Comments on: I thought we’d hear shrieking!

By: Jeff W

Jeff W — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 17:25:12 +0000

The homepage has changed by now, so nothing to discuss there…

On black backgrounds, I’ve typically hated them on websites, … BUT… I’ve found that I really like them for photos. They help frame photos and make the colors stand out, drawing attention to the photo more than white seem to (IMO).

So, I know I can change to other themes, but so far my 2 SM sites both stick with the black.

By: J-Mac

J-Mac — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 15:57:11 +0000

Sorry to weigh in on this so late. I just subscribed to SmugMug last month, NOT because of the look of the site (It just might have scared me away!), but because I was disappointed in Flickr and did more research that I should have done in the first place.

Colors don’t bother me much, but I really have mixed feelings on the black page background. Makes reading text more difficult – no doubt about that. But black does show the photos much better. There is probably a way to have just the photos on a black background and have most of the text on a lighter background, though I’m not certain how to accomplish that.

Either way, it didn’t draw me to look harder and subscribe, but then again it also didn’t stop me from subscribing. As long as your “word of mouth” reputation is pristine – as it is – your colors won’t hurt you much. Though a nicer looking home page and general site theme and logo might draw a little more traffic.

Thanks for asking!

J-Mac

By: Spb.

Spb. — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 09:59:35 +0000

B&W design …. Its Coooool! =) Speshial for Monochrome Monitors =)))

By: Mrc.

Mrc. — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 08:37:52 +0000

> …. The white text on black background makes it much harder for many people to read.

I Agree … =(((

By: mesothelioma

mesothelioma — Wed, 01 Feb 2006 16:00:26 +0000

Anonymous Says:

November 27th, 2005 at 4:56 pm
I think the black background is beautiful, and makes photos shine individually. Plus, it makes you guys unique from the rest, I say keep it for sure. —->
Very Pragmatic! completely her(its) support

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sun, 27 Nov 2005 23:56:30 +0000

I think the black background is beautiful, and makes photos shine individually. Plus, it makes you guys unique from the rest, I say keep it for sure.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 02:50:40 +0000

Re-test.

Reading the opinions in the other posts I wonder what some open sourced designs would like…?

BTW the tag line is very sensationally transferrable!

Good for smugmug!

By: Administrator

Administrator — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 23:28:08 +0000

And the conversion rate is… (drum roll… I knew I’d be able to announce good news, that it was better than before…)

Unchanged.

It seems to have gone from a, “Eh. A home page.” experience to a love-it hate-it experience with no net gain or loss.

Another interpretation could be that the home page isn’t the key to conversions, the pages with more info are.

By: Chris P

Chris P — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 15:40:31 +0000

I’m color blind, and thought the new homepage looked ok. Not a strong endorsement, but there are probably 5-10% of your customers who are like me. Just curious — what’s your click-through data telling you about the change?

In general, I like the black-backgrounds and agree that they make the site look more professional and help the photos “pop” off the page.

The logo and name aren’t perfect, but you’ve got some brand equity and name recognition with your customers already, so switching them both probably wouldn’t make sense. Evolving the logo is the easier of the two, and should probably happen with continued evolution of the look of the site.

Keep up the good work — it’s a fantastic service!

Just my $0.02.
Chris P

By: jd

jd — Mon, 05 Sep 2005 03:56:38 +0000

The white text on black background makes it much harder for many people to read. If you’d like to compare this with black text on a white background, you can use the “Zap Colors” bookmarklet that’s found here: http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html