Printing is turned on for all the galleries here but only two of the seven has the very
very very very obnoxious print button showing. Viewing with IE9.
This I would classify as a BUG.
Seems that all galleries that have videos do not show the print button.
Edit: videos always fall first in the gallery so no print button shows.
If you select a photo/s still no print button.
Refresh page with photo selected and print button now shows.
Remains showing when click video thumb.
Not quite right having to refresh page while on photo to get print button.
SM designers, if you are listening please consider a few more examples of elegant design layouts from livebooks with minimal clutter which I would love to see as a smugmug layout option:
Notice the focus on the primary images themselves. Thumbs can even hide below or to the right of the main image as in the case of Art Wolfe's site. This is especially relevant for the SMers who simply want an elegant way to showcase their images rather than competing for space and attention with all the extra clutter = buttons, commenting, sharing, etc... features. Thumbs become minimal yet still available compared to the primary image itself.
few suggestions
Sorry if this has already been mentioned but there are two things I noticed right away:
1) The thumbnail paging is going to be confusing for some. If the only way you can page through thumbnails is to notice the arrow on the last thumb or click on the tiny dots under the list of thumbnails there will be many who think all the images are being displayed. Maybe you should put arrows on each side of the set of page dots.
2) The gallery title takes up a bunch of vertical room that I'd like for the image. How about an option to display it in the breadcrumb?
Overall I think the design is an improvement but not a radical shift in direction. Not sure if that's good or bad
I like some of what Google has done with Google+ Galleries. The thumbnail display with different size thumbnails is nice so you can feature one image and still show all the thumbnails without using a lot of space.
Bug Report (apologies if this has already been mentioned):
It seems that when a gallery contains (as an example) 16 images, where 15 images fit all on one page of thumbnails, the 16th image is not accessible. The arrow-navigation thumbnail does not appear, and the only way to access the 16th image is to resize the browser window to display only 8 thumbnails on one page, and then the ability to jump to page 2 appears.
dots and gallery levels
I can see how the dots or page numbers is important; it relays to the viewer their position within the set of gallery images. I'd like to propose a few things that will improve this UI element.
1. JUMP-PREVIEW: When a user mouses over a dot, use js to pop up an instant image preview to show the first image of the grid you'd see by going there. This way, the user can glide over the dots to find the area they want to focus on. (see attached mockup)
2. SUBSECTION: Sure, everyone wants more gallery levels to organize their work, but at some point, it makes sense to have like-images in one gallery and have a way to cut it into subsections. Next to the dots would be a perfect place to add subsections within the current gallery. Add an arrow above the dots that would pop up a panel to reveal predetermined jump labels within the current gallery (a specific image denoting the beginning of a new section, perhaps). For a wedding photographer, this would be things like "ceremony" or "reception". For vacations, it could be "Tetons" or "Yellowstone"-- this way, they can put all of their vacation pics in one gallery: Vacation 2011, instead of needing several distinct galleries and tying them together with something like a Sharegroup. The user would add these subsections using a new tool and available in the admin dropdown menu, like where the "drag to arrange" tool resides. (see attached mockup)
Another idea I had is to have the thumbnails in a sub-panel that scrolls rather than having to click through pages.
Or, you could be sneaky and use the browser window scrollbar. Then have the large picture and top controls follow along.
There are a certain percentage of people that do not notice or understand the fact that there are pages. You can tell by looking at the View Stats for a gallery: the number of pages in a day will be exactly the number of thumbnails shown on one page.
Agreed and I think the current UI layout with the dots and the not so obvious navigation on the first/last thumbnails will only move that percentage of confused folks up. There is space for arrows or something on either side of the dots so perhaps that would work and could be made to look good. I like that the interface is getting away from numbering pages though.
It seems the UI design is taking part of the standard Apple IOS paging look and feel but is missing one critical piece- you can't swipe right and left to go between pages. The dots are there in IOS to give you a feel for where you are in a document.
There are a certain percentage of people that do not notice or understand the fact that there are pages. You can tell by looking at the View Stats for a gallery: the number of pages in a day will be exactly the number of thumbnails shown on one page.
Another idea I had is to have the thumbnails in a sub-panel that scrolls rather than having to click through pages.
I like this alot, especially after having used Facebook's ticker. Hover to highlight and just scroll away. Makes both page forward/backward and pagination dots look ancient. :cry
If the caption has more then two lines there is no indication what photo you're on without scrolling. This is extremely important when talking over the phone and coordinating view with another person/client. To me top navigation of both photo and page is mandatory. Also if we're both browsing in lightbox there is no photo number showing and that makes it impossible to coordinate viewing.
