I could definitely be missing the point here but it just seems like this doesn't need to be that complicated. The way they have implemented the keywords amounts to categorization that is much more powerful and flexible than any hierarchical method could match.
I just don't think they implement the UI very well.
I 100% agree.
That's one of my biggest annoyances with pbase, or Gallery (the php software) or many others -- when people bury the actual gallery photos 10 levels deep and you are clicking and clicking and wondering if you are every going to see the pictures.
The problem seems to have a common cause, namely, that the tree is implemented in a way that visually contradictory to what it represents -- it is implemented as thumbnails that LOOK like galleries and the user thinks they are clicking on a gallery. If you represent the categories and sub-categories visually in a manner consistant with their use there wouldn't be so much confusion. Keywords don't look like galleries and they don't confuse people -- that cloud thing looks like I don't know what, but that's a different story... -- IOW, if you implement it as a tree, not thumbnails that look like galleries.
For every category, have an option to show sub-categories in a simple box either horizontally or vertically under the breadcrumb trail. Even better, have the ability to apply styles to categories. I'd personally rather not even have thumbnails as the categories. Or maybe I'd like to choose a unique graphic (NOT from a gallery) to represent the category.
It'd almost be enough if you gave us the option to make the "Related words:" and "Combine with:" section a first class citizen, as opposed to being stuck up in the corner -- put it right under the breadcrumb trail.
Finally, what if, in our control panel we could list a defined set of keywords that would appear on the home page as if they were categories (and would show like the categories do now) to use as a "base" for keyword browsing. Just replace that whole cloud thing!
I could definitely be missing the point here but it just seems like this doesn't need to be that complicated. The way they have implemented the keywords amounts to categorization that is much more powerful and flexible than any hierarchical method could match.
I just don't think they implement the UI very well.
I'm starting to like the keywords searching too, now that I understand how it works and how to exploit it. I also agree the UI might have a problem, which I put in a different thread. Mainly, not all keywords that can be combined with the current keyword(s) are always displayed.
I think keywords are the way to go to solve the dilema of levels of categories and sub-categories. Literally, my racing customers can find their photos with three mouse clicks (and no keyboard typing). Add a fourth click, and they can find photos of them that also have photos of their buddy in it. Pretty cool, and something that cannot be done with a hierarchy of galleries and categories.
Finally, what if, in our control panel we could list a defined set of keywords that would appear on the home page as if they were categories (and would show like the categories do now) to use as a "base" for keyword browsing. Just replace that whole cloud thing!
Master Keywords, if you like.
BenV
Interesting idea there. This assumes that you always put certain keywords in certain photos. SM has implemented something more automatic with their keyword cloud. It determines which keywords are used the most by you and then displays the x highest used keywords...the infamous cloud. Looking on http://del.icio.us just the other day I found out exactly where they got that cloud idea. You can use either the standard keyword list or a keyword cloud that is suspiciously similar to SM's.
I don't know what the right answer is here. Maybe mercphoto would find it most useful to have a list of keywords that has the most recently added keywords at the top. I would rather have a keyword search (a feature that I have now implemented by the way so I'm all set) right on my front page. Maybe you would like the most popular keywords displayed in a style of your choosing (you can do that now with stylesheets btw). Maybe the right answer is that it needs to be flexible and changeable enough to fit more people's needs.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
Looking on http://del.icio.us just the other day I found out exactly where they got that cloud idea. You can use either the standard keyword list or a keyword cloud that is suspiciously similar to SM's.
To those options I want to add, "Use these keywords:"
After using keywords for one race I'm not sure exactly how I'd want to see it changed. And I'm not sure how universal my needs are anyway.
The SM guys had it right when they said I needed to use keywords instead of captioning and galleries to sort race photos. This is working much better, and I was able to show some racers at the track (wireless internet).
The only problem is the sheer number of keywords I am creating as part of this process! There is one keyword per track (very manageable), one keyword per date (such as 2005jun25, again reasonably manageable), and one keyword per vehicle number. That is where things explode on me. Since motocross bikes commonly have numbers involving three digits, I think I'm somewhere around 130 keywords for numbers alone. The good thing is I can "share" keywords for numbers. In other words, kart #3 and motocross bike #3 using the very same "3" keyword.
I've outlined a process for riders to find their photos in the "bio" section of my Smugmug page, if anyone is interested. I tell them to start on the keywords page (which lists all keywords) and find their number. Next combine it with the event date keyword. This gets them a very narrow search result rather quickly and easily.
The problem is, the "combine with" list is not exhaustive. As the SM guys have said, the list for combine with can sometimes get rather large, making for a UI issue. And I'm not sure the solution to that problem either.
And that is my biggest usability issue, the combine-with list. I want it to be small, so that its not cluttered. However, there are times it needs to be big. Fore example, as the year progresses and I get more events, and thus more keywords for event dates, when the user has clicked his vehicle number and now wants to combine-with an event date, not all the possible event dates will show up. Some will be hidden because the list has become too large. Not sure how to deal with that.
