving onto the next result on the search list.

[nass]

imo, BBC. Ticks all the right boxes for me - contemporary, rich content, useability

[Lasting Designs]

Bad idea on a index/home page - plenty of people will think your offering multple sites/content - not designs.

Its not really a userbility issue anyway... this site is all about the images.. no-ones really interested in the 20 words desc! Not every websites main content is the text on the page.

And userbility studies don't show major differences in black/white white/black.. its more to do with kerning and font size/type than colour pallate. And those users with real userbility problems are likely to employ browser side CSS to overide ALL websites they visit.

What your suggesting is giving users choice over a design they like or don't like - well you could do this for EVERY site out there, it becomes a problem of budget - how many alternative designs do you do 2, 3 - 10?

Also the marketing will (hopefully) be a well crafted, planned, coherent and consistent beast..with letterheads, brochures, gift tags, magazine ads to match - your just going to confuse and water down the corporate/product image and brand.

Basically for this site its all about the mood and the images.. and it does that really, really well.

A white bg will create a totally different feel and product image, which I don't think would sell half as well considering the subject matter.

Ask people for adjectives of the current sites and it will be: expensive, sensual, sultry, desirable, torrid, passionate, exciting, humid etc - you can almost smell the JD and hear Hotel California playing in the bg.. its all about creating desire in the end user to want to buy this. Its basically lifestyle advertising.

Put it all on a clean white bg and it'll look like M&S latest range.

Look at:

http://www.marksandspencer.com/gp/pr...6098031&page=2

compared to:

http://www.agentprovocateur.com/natalia.html

The outfits themselves are pretty similar - but do they comes across as the same? MS is all about function, AP is all about desire, fun and feeling sexy!

Even though the product is probably 99% the same women will buy from M&S for everyday use, but they'll goto AP or similar for that one special night (or more! ) in the year when they want to feel special, ultra sexy etc... its all about a carefully well crafted image.

Again, I can't disagree with what you are saying. My point is directed at ability to view a site, or should I say, the choice to view a style of the site through the eyes of people who struggle to view things in the way the majority of people do. Of course its not the same, but its like the flash v HTML site arguement, all have their place, fans, critics etc, not any one is defined as being totally correct.

The foremost objective of design is to convey the message, set the tone, create an interaction, but that doesn't mean to say for design sake, an inferior version, yet more functional and less demanding version for a minority group can't be done. Its not a failure of the design, but a failure to a (very) small point to cater to everybodies viewing ability.

[PainFreeMarketing]

Even though the product is probably 99% the same women will buy from M&S for everyday use, but they'll goto AP or similar for that one special night (or more! ) in the year when they want to feel special, ultra sexy etc... its all about a carefully well crafted image.

You sooooo don't know anything about women, the black and white website is crafted for men's tastes not women's hence the lesbian pic scenes

Take lasenza, reputable sexy undie shop - white background, with non lesbian pics (as are most the other known brands)

Not many women would buy a thong for £80 just because a sexy bird was wearing it, but a man would. Neither would a woman shop in the dark.

Different marketing strategy.

Horses for courses and all that.

[Alvin]

You sooooo don't know anything about women, the black and white website is crafted for men's tastes not women's hence the lesbian pic scenes

Take lasenza, reputable sexy undie shop - white background, with non lesbian pics (as are most the other known brands)

Not many women would buy a thong for £80 just because a sexy bird was wearing it, but a man would. Neither would a woman shop in the dark.

Different marketing strategy.

Horses for courses and all that.

Fair comment.Although I am sure there is a smattering of women who have got there sugar daddy to peek.

Glad to hear the wife will still be happy in M&S.

Alvin

[custardfish]

You sooooo don't know anything about women, the black and white website is crafted for men's tastes not women's hence the lesbian pic scenes

LOL well it has been said!

Take lasenza, reputable sexy undie shop - white background, with non lesbian pics (as are most the other known brands)

The overall feel of their website and this page for instance is pretty dark.. esp in some places.. ie:

http://www.lasenza.co.uk/hosiery/hosiery.htm

Also its a high street chain, on the AP website items cost x10 as much.. The dark bg and lifestyle images directly help create the products overall high class feel and 'justify' the high price tags.

Not many women would buy a thong for £80 just because a sexy bird was wearing it, but a man would. Neither would a woman shop in the dark.

Well the OP said they have 17000 visitors a day - I don't believe for one second that's 17000 men - so they're doing something right!

Also if the look of the models wearing clothes have no influence on womens shopping habbits why are magazines full of photoshopped, impossibly beautiful women?

I guarantee you most men don't do any shopping if they can help it!