Just noticed in IE9 there is no hover text for thumbs. Was the alt and title tags removed for thumbs? Without the hover text the ability of seeing the caption is lost and you have to click each thumb.
Add prints via the flyout panel
In the current (public) SmugMug design, when you mouse over the larger image on the right, a panel flies out listing the available zoom sizes, photorank, collect... I like how that has been replaced with a more simple (+) mouse curser but I have an idea for the panel.
First, confine the fly-out trigger to the right 1/4 of the image. The panel would open to reveal a list of several common print/product options for the customer to quickly increment/decrement. The items listed in here would be preselected by the photographer. Any photos currently in the cart tied to any product would be denoted on the thumbnail with a little cart symbol so the customer could get a view of their order as they order.
The benefit to the customer is that, for most of the selection process, they don't have to go to the BUY overlay and back to the grid each time they want to add a 4x6 to the cart. But, the panel would include a link there for "more options" that would take them to the standard BUY overlay for options not included in the panel. I think this would simplify most of what my customers do on my site.
Another idea I had is to have the thumbnails in a sub-panel that scrolls rather than having to click through pages.
Or, you could be sneaky and use the browser window scrollbar. Then have the large picture and top controls follow along.
Yes, a dynamically scrolling sub-panel or side-panel of thumbs would be ideal. That was what I was demonstating with Art Wolfe's site. And its ability to auto hide is very nice as well.
Rich dynamic content like this is much more user friendly and cutting edge than static pages which have to be completely reloaded each time to get to the next page (page 2->n). This is why many people stop on Page One of a gallery. By contrast with scrolling thumbs there is never a next page in any gallery.
A huge side benefit of this is that you eliminate the whole need for those silly navigational dots or page 1 of x options. Why keep page navigation static anyway? There is really no benefit to this old design pattern. Even in this current pre-alpha layout the thumbs section could easily scroll instead. Then the desire to overload the first page with a cr@p load of thumbs is gone and the primary image can take center stage.
If you would like having this gallery style as an option I have also added it as a feature request which you can vote on and comment on here:
Onethumb, Andy - anybody with input into how the Rating functions work or will work,
First let me thank you and your staff for a great experience with, and a great product in SmugMug Pro.
I contribute to your DailyPhotos Community and have met many fellow SmugMuggers who enjoy sharing their view of the world within this friendly, family oriented and talented group of people. This group enjoys contribution from the full range of photographic talent - professional, simi-pro all the way to the other end of the hobby spectrum. I have been aboard with this group for about a year, and consider myself somewhere in the middle of this grouping of talent.
I am one of a growing number of DailyPhotos Community contributors who have become quite dis-enchanted by how your current Photo Popularity system functions. Based on what I am reading, you've heard from many of us who share this concern. You've noted that Thumbs UP/Down is gone in the revamped version. PLEASE tell us the lack of requirement for a negative rating entry is going away also. Currently lurkers (we call them 'snakes') whose only design is to push their work higher in these daily community galleries by thumbing down in complete secrecy are really becoming a threat to my continued use of the community. They must be stopped. They're smart enough to clear their browser cookies and cache and come back for second, third and even more Thumbs down hits... We know, I have personally experienced four, five or more commented on entries completely disappear later.. totally off the daily site. It's disheartening for DailyPhoto Community members who simply want to share with other like photographers to be pushed off the site so they can't share..
So let those who would abuse or be critical do it in open forum with an identity. We can not contribute an image to the community anonymously, so a critique or negative entry in the current form of a thumbs down should not be anonymous either.
I welcome your return comments and hope your enhancements remedy this for all of us.
With warm regards,
AchBee - Howard Brown
LousiAnnImage
The Photography of Howard Louis Brown
- PhotoRank. Our PhotoRank algorithm has continued to evolve over time, and this is yet another one of those evolutions. The thumbs up / thumbs down metaphor is gone, and we instead rely on other signals (many of which we've always used already, some of which are new) to determine how popular a photo is. As usual, we won't disclose specifics and it's always a moving target, but this is a big change.
- Anonymous comments. They're gone. You must have a SmugMug or Facebook Connect login to leave a comment at SmugMug. The abusive anonymous comment problem, even with our moderator tools, is just getting too large.
and if you take a look at the sneak peak of the new gallery style, you can see the new interface in action already.