Another thing about the combine-with feature. Suppose I have a race image with two karts in it. Numbers 4 and 20. The user clicks to my main keywords page, then clicks on 4, then clicks on the race date. Now, suppose #20 is his friend. If he combines-with the 20 keyword, now he sees not only his images, but only those images that have his buddy in it as well.
This is really cool! The racers I showed this to really liked it. But, since the combine-with list is not exhaustive the racers cannot rely on it. Sometimes 20 won't even be in the combine-with list.
What about a pull-down list box for the "combine with" list, and making that list exhaustive? Might reduce the clutter?
And that is my biggest usability issue, the combine-with list. I want it to be small, so that its not cluttered. However, there are times it needs to be big. Fore example, as the year progresses and I get more events, and thus more keywords for event dates, when the user has clicked his vehicle number and now wants to combine-with an event date, not all the possible event dates will show up. Some will be hidden because the list has become too large. Not sure how to deal with that.
The system I tried to describe here (but might not have done a good job describing) would solve your problem. In this system, you'd create a real gallery for each race day and upload all the photos from that race day. Then, you'd define virtual galleries for each racer's number that would automatically display just their pictures from that day. This would let your visitors pick a day/track gallery and then a virtual gallery for their race number. They'd see this as real galleries and wouldn't have to learn anything new. You wouldn't have to explain anything to them.
If they could find the gallery for their race day and pick the sub-gallery for their number, they'd have their list of pictures.
In a further enhancement which I tried to describe in my previous message, Smugmug could create the virtual galleries for you automatically instead of you having to do them by hand by just letting you say that you want a virtual gallery automatically displayed for each racer number that exists within your master gallery. This would essentially be "viewing by keyword", but scoped to a specific set of images that solves the keyword pollution (too many keywords in the "combine with" list) when the user has to pick from all keywords used in your whole site.
In this mechanism, they wouldn't have to learn a new keyword system because they'd just be picking galleries and sub-galleries like they already do. They wouldn't have the "combine with" problem of too many keywords. You wouldn't have to explain/teach them anything new.
BaldyRegistered Users, Super ModeratorsPosts: 2,853moderator
edited July 2, 2005
I expanded the help section to include related keywords but Onethumb asked me to hold it for awhile as he experiments with some ideas. Dunno if anything will come out of his experiments but he's thinking about the feedback from this thread.
Tag clouds, as they're usually called on the net, are very cool but I found myself moving some of my photos from my main site to another so they could get their own tag cloud.
For example, car shots from Concours d'Elegance went to concours.smugmug.com so that the tag cloud only has tags like Rolls Royce and Duesenberg and didn't get overwhelmed/polluted by tags like green hair.
I know that's one thing for me, who gets free smugmug accounts, and another for people who don't.
The system I tried to describe here (but might not have done a good job describing) would solve your problem. In this system, you'd create a real gallery for each race day and upload all the photos from that race day. Then, you'd define virtual galleries for each racer's number that would automatically display just their pictures from that day. This would let your visitors pick a day/track gallery and then a virtual gallery for their race number. They'd see this as real galleries and wouldn't have to learn anything new. You wouldn't have to explain anything to them.
John, this can ALREADY BE DONE with current Smugmug. mercphoto.smugmug.com/keyword/26-2005may07, for an example, is the exact implementation of your virtual gallery.
John, this can ALREADY BE DONE with current Smugmug. mercphoto.smugmug.com/keyword/26-2005may07, for an example, is the exact implementation of your virtual gallery.
Sorry, I meant to point you to http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/617230, and see the links to virtual galleries for individual kart numbers, for that group, for that date only, as you described. My point is two things. One, Smugmug already gives you the virtual galleries you are wanting, as my link shows. Two, I'm not wanting to have to edit the gallery description in this manner to put in all these links.
Lastly, one cool feature about keywording is the ability to keep combining keywords. Are racers 26 and 27 friends? They can use keyword combining to see only those photos which have BOTH of them in the photo. Really cool. But this will only work if we can find a way to display all the keywords that can be combined with. And a list box is the only way I can figure out to do this in an uncluttered way.
Another idea. What if Smugmug allows us to give each keyword a classification? For me, I'd have one keyword class called "Race Track", and in that classification would be the keywords "Iron Rock Raceway" and "Cross Creek Cycle Park". Another classification would be for Kart Type, which would have junior, shifter, tag, etc. Another classification would be vehicle number and have tags like 5, 26, 45, 52, etc. A fourth classification for event dates. You get the idea.
On my home page, in my keyword cloud, I could say "display only the track keywords". Then in the combine-with area we could have drop boxes for keyword type.
Admittedly this idea is brand spanking new off the top of my head and might have real issues in implementing or in ease of use.
