Rabbit's Review
I was interested to read Rabbits Reviews' recent review of Dreams of Spanking, which gave the site an overall score of 70/100.
Here's their breakdown:
Content amount and, relatedly, value, we can't do much about; the site is only 18 months old and is expanding at a steady pace. Likewise update schedule - I am fairly committed to the idea that spanking scenes should not be sliced up and released in sections, but that it's better to wait for a full scene that you can watch all at once. However, this year I have made an effort to release extra midweek photosets as often as possible, and will continue to do so.
Do you like our current system of weekly videos of varying length? Would you prefer shorter videos and more frequent updates? At present I find that juggling my various commitments makes it hard to commit to a weekly update day, but I usually aim for Saturday. If there is a bonus photoset, that will go up midweek, for instance on Wednesday. Would you value a more predictable "every Wednesday and Saturday" update schedule? What if that meant e.g. uploading the photos and the video for the same scene on different days?
Rabbits Reviews identified the site's strengths as exclusive content, high-def videos and zipped high-res photo sets. Weaknesses included the inability to save favourite scenes, no advanced search, and the fact that our streaming video player needs to preload before you can skip ahead in a scene. Which are all true, the question is how high a priority it is to fix. Are these usability problems that have hindered your enjoyment of the site?
The suggestion of being able to save favourited scenes is an interesting one. We already have a "like" feature on the site, and it would not be too hard to list "liked" scenes on each user's profile. This list could either be visible publically, or to each person privately. Would this feature be useful to you?
Rabbits Reviews liked our fair trade ethics, high production values and HD video quality. Other comments included:
Photo sets [...] mixed in among the posting of vids. In fact that's something that kind of detracts from the navigation a bit, because there aren't separate sections for videos and photos, just thumbnails without any indication of whether they link to photos, videos or both. The only exceptions are the four MP3 audio stories whose thumbs are clearly labeled with an audio symbol.
Once you click a thumbnail and the page for the video or photo shoot opens then you'll see that it is labeled with keyword tags and these can help you find similarly-themed action. You can also browse by category if you prefer. You can leave comments and "like" scenes, although there isn't really a way to sort your view of scenes based on this ratings system. Still, you can check out five of the most viewed scenes and most popular keyword tags as well.
I'm always looking for ways to improve the site and user experience so any suggestions for improvements are appreciated. The 4/10 usability score was particularly interesting, and has given me food for thought. Do let me know if you agree with the above comments and if you have any other feedback about the site navigation.
Regarding not being able to tell the difference between photos and videos, this distinction is definitely made on the homepage and on the recent scenes feed, with text descriptions saying whether each scene is a film or photogallery, and a "video player" image if there's video. There could perhaps be more visual distinction between photosets and videos, for instance different thumbnail layouts for each. I've experimented with this idea at our new free site Darker Dreams, and would definitely consider using a similar layout for Dreams of Spanking if you think it would work better.
My guess is that the reviewer is referring to our Browse all scenes page, which doesn't have any distinction between photos and videos. This is a new page, and the feedback is really useful. I'll have a think about whether to include a "video" symbol on the video thumbnails (although this might obscure the image), or perhaps separate out video, photos and audio under different subheadings. Another idea would be to expand this page to include some text information alongside each thumbnail, which could include a media symbol as well as direct download links. What do you think?
Overall, I'm happy with our score of 70/100, and it's always useful to receive such detailed feedback. I am always looking for ways to improve the site, particularly the navigation and usability, so if you have any comments or suggestions, please do let me know.
Comments
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Review of the review
i have two main concerns about the review though.
The use of a marking system always strikes me as arbitrary (just look at the bullshit scores that some papers insist on giving footballers in their match reports). Outside of context the figures are meaningless, and, while on the face of it they provide an easy basis for comparison to the reader, in fact they don't, as pushing and prodding any individual site in order to get it to fit into narrow categories just means that you end up comparing apples with elephants. Or something else potentially dissimilar.
The other thing is the useability issue. i think they're talking crap. I've always found the site to be well presented and easy to navigate. I said so in both my original review and my six months on follow up.
While the issue of the streaming videos may be a fair one, I would suspect that most members download the videos to keep anyway, so it is at best a minor irritant.
Anyway, just my opinion. But i din't find it necessary to produce a contrived numerical system that has to add up to 100.
All the best
Tim
Thank you for the reassurance on finding the site easy to navigate, that is really good to hear. :)
And another review
Red Pen for the Rabbitt
@Tim I am sure you do understand that most of the contributors to DOS do actually "like marking" so you are heading down the wrong Rabbitt hole on that one.
For this response Woodrow I score you an 8.
Jolly good show
- clicking All Scenes in the main menu, then clicking the "Browse by keyword" link on the top right
- clicking the white "Browse all Spanking Scenes by Keyword" button at the top of the sidebar on some pages
Some people prefer the word list, others prefer the thumbnail list. I wonder if there's a way I could link to both in the main navigation. By moving the search box maybe?