The video player needs improvement. It's really buggy to begin with, and having to click "HD on" and "Stretch on" (stretch implies ratio isn't kept) every time isn't intuitive and just a PITA. We can't skip the beginning until it loads. The youtube player is much better with choice of resolution instead of a vague "HD".
In the current (public) SmugMug design, when you mouse over the larger image on the right, a panel flies out listing the available zoom sizes, photorank, collect... I like how that has been replaced with a more simple (+) mouse curser but I have an idea for the panel.
First, confine the fly-out trigger to the right 1/4 of the image. The panel would open to reveal a list of several common print/product options for the customer to quickly increment/decrement. The items listed in here would be preselected by the photographer. Any photos currently in the cart tied to any product would be denoted on the thumbnail with a little cart symbol so the customer could get a view of their order as they order.
The benefit to the customer is that, for most of the selection process, they don't have to go to the BUY overlay and back to the grid each time they want to add a 4x6 to the cart. But, the panel would include a link there for "more options" that would take them to the standard BUY overlay for options not included in the panel. I think this would simplify most of what my customers do on my site.
YES, YES, YES pretty please do this oh great smug mug folks! i am always looking for easier ways for my customers to buy my pictures. this would be totally cool
Ok,
SM designers, if you are listening please consider a few more examples of elegant design layouts from livebooks with minimal clutter which I would love to see as a smugmug layout option...Notice the focus on the primary images themselves...rather than competing for space and attention with all the extra clutter
Seems like every day I get closer to moving my portfolios over to 500px because Smugmug has essentially no real layout flexibility. I sure hope we hear more about that soon. That's to say that I'd still use Smugmug as an "image warehouse" for embedding and for galleries that show off images like line items/SKUs instead of as art...but where design really counts the four existing gallery styles, which you can count on one hand with a digit missing, are really starting to not cut it anymore.
The video player needs improvement. It's really buggy to begin with, and having to click "HD on" and "Stretch on" (stretch implies ratio isn't kept) every time isn't intuitive and just a PITA. We can't skip the beginning until it loads. The youtube player is much better with choice of resolution instead of a vague "HD".
I think Smugmug is fine here. With YouTube, less technical users have to pick from up to four numbers (240p, 360p, 720p, 1080p), and I think it's easier for ordinary users to simply choose HD on or off, as it is with both Smugmug and Vimeo. I think the HD on/off switch makes it far more likely that a user will see the video at its best, because if someone isn't familiar with the four resolutions, they might not change it and the video won't look its best.
What Smugmug calls "stretch," Vimeo calls "scaling" which might sound safer for aspect ratio preservation. I would rather have a way of hiding the logo when the simple URL is pasted into a wordpress.com site, since the embed code that would normally hide it doesn't work on wordpress.com.
What I'm wondering about is the QuickTime plug-in on the Mac, which is becoming embarrassingly out of date. In the past, Smugmug said they used QuickTime instead of Flash due to performance, but I'm wondering now that more and more sites use HTML5 players, can that be used now as an alternative to the Flash and QuickTime players? The HTML5 experience on other sites seems very close to Flash, and is way better than the awful experience we get with QuickTime in Smugmug these days. (e.g. If there is a way to get the QuickTime plug-in to go full screen, let me know!)
If the caption has more then two lines there is no indication what photo you're on without scrolling. This is extremely important when talking over the phone and coordinating view with another person/client. To me top navigation of both photo and page is mandatory. Also if we're both browsing in lightbox there is no photo number showing and that makes it impossible to coordinate viewing. ...
First off, I love the new direction and increased speed of the design. Kudos to the team for all the work involved.
I agree 100% with Allen, regarding the "top navigation of both photo and page is mandatory."
Would like to add my .02 regarding the 'dots' and the lack of obvious method to to click thru the images - you've already got 'both' dots and the numbered version in use (based on #/pages) so my vote is for stick with numbers in ALL cases - then if you must - leave US the OPTION of choosing dots or numbers.
Also what happened to the SmugMug homepage image (attached) - this to me is the perfect compromise - (no dots, navigation arrows ABOVE the images [so they're clear and easy to locate] and the clean modern design otherwise.
Bear in mind you're promoting the service with that example even though it's not available - and not in that version once the new changes are implemented - not a good way to lure new business.
My (and over 1.2 million pageloads) normal viewing method is to park the mouse over the forward arrow and click as needed while watching the large image - very efficent and time saving - the 'new' style (after / if they figure it out before just giving up and leaving) forces viewers to continually shift their viewing from the main image to the thumbs (so they can click on the next one) then back just to get thru the gallery - when going thru galleries that contain large #/number of images it's just not an experience anyone would put up with - as an event photographer my average gallery has 100-150 images.