Is it not possible to implement a keyword search (I've done it, it's not so hard) and simply inform your customers how to do a search to get what they want? If you are consistent with the way you use keywords (and it seems like you are) then it shouldn't be difficult at all for users to figure out what keywords to type in to get the results that they're looking for.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
Is it not possible to implement a keyword search (I've done it, it's not so hard) and simply inform your customers how to do a search to get what they want? If you are consistent with the way you use keywords (and it seems like you are) then it shouldn't be difficult at all for users to figure out what keywords to type in to get the results that they're looking for.
You are over-estimating the abilities of most people who use computers. As far as I'm concerned, if I can find a way that only requires them to click the mouse three times or less, and not type any letters or numbers, the much better off I am.
You are over-estimating the abilities of most people who use computers. As far as I'm concerned, if I can find a way that only requires them to click the mouse three times or less, and not type any letters or numbers, the much better off I am.
I can't say that clicking 3 times wouldn't be easier. On the other hand, I would agree with you about me over-estimating people if this were 1994. But it isn't, it's 2005 and the net is everywhere. The most popular sites in the world are search sites. You almost can't go to any site on the web and not see a search box. People know how to do searches as much as they know how to change the TV channel, it's just a fact of life these days. Frankly, I'd say don't even make your keywords cryptic. Give each photo an abundant number of plain english keywords or use abbreviations where appropriate. That way you don't have to explain anything other than directing a person to a keyword search.
I'm just saying, it doesn't seem to me that things are going in your favor with your keyword suggestions. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't, I'm just suggesting ways that you can make it work just as it is with minimal heartache to anyone involved.
Y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.
I can't say that clicking 3 times wouldn't be easier. On the other hand, I would agree with you about me over-estimating people if this were 1994. But it isn't, it's 2005 and the net is everywhere. The most popular sites in the world are search sites. You almost can't go to any site on the web and not see a search box. People know how to do searches as much as they know how to change the TV channel...
No, they don't.
I have had parents call me about their kids football photos because they can't figure out how to order photos. I had a racing customer order from me direct because he doesn't like to use the net. I had a scouting parent who didn't even have a computer.
Contrary to popular opinion, the net is not everywhere, and not everyone knows how to use it. Believe it or not, a large part of the population seldom uses the net or is much good at it.
I have had parents call me about their kids football photos because they can't figure out how to order photos. I had a racing customer order from me direct because he doesn't like to use the net. I had a scouting parent who didn't even have a computer.
Contrary to popular opinion, the net is not everywhere, and not everyone knows how to use it. Believe it or not, a large part of the population seldom uses the net or is much good at it.
One of the many reasons why broadband was as slow to expand as it was and why Europe and Asia are ahead of us in decent wireless connection. The ignorance and outright laziness in refusing to learn anything new always has amazed me. This type of attitude will ensure that the USA will not be a leading power in the coming decades.
Ooops, there I go ranting again. I got to hurry up and finish my website so I can rant there.:D
One of the many reasons why broadband was as slow to expand as it was and why Europe and Asia are ahead of us in decent wireless connection.
Your history is flawed. America had an analog wireless system in the early days. That is expensive infrastructure. Asia didn't have this infrastructure as early as us. But by the time digital wireless was coming along Asia started building their wireless infrastructure. And of course they went with what was new and current at that time.
Sometimes being an early adopter makes it too hard and too expensive to keep up with the Jone's.
The early bird may get the worm, but it's the second mouse that gets the cheese...
! I love that saying...
Methinks SHAREGROUPS are the solution to all this. Seriously folks. And here's some further ideas:
~ Allow a short description for categories and subcategories. In my opinion this would help and not hinder the confusion of categories -> subcategories -> galleries; because a photographer could write a few tips on how to find certain galleries and how to get back to the main gallery.
~ Or, you could simply create a whole new gallery as an index page to each of your smaller galleries. Using the "journal" or "elegant" style, you could give each photo a title and a CLICK HERE link that takes the person to an "all thumbs" or "slideshow" gallery... What you would have was a category, then a subcategory, and within that subcategory you'd have a half dozen o whatever galleries that were PUBLIC, but each photo in each gallery would act as a link to a separate gallery. Makes sense? I know it sounds round-about, but I kinda like the idea. I already use the wonderful "journal" style for misc. pages such as a Bio page or a copyright page, as do many other smugmuggers.
~ I'm pretty happy with the way I've designed my front page. I think it's very easy to separate your professional portfolio of nature type photos, your misc. galleries of local hang outs and equipment reviews, and lastly your event galleries. With my setup and the use of sharegroups, I get the job done.
~ All things considered, I think that Winn should realize that smugmug is very correct when they point out that tons of people are incredibly confused and lost when it comes to navigating categorized web pages and stuff. However, I think that in Winn's case, he obviously needs some means of further categorizing his large ammount of photos. I say, why not just rig Winn's website so that he CAN create another level of sub-subcategories, just to see what happens. If everyone gets lost and Winn stops selling photos, then we'll have him begging to change it back, heheh. But if Winn finds that all his customers think it's so much easier to navigate and weed through the large event to find their own pictures, well then I guess it'd be safe to say that in the hands of a pro, an additional level of categorization could be very effective, right?
