Hopefully some useful feedback based on recent (ish) changes to the site. Generally it feels like whoever is designing the site doesn't actually use the site. A lot of what's been done is "pretty" but useless.
I think you've hit the nail on the head with all of those points. Having been on the site for about a year through several phases of redesign it doesn't feel as if changes get any real UAT and playing around with something that's an income stream for sellers who may not be in the best circumstances leaves rather a bad taste in the mouth. I've been involved with software projects on the developing and auditing sides, and testing is something that the most successful projects spend a lot of time on.
What's below is stuff I've mostly fed back already but it'd be interesting to know if others feel similarly. Sorry for the stream of consciousness bullet pointing.
Preview/vid related bits;
- On your first point of auto playing video headers I've blocked the header vids specifically (so that there's just a grey box, and it takes up less vertical space) and turned off HTML5 video autoplay, or would honestly have stopped using the site. The mini-preview-on-hover for thumbnails is nice, but anything auto play is obnoxious and causes problems with desktop/laptop browsers.
- As you say, anywhere there's a preview vid or image it should be possible to click through to that model (and a real click that allows users to right-click and open in another tab, not fake javascript type links).
- Using the same "card" type frame that shows a model's avatar, name and location on every vid whilst on their own page is a waste of space.
- Agree on the ticker, although I did used to block it because it didn't play nicely with Chrome/Opera... a lot of sellers have commented on reduced visibility since it's gone.
- I've clicked around far less since the right-hand pane showing a live feed of new video releases has gone. That was the main thing that kept my interest rather than the ticker.
- The toast, if that's what's called, is worse than useless... although at least they seem to have moved it from the left to the right so that it doesn't appear over other content on a desktop browser.
- Yeah... no cloud tags, category or name filters or search functions once you're on a model's page; the interface is clunky for sellers with more than a few videos. For example, if a model frequently releases blowjob, anal and g/g clips it would be useful if the model page showed their most-used tags and customers could use that already-existing information to filter to.
- I can understand why models might prefer to restrict previews to "premium" users, but don't get the impression that the big spenders bother with buying premium status. Personally it's usually a case of no preview, no purchase.
- Model pages no longer showing which vids have been purchased seems to have led to instances of to duplicate transactions, buyers being refunded without clear explanation to sellers, and consequent friction all round.
File/download management;
- Video filenames don't include model names as a prefix when saving.
- The "3 downloads and they're gone" approach is like a red rag to a bull on occasions when CloudFront is unreliable and drops connections. Customer support don't seem to understand or have anything to do with the webhosting side of things. I can understand why unlimited downloads aren't offered, but other sites handle this better by telling the customer exactly how many downloads are considered to have been used.
- Some of the "purchase history" pages (which have replaced the user's library) still don't show all entries because developers seem to have hardcoded cut offs. It means that vids are essentially lost and can't be downloaded or reviewed, which is inexcusable and maddening -- in particular a lot of models will do deals as part of which they generate links to grant vids to a user, which show up on the same page as free vids, so I don't think regular users are unlikely to hit that cut off. Paginating the lists (or a "click for more" and infinite scroll option to suit mobile devices) would be a simple fix.
Interface in general;
- Showing a tiny "blocked" tile in the corner of the page or silently redirecting the user to the main vids page if a model has been suspended / content is blocked for your area / a vid has been removed isn't exactly good UI. A page with better explanations and a "you might want to visit instead" links/previews underneath would be better.
- If a model has been suspended for spamming or whatever, punishing users that have subscribed to their content by making them unable to view the model's video listings is a poor experience for customers and one that reflects badly on MV rather than the model.
Contests and promotion;
- They might have found a balance now with the weekly schedules, but running new and constant contests over the summer that favoured already highly selling models seemed to have had a disproportionate impact on others who were selling. Since certain periods are already slow due to normal variation in customer spending that should be expected by anyone running an online sales operation, promotions should be considered on that basis.
- The way reviews are handled is definitely overkill, and some of the rating categories a bit ridiculous. The one people mention the most relates to "unexpected ending" which isn't usually considered a plus in porn.
- There's no way to follow models and see a feed of new releases from those models... for that, you need to follow people on Twitter. And once you're on Twitter, sales are often on other sites or direct. Not sure why MV are apparently so happy to leave money on the table like that.
Overall the MV team seem receptive to comments and I know have fixed some things as a result, but with favourite sellers leaving I'm more there for a few existing membership subscriptions at this point.