It's almost as bad as those other sites we've all seen that when you try to click thru their gallery of images you have to scroll down to look for the arrow (because the arrows are under the images instead of above where common sense dictates)- or worse the arrows actual position changes every image based on image orientation/size/etc. Pretty unprofessional for a photo viewing site.
This causes a very uncomfortable viewing experience and whenever I encounter them I mumble (well curse) and quikly move on making a mental note regarding the inability or lack of knowledge that designed said situation as by those that never test drive their own creation - the mental note also includes the vow to never buy or cause my funds to ever go in that direction for any reason just due to general principle.
Again the solution from my perspective is stay with what you're already showing/selling/promoting on the homepage - if you're that 'sold' on the 'dots' leave them as an option for us your paying customers.
Bear in mind, I don't post that often, it's been a long day and I wanted to get my thoughts in before it went too long - I've always respected your desire to solicit our feedback and cannot sing your praises loud enough - I trust in the end 'our' voices will be heard and alterations will be implemented...
Thanks for the opportunity to be a part of this process!!
...Bear in mind you're promoting the service with that example even though it's not available - and not in that version once the new changes are implemented - not a good way to lure new business...
That's been up for over a year now. Totally misleading to new and potential customers and stringing the rest of us fools along. Since this design by committee just seems to drag out and is likely not going to make anyone happy, really, I'll be voting with my wallet in December.
I actually agree. I have been asking about the new design for about two years and smugmug is saying yes we will release it - stay tuned. I am a bit bored with that "tune". Smugmug is selling something what does not exist. I think if that would be in European Union - this would be misleading customers - which is against the law.
Love the new design. Very clean, simple, and pretty darn fast.
Two nits:
* I could see the cloud download icon causing confusion for casual guests/users. The 'alt' text helps, but I think the icon could be improved.
* Would it be possible to disable Facebook integration for a gallery? I understand that Facebook is a behemoth and some people want that kind of integration, but I think it should be a configurable option. I noticed when loading individual images or pages, the Facebook 'like' icon was the last thing to load. This is kind of annoying since I don't want that integration in my gallery(ies).
A few comments...
A few comments on the new style.
1. I find the new multi-page navigation too confusing. I can't see any options in standard SmugMug view to toggle to Next Image, Next page, etc. Only the breadcrumbs and the odd corner icon.
2. I find the term "Edit" to be wrong to front a bunch of the options no grouped under that button. e.g. i was trying to figure out how to set a particular phot as a gallery highlight and finally looked under "Edit" after a lot of frustration.
3. Caption/keyword editing is not "safe". If you edit a caption on one picture and quickly switch to another image, the "new" caption you just entered stick to the new image you just switched to, instead of the one you were viewing when you saved the updated caption changes. ie. the background AJAX needs to be a bit more rigorous in tracking its state and what goes where.
Missing the xx of XX
On the Most Popular page I can't tell where a photo ranks e.g. 6 of 150.
What's the point of a ranking algorithm if the rank doesn't show up anywhere
Even in my own gallery I miss the counter e.g. 33 of 256.
In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, however, there is.
In order to understand recursion, you first have to understand recursion.
Art Hill
On the Most Popular page I can't tell where a photo ranks e.g. 6 of 150.
What's the point of a ranking algorithm if the rank doesn't show up anywhere
Even in my own gallery I miss the counter e.g. 33 of 256.
Worse yet, what's the point of ranking if I can't compare cross-gallery?
1) I like the speed while browsing through the "Popular Photo's". Much improved.
2) I like that the Thumb's Up/Down is gone. Time will tell if the new photo-ranking is more abuse-proof (see #4 below).
Things I still question:
1) Browsing through the "Most Popular Photo's (today) link" and reviewing comments, most photo's are either not rated or rated 5* (making 1* through 4* somewhat superfluous). What I would like to see is a way for photographers to request a "critique" (in addition to the commenting feature) --- this would be the place for a *-rating system, not general comments on photo's and galleries.
2) The interface still seems off. I liked it when all of the navigation/info stuff was on the top - it is where I naturally look for that kind of thing. It took me a few minutes to even figure out how to browse through the thumbnails in the new design to find the things I was interested in. Since you have the gradient top bar (at least over the thumbnails), why not use it to display the navigational tools instead of leaving it as a waste of space (and clicking on the first and last photo's to go to the prev/next page seems inefficient to me) --- one the photo side, you would need to adjust the photo position, but then you could display the "Edit" "Share", "Buy", "Cloud(s)" , etc. all on the same line across the top as in the old design. BTW: There is nothing wrong with text --- not everything needs to have a cool graphical icon, as long as it is localized to the browser region or language selection (This has been mentioned many other times in this thread).