I'm just suggesting suggestions here... Quite frankly, many many smugmuggers already abuse the organization that is available to them; many galleries are over-organized or organized in a confusing manner with un-necessary subcategories etc. etc. So, I can understand where smugmug is coming from. But I also think that like I said people like Winn really do need an additional level of organization, since they shoot such big events.
~ Or, you could simply create a whole new gallery as an index page to each of your smaller galleries. Using the "journal" or "elegant" style, you could give each photo a title and a CLICK HERE link that takes the person to an "all thumbs" or "slideshow" gallery... What you would have was a category, then a subcategory, and within that subcategory you'd have a half dozen o whatever galleries that were PUBLIC, but each photo in each gallery would act as a link to a separate gallery. Makes sense? I know it sounds round-about, but I kinda like the idea. I already use the wonderful "journal" style for misc. pages such as a Bio page or a copyright page, as do many other smugmuggers.
Wow, dynamite idea. I'd seen cool stuff like using Journal style as bio/copyright pages, and have toyed with it for a photo blog (kinda fun), but hadn't thought of using a gallery to function as a gateway to more galleries. I love it.. Thanks.
I expanded the help section to include related keywords but Onethumb asked me to hold it for awhile as he experiments with some ideas. Dunno if anything will come out of his experiments but he's thinking about the feedback from this thread.
Tag clouds, as they're usually called on the net, are very cool but I found myself moving some of my photos from my main site to another so they could get their own tag cloud.
For example, car shots from Concours d'Elegance went to concours.smugmug.com so that the tag cloud only has tags like Rolls Royce and Duesenberg and didn't get overwhelmed/polluted by tags like green hair.
I know that's one thing for me, who gets free smugmug accounts, and another for people who don't.
Baldy, I hope this does not come across as too cynical, but I think that your use of multiple smugmug accounts is very telling. I belive that a single pro account should be sufficient for pros. I bet that if you and all the others who work at sm, and love to shoot photos were constrained by the same rules that we mortals are, smugmug would be a more robust place for us.
Gah! I HATE the keword cloud! That's why I don't have the keywords on my main page in the first place. If you can do it another way it may be of interest, but not if it is that awful cloud.
I also do not like the keyword cloud, I am VERY glad there is a way to remove it. I find it useless on it's own, however, thanks don for the little example found here.
I'm not entirely clear why you wouldn't use the keyword feature of smugmug to get exactly what you want?
For example, tag something as "kart99" and as "raceJun17". Then point them to the combined page of kart99-raceJun17.
Here's a keyword "gallery" that has all my photos tagged with "Hawaii" and "atvs": ATVing in Hawaii!
Keyword tag sorting is faster than searching, more static, and has an easier URL to pass along. I'm probably missing something, though... ?
Don
I didn't know about that one. That said, I two would like ether another depth of of catagories OR how about multiple root levels. For example, could you arrange this? Have a setting on each catagory such as "Racing" so that when it is set that catagory is now a root level, with the option to have it's own unique domian. As in http://racing.jamesjweg.com instead of http://pics.jamesjweg.com/racing, now you have in fact REMOVED a level of confusion for the end user because I can point my racing customers to this url and they don't have to sort past my other base catagories. With this you could add in another level of catagories and still stay at the same browsing depth for the end user. This would efectivly give pro users the ability to have multiple "Front ends" or "Front doors", a great way to seperate personal photo's from biz ones. Basicly what you can do is set it up so that any catagory which is set as a root can then have an additional catagory in it, and any catagory set as root does not appear on the default root page unless you are logged in as the owner or guest. With this setup you would never excede the current browsing depth for the end user. Yes, I can currently do almost this by pointing people here http://pics.jamesjweg.com/racing the problem is that then if they click "JamesJWeg's home" they are then lost. The main problem with doing this kind of thing with keywords is two fold, one, I need to be able to hand out a card with my url on it at a race or tell them and they write it down, for this it needs to be simple and easy to remember, and two, it is a real pain to put all the info that would be needed to use keyword in this manor into that many pics. Did that make any sense?
I also do not like the keyword cloud, I am VERY glad there is a way to remove it. I find it useless on it's own, however, thanks don for the little example found here.
I didn't know about that one. That said, I two would like ether another depth of of catagories OR how about multiple root levels. For example, could you arrange this? Have a setting on each catagory such as "Racing" so that when it is set that catagory is now a root level, with the option to have it's own unique domian. As in http://racing.jamesjweg.com instead of http://pics.jamesjweg.com/racing, now you have in fact REMOVED a level of confusion for the end user because I can point my racing customers to this url and they don't have to sort past my other base catagories. With this you could add in another level of catagories and still stay at the same browsing depth for the end user. This would efectivly give pro users the ability to have multiple "Front ends" or "Front doors", a great way to seperate personal photo's from biz ones. Basicly what you can do is set it up so that any catagory which is set as a root can then have an additional catagory in it, and any catagory set as root does not appear on the default root page unless you are logged in as the owner or guest. With this setup you would never excede the current browsing depth for the end user. Yes, I can currently do almost this by pointing people here http://pics.jamesjweg.com/racing the problem is that then if they click "JamesJWeg's home" they are then lost. The main problem with doing this kind of thing with keywords is two fold, one, I need to be able to hand out a card with my url on it at a race or tell them and they write it down, for this it needs to be simple and easy to remember, and two, it is a real pain to put all the info that would be needed to use keyword in this manor into that many pics. Did that make any sense?
James.
Maybe using cookies, a power or pro user could "fix" some of the keywords to effectively keep a guest/client within such a a keyword-defined category?
Remember, the average computer user isn't like you and I. They don't understand what folders are and how they nest (which is why MS had to make 'My Documents' because people "lost" their work all the time). They don't visualize and understand tree structures....If we could come up with something both more flexible AND as easy/easier to use, we'd do it in a heartbeat. I've asked for help from dgrinners many times, and so far, everyone has come up empty.
Hi Don, I know this is an old post but I stumbled on it trying to find more info on when/if the broken keyword system will be fixed. I seem to recall reading more recent writings that lead to the same conclusions.
I have to say, there are other ways to look at this problem. In fairness I must disclose that I disagree with your assessment of the average user not understanding tree structures. In fact the evidence suggests that the human mind is genetically programmed to understand hierarchies and hierarchical organization, and software usability studies over decades have shown that hierarchical systems are picked up more quickly and intuitively by users. In fact the problem with Microsoft products you mentioned by way of illustration, was (and to some extent still is) actually a problem of the paradigm being too FLAT. Users perceived "My Desktop", "My Documents", "My Computer", and drive letters to be roughly equal, even though presented in a loose, somewhat redundant tree in Explorer. The reason is because they were all accessible on their own from multiple places, and the Explorer tree didn't tell the whole story. Furthermore, that Windows and third party software created innumerable "My *" folders under "My Documents" only served to compound user confusion over where to store things.
So I don't think the assessment that users get lost in hierarchies is valid. It's true that too many levels may be annoying, but a large part of that is simply due to a failure of technology to work the way people think. Think of how smugmug (and most websites) navigate hierarchies--it's downright primitive and ugly: you have gallery icons to click through one painstaking layer at a time (re-evaluating your options at each landing), you have the back button, and the bread crumb which helps you jump arbitrarily backward quickly--but not forward, laterally, or some combination.
In other words, don't confuse painfully primitive and limited technology with a failed user paradigm!
So when a web-based photo site has 7 lavels of nested galleries, and you have to click through each layer to finally get to a measly 9 or 10 photos, it's enough to hunt down whodunnit and strangle them. But the same poor structure, represented in a far more elegant and non-sequential way, that wasn't constricted by the severe tunnel-vision of typical web-presented hierarchies, and that intelligently highlighted exactly where the end goal was and assisted you in getting there--that would be a mere trifle.
Furthermore, tagging can completely obviate the problems presented by poorly represented hierarchies--and in fact they can compliment each other. With a strong tagging system, users can then rely on even more complex hierarchies to "physically" MANAGE their data, while relying on tagging to provide effortless USER NAVIGATION.
Tagging is in many respects the ultimate expression of an easy-to-use hierarchical system. It's multi-inheritance (unlike the inverted tree paradigm), can be "nested" arbitrarily deep, navigation is not just up/down/sideways but totally random-access, and the loose structure is very fast and intuitive for users to traverse and morph.
In other words, keywords are a better way to represent "organic" hierarchies. (E.g. most people have more than one parent.)
That's why it's IMPERATIVE that you guys get your keyword system fixed! (Particularly the feature of appending useless filename substrings onto the keywords that users may have spent days/weeks crafting off-line in the IPTC fields.)
But instead of making the decision on hierarchy levels FOR your customers (or their customers), why not let your customers decide themselves? Allow n-level hierarchies. And instead of thinking of them as "categories", "subcategories", etc., just allow a gallery to be nested within a gallery [even with pictures as siblings], and let your users think of that how they will. Some of your customers will abuse it, some of their users will undoubtedly become frustrated with the sheer clickiness of endlessly nested galleries and too few pictures at the bottoms of them. (There are smugmug galleries like this as it is even with limited nesting ability.)
But have some faith in your customers to make that choice for themselves. Sure you may lose some money because print purchasers don't stick around long enough to order prints, due to very bad design decisions. But I'm guessing (actually have no idea) that you get more of your revenue from subscriptions, rather than prints (?). And either way, there are alot of people with unique needs, and you'd stand to earn back some of that lost revenue of people that may be leaving and you don't even know why. (A good example is having one or more sideline photography businesses and personal photos on the same site--and running out of structure to do it.)
Another argument for n-level hierarchy is just sheer frustration. It's clear that your users just don't have enough "wiggle room" to figure out a structure that works best when it can only be so deep. They find themselves refactoring several times in order to get their model of the world to fit within the low cieling of smugmug design. With more space to move, they could reduce the number of refactorings many times. It's like protein folding: they ultimately fold very compact (few levels ultimately), but during the process go through several phases of unwinding (lots of levels), and if prohibited from doing so, can't reach their final, maximal state.