3) My biggest feature request is a way to browse most recent photo's (today, last x days, etc) as opposed to the "most popular photos today" which is an entirely different animal. While I would also watch the "Popular Photo" thread, when photo's turn up there day after day after day after day ... with no comments or ratings, it points to an abuse of the system (There has been a recent uprising on the "Most Popular" thread that points to an abuse of the Thumb's feature).
4) Finally, some have commented that they absolutely need the ability for people that are not logged in to SM to be able to rate there photo's (in order to generate business?). This may be a valid concern and one that should be take into consideration. However, other members of the "Site" do not need to be bombarded with photo's receiving these anonymous kudos' --- we should, as a community, figure out a way to accommodate both of these types of users.
Why is this upgrade an "everything but the kitchen sink" affair? Seems that many of these features could have been rolled out independently. We now have something of a monstrosity of an update that no one will ever agree is perfect ... not to mention the fact that it has been in conception for over 4.5 months (June 1st for the first sneak peek).
Finally got a chance to take a look. Offhand, I like most of the changes. However, I hope we can tweak the background to back to black as the dark grey makes things seem soft to me. I also would like to hide the keywords for the pics, although now that I think about it there is probably a way to hide that and never tried nor looked for it. lol
I do like that you can easily tell what pic you are on and the speed seems really nice now. Not sure if I like the page selector at the bottom. Seems odd offhand, but possibly that can change or I can get used to it.
One other thing... will there be a way to change the buy photos button? Just not a fan of the green. Maybe a smugmug thing, but I like blue for example.
Comments
Seems that all galleries that have videos do not show the print button.
Edit: videos always fall first in the gallery so no print button shows.
If you select a photo/s still no print button.
Refresh page with photo selected and print button now shows.
Remains showing when click video thumb.
Not quite right having to refresh page while on photo to get print button.
My Website index | My Blog
SM designers, if you are listening please consider a few more examples of elegant design layouts from livebooks with minimal clutter which I would love to see as a smugmug layout option:
http://prints.artwolfe.com/#s=4&mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&p=6&a=1&at=0
http://www.benhattenbach.com/
http://www.jimmychin.com/
Notice the focus on the primary images themselves. Thumbs can even hide below or to the right of the main image as in the case of Art Wolfe's site. This is especially relevant for the SMers who simply want an elegant way to showcase their images rather than competing for space and attention with all the extra clutter = buttons, commenting, sharing, etc... features. Thumbs become minimal yet still available compared to the primary image itself.
My Smugmug Gallery
Or, you could be sneaky and use the browser window scrollbar. Then have the large picture and top controls follow along.
Sorry if this has already been mentioned but there are two things I noticed right away:
1) The thumbnail paging is going to be confusing for some. If the only way you can page through thumbnails is to notice the arrow on the last thumb or click on the tiny dots under the list of thumbnails there will be many who think all the images are being displayed. Maybe you should put arrows on each side of the set of page dots.
2) The gallery title takes up a bunch of vertical room that I'd like for the image. How about an option to display it in the breadcrumb?
Overall I think the design is an improvement but not a radical shift in direction. Not sure if that's good or bad
I like some of what Google has done with Google+ Galleries. The thumbnail display with different size thumbnails is nice so you can feature one image and still show all the thumbnails without using a lot of space.
It seems that when a gallery contains (as an example) 16 images, where 15 images fit all on one page of thumbnails, the 16th image is not accessible. The arrow-navigation thumbnail does not appear, and the only way to access the 16th image is to resize the browser window to display only 8 thumbnails on one page, and then the ability to jump to page 2 appears.
Hope this makes sense!
I can see how the dots or page numbers is important; it relays to the viewer their position within the set of gallery images. I'd like to propose a few things that will improve this UI element.