But rather than gambling you hard-earned revenue on what you seem to believe is a philisophical debate (?), why not rely on science? Search out similar usability studies, or hire a firm (or people) to do your own. Better yet, build the feature, but test-flight it to, say, 2% of your (new) users, and after a few months compare the overall revenue, instrumented proxies for satisfaction, and possibly real satisfaction surveys. Then you could make the change--or have good ammo to argue against it--with confidence.
Thanks and I hope these thoughts help. I'm really starting to like smugmug, and would be headover heels in love with it, if only the keyword system weren't broken, and if the maximum size for preview of images (that is not the full original size), weren't an appalling 800 pixels! I have my fingers crossed.
I didn't post the same thing several time--I posted unique responses to multiple threads, and happened to also mention a couple of things more than once in different ways. (I'm only concerned about a couple of things, and a bit impassioned about those two things. My responses were to a few threads I found after thorough use of the forum search feature to try to answer my own questions on those two things. Your point is taken though, it's best to keep forum posts short, to the point, and unique...)
And thank you for those links! Obviously I didn't find them in my search. Excellent, excellent, outstanding! I can't tell you how excited (or "incredibly relieved" is more like it) I am to learn that XL images are in the works! I'm so glad I crossed my fingers.
I didn't post the same thing several time--I posted unique responses to multiple threads, and happened to also mention a couple of things more than once in different ways. (I'm only concerned about a couple of things, and a bit impassioned about those two things. My responses were to a few threads I found after thorough use of the forum search feature to try to answer my own questions on those two things. Your point is taken though, it's best to keep forum posts short, to the point, and unique...)
And thank you for those links! Obviously I didn't find them in my search. Excellent, excellent, outstanding! I can't tell you how excited (or "incredibly relieved" is more like it) I am to learn that XL images are in the works! I'm so glad I crossed my fingers.
Great, thanks. It was hard to follow your first posts. But we're glad you posted
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That's one of my biggest annoyances with pbase, or Gallery (the php software) or many others -- when people bury the actual gallery photos 10 levels deep and you are clicking and clicking and wondering if you are every going to see the pictures.
The problem seems to have a common cause, namely, that the tree is implemented in a way that visually contradictory to what it represents -- it is implemented as thumbnails that LOOK like galleries and the user thinks they are clicking on a gallery. If you represent the categories and sub-categories visually in a manner consistant with their use there wouldn't be so much confusion. Keywords don't look like galleries and they don't confuse people -- that cloud thing looks like I don't know what, but that's a different story... -- IOW, if you implement it as a tree, not thumbnails that look like galleries.
For every category, have an option to show sub-categories in a simple box either horizontally or vertically under the breadcrumb trail. Even better, have the ability to apply styles to categories. I'd personally rather not even have thumbnails as the categories. Or maybe I'd like to choose a unique graphic (NOT from a gallery) to represent the category.
It'd almost be enough if you gave us the option to make the "Related words:" and "Combine with:" section a first class citizen, as opposed to being stuck up in the corner -- put it right under the breadcrumb trail.
Kinda like this
Finally, what if, in our control panel we could list a defined set of keywords that would appear on the home page as if they were categories (and would show like the categories do now) to use as a "base" for keyword browsing. Just replace that whole cloud thing!
Master Keywords, if you like.
BenV
I'm starting to like the keywords searching too, now that I understand how it works and how to exploit it. I also agree the UI might have a problem, which I put in a different thread. Mainly, not all keywords that can be combined with the current keyword(s) are always displayed.
I think keywords are the way to go to solve the dilema of levels of categories and sub-categories. Literally, my racing customers can find their photos with three mouse clicks (and no keyboard typing). Add a fourth click, and they can find photos of them that also have photos of their buddy in it. Pretty cool, and something that cannot be done with a hierarchy of galleries and categories.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
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I don't know what the right answer is here. Maybe mercphoto would find it most useful to have a list of keywords that has the most recently added keywords at the top. I would rather have a keyword search (a feature that I have now implemented by the way so I'm all set) right on my front page. Maybe you would like the most popular keywords displayed in a style of your choosing (you can do that now with stylesheets btw). Maybe the right answer is that it needs to be flexible and changeable enough to fit more people's needs.
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
BenV
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
BenV
-- It worked last time.
The SM guys had it right when they said I needed to use keywords instead of captioning and galleries to sort race photos. This is working much better, and I was able to show some racers at the track (wireless internet).
The only problem is the sheer number of keywords I am creating as part of this process! There is one keyword per track (very manageable), one keyword per date (such as 2005jun25, again reasonably manageable), and one keyword per vehicle number. That is where things explode on me. Since motocross bikes commonly have numbers involving three digits, I think I'm somewhere around 130 keywords for numbers alone. The good thing is I can "share" keywords for numbers. In other words, kart #3 and motocross bike #3 using the very same "3" keyword.