1. JUMP-PREVIEW: When a user mouses over a dot, use js to pop up an instant image preview to show the first image of the grid you'd see by going there. This way, the user can glide over the dots to find the area they want to focus on. (see attached mockup)
2. SUBSECTION: Sure, everyone wants more gallery levels to organize their work, but at some point, it makes sense to have like-images in one gallery and have a way to cut it into subsections. Next to the dots would be a perfect place to add subsections within the current gallery. Add an arrow above the dots that would pop up a panel to reveal predetermined jump labels within the current gallery (a specific image denoting the beginning of a new section, perhaps). For a wedding photographer, this would be things like "ceremony" or "reception". For vacations, it could be "Tetons" or "Yellowstone"-- this way, they can put all of their vacation pics in one gallery: Vacation 2011, instead of needing several distinct galleries and tying them together with something like a Sharegroup. The user would add these subsections using a new tool and available in the admin dropdown menu, like where the "drag to arrange" tool resides. (see attached mockup)
/// www.affinityseattle.com /// <-yes, you want to check that out.
There are a certain percentage of people that do not notice or understand the fact that there are pages. You can tell by looking at the View Stats for a gallery: the number of pages in a day will be exactly the number of thumbnails shown on one page.
This is not their fault.
It seems the UI design is taking part of the standard Apple IOS paging look and feel but is missing one critical piece- you can't swipe right and left to go between pages. The dots are there in IOS to give you a feel for where you are in a document.
I like this alot, especially after having used Facebook's ticker. Hover to highlight and just scroll away.
Malte
Just noticed in IE9 there is no hover text for thumbs. Was the alt and title tags removed for thumbs? Without the hover text the ability of seeing the caption is lost and you have to click each thumb.
My Website index | My Blog
In the current (public) SmugMug design, when you mouse over the larger image on the right, a panel flies out listing the available zoom sizes, photorank, collect... I like how that has been replaced with a more simple (+) mouse curser but I have an idea for the panel.
First, confine the fly-out trigger to the right 1/4 of the image. The panel would open to reveal a list of several common print/product options for the customer to quickly increment/decrement. The items listed in here would be preselected by the photographer. Any photos currently in the cart tied to any product would be denoted on the thumbnail with a little cart symbol so the customer could get a view of their order as they order.
The benefit to the customer is that, for most of the selection process, they don't have to go to the BUY overlay and back to the grid each time they want to add a 4x6 to the cart. But, the panel would include a link there for "more options" that would take them to the standard BUY overlay for options not included in the panel. I think this would simplify most of what my customers do on my site.
/// www.affinityseattle.com /// <-yes, you want to check that out.
Yes, a dynamically scrolling sub-panel or side-panel of thumbs would be ideal. That was what I was demonstating with Art Wolfe's site. And its ability to auto hide is very nice as well.
http://prints.artwolfe.com/#s=4&mi=2&pt=1&pi=10000&p=6&a=1&at=0
Rich dynamic content like this is much more user friendly and cutting edge than static pages which have to be completely reloaded each time to get to the next page (page 2->n). This is why many people stop on Page One of a gallery. By contrast with scrolling thumbs there is never a next page in any gallery.
A huge side benefit of this is that you eliminate the whole need for those silly navigational dots or page 1 of x options. Why keep page navigation static anyway? There is really no benefit to this old design pattern. Even in this current pre-alpha layout the thumbs section could easily scroll instead. Then the desire to overload the first page with a cr@p load of thumbs is gone and the primary image can take center stage.
If you would like having this gallery style as an option I have also added it as a feature request which you can vote on and comment on here:
http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/2274622-galley-style-with-dynamic-thumbnail-strip-which-au
My Smugmug Gallery
First let me thank you and your staff for a great experience with, and a great product in SmugMug Pro.
I contribute to your DailyPhotos Community and have met many fellow SmugMuggers who enjoy sharing their view of the world within this friendly, family oriented and talented group of people. This group enjoys contribution from the full range of photographic talent - professional, simi-pro all the way to the other end of the hobby spectrum. I have been aboard with this group for about a year, and consider myself somewhere in the middle of this grouping of talent.
I am one of a growing number of DailyPhotos Community contributors who have become quite dis-enchanted by how your current Photo Popularity system functions. Based on what I am reading, you've heard from many of us who share this concern. You've noted that Thumbs UP/Down is gone in the revamped version. PLEASE tell us the lack of requirement for a negative rating entry is going away also. Currently lurkers (we call them 'snakes') whose only design is to push their work higher in these daily community galleries by thumbing down in complete secrecy are really becoming a threat to my continued use of the community. They must be stopped. They're smart enough to clear their browser cookies and cache and come back for second, third and even more Thumbs down hits... We know, I have personally experienced four, five or more commented on entries completely disappear later.. totally off the daily site. It's disheartening for DailyPhoto Community members who simply want to share with other like photographers to be pushed off the site so they can't share..
So let those who would abuse or be critical do it in open forum with an identity. We can not contribute an image to the community anonymously, so a critique or negative entry in the current form of a thumbs down should not be anonymous either.
I welcome your return comments and hope your enhancements remedy this for all of us.
With warm regards,
AchBee - Howard Brown
LousiAnnImage
The Photography of Howard Louis Brown
Thanks for your feedback!
Did you take a close look at onethumb's initial post? To quote two bullet points:
and if you take a look at the sneak peak of the new gallery style, you can see the new interface in action already.
Hope this helps,
Sebastian
SmugMug Support Hero
--
http://timfullerphotography.com
borealphoto.smugmug.com
YES, YES, YES pretty please do this oh great smug mug folks! i am always looking for easier ways for my customers to buy my pictures. this would be totally cool
Seems like every day I get closer to moving my portfolios over to 500px because Smugmug has essentially no real layout flexibility. I sure hope we hear more about that soon. That's to say that I'd still use Smugmug as an "image warehouse" for embedding and for galleries that show off images like line items/SKUs instead of as art...but where design really counts the four existing gallery styles, which you can count on one hand with a digit missing, are really starting to not cut it anymore.
I think Smugmug is fine here. With YouTube, less technical users have to pick from up to four numbers (240p, 360p, 720p, 1080p), and I think it's easier for ordinary users to simply choose HD on or off, as it is with both Smugmug and Vimeo. I think the HD on/off switch makes it far more likely that a user will see the video at its best, because if someone isn't familiar with the four resolutions, they might not change it and the video won't look its best.
What Smugmug calls "stretch," Vimeo calls "scaling" which might sound safer for aspect ratio preservation. I would rather have a way of hiding the logo when the simple URL is pasted into a wordpress.com site, since the embed code that would normally hide it doesn't work on wordpress.com.
What I'm wondering about is the QuickTime plug-in on the Mac, which is becoming embarrassingly out of date. In the past, Smugmug said they used QuickTime instead of Flash due to performance, but I'm wondering now that more and more sites use HTML5 players, can that be used now as an alternative to the Flash and QuickTime players? The HTML5 experience on other sites seems very close to Flash, and is way better than the awful experience we get with QuickTime in Smugmug these days. (e.g. If there is a way to get the QuickTime plug-in to go full screen, let me know!)
First off, I love the new direction and increased speed of the design. Kudos to the team for all the work involved.
I agree 100% with Allen, regarding the "top navigation of both photo and page is mandatory."
Would like to add my .02 regarding the 'dots' and the lack of obvious method to to click thru the images - you've already got 'both' dots and the numbered version in use (based on #/pages) so my vote is for stick with numbers in ALL cases - then if you must - leave US the OPTION of choosing dots or numbers.
Also what happened to the SmugMug homepage image (attached) - this to me is the perfect compromise - (no dots, navigation arrows ABOVE the images [so they're clear and easy to locate] and the clean modern design otherwise.
Bear in mind you're promoting the service with that example even though it's not available - and not in that version once the new changes are implemented - not a good way to lure new business.
My (and over 1.2 million pageloads) normal viewing method is to park the mouse over the forward arrow and click as needed while watching the large image - very efficent and time saving - the 'new' style (after / if they figure it out before just giving up and leaving) forces viewers to continually shift their viewing from the main image to the thumbs (so they can click on the next one) then back just to get thru the gallery - when going thru galleries that contain large #/number of images it's just not an experience anyone would put up with - as an event photographer my average gallery has 100-150 images.
It's almost as bad as those other sites we've all seen that when you try to click thru their gallery of images you have to scroll down to look for the arrow (because the arrows are under the images instead of above where common sense dictates)- or worse the arrows actual position changes every image based on image orientation/size/etc. Pretty unprofessional for a photo viewing site.
This causes a very uncomfortable viewing experience and whenever I encounter them I mumble (well curse) and quikly move on making a mental note regarding the inability or lack of knowledge that designed said situation as by those that never test drive their own creation - the mental note also includes the vow to never buy or cause my funds to ever go in that direction for any reason just due to general principle.
Again the solution from my perspective is stay with what you're already showing/selling/promoting on the homepage - if you're that 'sold' on the 'dots' leave them as an option for us your paying customers.
Bear in mind, I don't post that often, it's been a long day and I wanted to get my thoughts in before it went too long - I've always respected your desire to solicit our feedback and cannot sing your praises loud enough - I trust in the end 'our' voices will be heard and alterations will be implemented...
Thanks for the opportunity to be a part of this process!!