I've outlined a process for riders to find their photos in the "bio" section of my Smugmug page, if anyone is interested. I tell them to start on the keywords page (which lists all keywords) and find their number. Next combine it with the event date keyword. This gets them a very narrow search result rather quickly and easily.
The problem is, the "combine with" list is not exhaustive. As the SM guys have said, the list for combine with can sometimes get rather large, making for a UI issue. And I'm not sure the solution to that problem either.
And that is my biggest usability issue, the combine-with list. I want it to be small, so that its not cluttered. However, there are times it needs to be big. Fore example, as the year progresses and I get more events, and thus more keywords for event dates, when the user has clicked his vehicle number and now wants to combine-with an event date, not all the possible event dates will show up. Some will be hidden because the list has become too large. Not sure how to deal with that.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
This is really cool! The racers I showed this to really liked it. But, since the combine-with list is not exhaustive the racers cannot rely on it. Sometimes 20 won't even be in the combine-with list.
What about a pull-down list box for the "combine with" list, and making that list exhaustive? Might reduce the clutter?
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
The system I tried to describe here (but might not have done a good job describing) would solve your problem. In this system, you'd create a real gallery for each race day and upload all the photos from that race day. Then, you'd define virtual galleries for each racer's number that would automatically display just their pictures from that day. This would let your visitors pick a day/track gallery and then a virtual gallery for their race number. They'd see this as real galleries and wouldn't have to learn anything new. You wouldn't have to explain anything to them.
If they could find the gallery for their race day and pick the sub-gallery for their number, they'd have their list of pictures.
In a further enhancement which I tried to describe in my previous message, Smugmug could create the virtual galleries for you automatically instead of you having to do them by hand by just letting you say that you want a virtual gallery automatically displayed for each racer number that exists within your master gallery. This would essentially be "viewing by keyword", but scoped to a specific set of images that solves the keyword pollution (too many keywords in the "combine with" list) when the user has to pick from all keywords used in your whole site.
In this mechanism, they wouldn't have to learn a new keyword system because they'd just be picking galleries and sub-galleries like they already do. They wouldn't have the "combine with" problem of too many keywords. You wouldn't have to explain/teach them anything new.
--John
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Tag clouds, as they're usually called on the net, are very cool but I found myself moving some of my photos from my main site to another so they could get their own tag cloud.
For example, car shots from Concours d'Elegance went to concours.smugmug.com so that the tag cloud only has tags like Rolls Royce and Duesenberg and didn't get overwhelmed/polluted by tags like green hair.
I know that's one thing for me, who gets free smugmug accounts, and another for people who don't.
John, this can ALREADY BE DONE with current Smugmug. mercphoto.smugmug.com/keyword/26-2005may07, for an example, is the exact implementation of your virtual gallery.
As an example, see http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/keyword/9-2005jun25-shifterkart. I have added links to such "virtual galleries" on my own. I don't want to do this on my own, however, but will if I need to.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
Sorry, I meant to point you to http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/617230, and see the links to virtual galleries for individual kart numbers, for that group, for that date only, as you described. My point is two things. One, Smugmug already gives you the virtual galleries you are wanting, as my link shows. Two, I'm not wanting to have to edit the gallery description in this manner to put in all these links.
Lastly, one cool feature about keywording is the ability to keep combining keywords. Are racers 26 and 27 friends? They can use keyword combining to see only those photos which have BOTH of them in the photo. Really cool. But this will only work if we can find a way to display all the keywords that can be combined with. And a list box is the only way I can figure out to do this in an uncluttered way.
Another idea. What if Smugmug allows us to give each keyword a classification? For me, I'd have one keyword class called "Race Track", and in that classification would be the keywords "Iron Rock Raceway" and "Cross Creek Cycle Park". Another classification would be for Kart Type, which would have junior, shifter, tag, etc. Another classification would be vehicle number and have tags like 5, 26, 45, 52, etc. A fourth classification for event dates. You get the idea.
On my home page, in my keyword cloud, I could say "display only the track keywords". Then in the combine-with area we could have drop boxes for keyword type.
Admittedly this idea is brand spanking new off the top of my head and might have real issues in implementing or in ease of use.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
You are over-estimating the abilities of most people who use computers. As far as I'm concerned, if I can find a way that only requires them to click the mouse three times or less, and not type any letters or numbers, the much better off I am.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
I'm just saying, it doesn't seem to me that things are going in your favor with your keyword suggestions. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't, I'm just suggesting ways that you can make it work just as it is with minimal heartache to anyone involved.
http://photos.mikelanestudios.com/
I have had parents call me about their kids football photos because they can't figure out how to order photos. I had a racing customer order from me direct because he doesn't like to use the net. I had a scouting parent who didn't even have a computer.
Contrary to popular opinion, the net is not everywhere, and not everyone knows how to use it. Believe it or not, a large part of the population seldom uses the net or is much good at it.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
Ooops, there I go ranting again. I got to hurry up and finish my website so I can rant there.:D
Sometimes being an early adopter makes it too hard and too expensive to keep up with the Jone's.