-Rich56k
Member: ASMP; EP; NPPA; CPS
That's been up for over a year now. Totally misleading to new and potential customers and stringing the rest of us fools along. Since this design by committee just seems to drag out and is likely not going to make anyone happy, really, I'll be voting with my wallet in December.
Sad, after six years, but enough's enough.
Malte
Two nits:
* I could see the cloud download icon causing confusion for casual guests/users. The 'alt' text helps, but I think the icon could be improved.
* Would it be possible to disable Facebook integration for a gallery? I understand that Facebook is a behemoth and some people want that kind of integration, but I think it should be a configurable option. I noticed when loading individual images or pages, the Facebook 'like' icon was the last thing to load. This is kind of annoying since I don't want that integration in my gallery(ies).
Thanks!
A few comments on the new style.
1. I find the new multi-page navigation too confusing. I can't see any options in standard SmugMug view to toggle to Next Image, Next page, etc. Only the breadcrumbs and the odd corner icon.
2. I find the term "Edit" to be wrong to front a bunch of the options no grouped under that button. e.g. i was trying to figure out how to set a particular phot as a gallery highlight and finally looked under "Edit" after a lot of frustration.
3. Caption/keyword editing is not "safe". If you edit a caption on one picture and quickly switch to another image, the "new" caption you just entered stick to the new image you just switched to, instead of the one you were viewing when you saved the updated caption changes. ie. the background AJAX needs to be a bit more rigorous in tracking its state and what goes where.
On the Most Popular page I can't tell where a photo ranks e.g. 6 of 150.
What's the point of a ranking algorithm if the rank doesn't show up anywhere
Even in my own gallery I miss the counter e.g. 33 of 256.
In order to understand recursion, you first have to understand recursion.
Art Hill
Worse yet, what's the point of ranking if I can't compare cross-gallery?
Things I like:
1) I like the speed while browsing through the "Popular Photo's". Much improved.
2) I like that the Thumb's Up/Down is gone. Time will tell if the new photo-ranking is more abuse-proof (see #4 below).
Things I still question:
1) Browsing through the "Most Popular Photo's (today) link" and reviewing comments, most photo's are either not rated or rated 5* (making 1* through 4* somewhat superfluous). What I would like to see is a way for photographers to request a "critique" (in addition to the commenting feature) --- this would be the place for a *-rating system, not general comments on photo's and galleries.
2) The interface still seems off. I liked it when all of the navigation/info stuff was on the top - it is where I naturally look for that kind of thing. It took me a few minutes to even figure out how to browse through the thumbnails in the new design to find the things I was interested in. Since you have the gradient top bar (at least over the thumbnails), why not use it to display the navigational tools instead of leaving it as a waste of space (and clicking on the first and last photo's to go to the prev/next page seems inefficient to me) --- one the photo side, you would need to adjust the photo position, but then you could display the "Edit" "Share", "Buy", "Cloud(s)" , etc. all on the same line across the top as in the old design. BTW: There is nothing wrong with text --- not everything needs to have a cool graphical icon, as long as it is localized to the browser region or language selection (This has been mentioned many other times in this thread).
3) My biggest feature request is a way to browse most recent photo's (today, last x days, etc) as opposed to the "most popular photos today" which is an entirely different animal. While I would also watch the "Popular Photo" thread, when photo's turn up there day after day after day after day ... with no comments or ratings, it points to an abuse of the system (There has been a recent uprising on the "Most Popular" thread that points to an abuse of the Thumb's feature).
4) Finally, some have commented that they absolutely need the ability for people that are not logged in to SM to be able to rate there photo's (in order to generate business?). This may be a valid concern and one that should be take into consideration. However, other members of the "Site" do not need to be bombarded with photo's receiving these anonymous kudos' --- we should, as a community, figure out a way to accommodate both of these types of users.
Regards,
Halfpint
I forgot to ask ...
Why is this upgrade an "everything but the kitchen sink" affair? Seems that many of these features could have been rolled out independently. We now have something of a monstrosity of an update that no one will ever agree is perfect ... not to mention the fact that it has been in conception for over 4.5 months (June 1st for the first sneak peek).
http://feedback.smugmug.com/forums/17723-smugmug/suggestions/2326164-get-the-new-design-up-running-
Feel free to leave a comment...
I do like that you can easily tell what pic you are on and the speed seems really nice now. Not sure if I like the page selector at the bottom. Seems odd offhand, but possibly that can change or I can get used to it.
One other thing... will there be a way to change the buy photos button? Just not a fan of the green. Maybe a smugmug thing, but I like blue for example.