A former sports shooter
Follow me at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/bjurasz/
My Etsy store: https://www.etsy.com/shop/mercphoto?ref=hdr_shop_menu
Methinks SHAREGROUPS are the solution to all this. Seriously folks. And here's some further ideas:
~ Allow a short description for categories and subcategories. In my opinion this would help and not hinder the confusion of categories -> subcategories -> galleries; because a photographer could write a few tips on how to find certain galleries and how to get back to the main gallery.
~ Or, you could simply create a whole new gallery as an index page to each of your smaller galleries. Using the "journal" or "elegant" style, you could give each photo a title and a CLICK HERE link that takes the person to an "all thumbs" or "slideshow" gallery... What you would have was a category, then a subcategory, and within that subcategory you'd have a half dozen o whatever galleries that were PUBLIC, but each photo in each gallery would act as a link to a separate gallery. Makes sense? I know it sounds round-about, but I kinda like the idea. I already use the wonderful "journal" style for misc. pages such as a Bio page or a copyright page, as do many other smugmuggers.
~ I'm pretty happy with the way I've designed my front page. I think it's very easy to separate your professional portfolio of nature type photos, your misc. galleries of local hang outs and equipment reviews, and lastly your event galleries. With my setup and the use of sharegroups, I get the job done.
~ All things considered, I think that Winn should realize that smugmug is very correct when they point out that tons of people are incredibly confused and lost when it comes to navigating categorized web pages and stuff. However, I think that in Winn's case, he obviously needs some means of further categorizing his large ammount of photos. I say, why not just rig Winn's website so that he CAN create another level of sub-subcategories, just to see what happens. If everyone gets lost and Winn stops selling photos, then we'll have him begging to change it back, heheh. But if Winn finds that all his customers think it's so much easier to navigate and weed through the large event to find their own pictures, well then I guess it'd be safe to say that in the hands of a pro, an additional level of categorization could be very effective, right?
I'm just suggesting suggestions here... Quite frankly, many many smugmuggers already abuse the organization that is available to them; many galleries are over-organized or organized in a confusing manner with un-necessary subcategories etc. etc. So, I can understand where smugmug is coming from. But I also think that like I said people like Winn really do need an additional level of organization, since they shoot such big events.
Take care all!
-Matt-
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-winn
I didn't know about that one. That said, I two would like ether another depth of of catagories OR how about multiple root levels. For example, could you arrange this? Have a setting on each catagory such as "Racing" so that when it is set that catagory is now a root level, with the option to have it's own unique domian. As in http://racing.jamesjweg.com instead of http://pics.jamesjweg.com/racing, now you have in fact REMOVED a level of confusion for the end user because I can point my racing customers to this url and they don't have to sort past my other base catagories. With this you could add in another level of catagories and still stay at the same browsing depth for the end user. This would efectivly give pro users the ability to have multiple "Front ends" or "Front doors", a great way to seperate personal photo's from biz ones. Basicly what you can do is set it up so that any catagory which is set as a root can then have an additional catagory in it, and any catagory set as root does not appear on the default root page unless you are logged in as the owner or guest. With this setup you would never excede the current browsing depth for the end user. Yes, I can currently do almost this by pointing people here http://pics.jamesjweg.com/racing the problem is that then if they click "JamesJWeg's home" they are then lost. The main problem with doing this kind of thing with keywords is two fold, one, I need to be able to hand out a card with my url on it at a race or tell them and they write it down, for this it needs to be simple and easy to remember, and two, it is a real pain to put all the info that would be needed to use keyword in this manor into that many pics. Did that make any sense?
James.
http://www.jamesjweg.com
gary
James.
http://www.jamesjweg.com
Hi Don, I know this is an old post but I stumbled on it trying to find more info on when/if the broken keyword system will be fixed. I seem to recall reading more recent writings that lead to the same conclusions.
I have to say, there are other ways to look at this problem. In fairness I must disclose that I disagree with your assessment of the average user not understanding tree structures. In fact the evidence suggests that the human mind is genetically programmed to understand hierarchies and hierarchical organization, and software usability studies over decades have shown that hierarchical systems are picked up more quickly and intuitively by users. In fact the problem with Microsoft products you mentioned by way of illustration, was (and to some extent still is) actually a problem of the paradigm being too FLAT. Users perceived "My Desktop", "My Documents", "My Computer", and drive letters to be roughly equal, even though presented in a loose, somewhat redundant tree in Explorer. The reason is because they were all accessible on their own from multiple places, and the Explorer tree didn't tell the whole story. Furthermore, that Windows and third party software created innumerable "My *" folders under "My Documents" only served to compound user confusion over where to store things.
So I don't think the assessment that users get lost in hierarchies is valid. It's true that too many levels may be annoying, but a large part of that is simply due to a failure of technology to work the way people think. Think of how smugmug (and most websites) navigate hierarchies--it's downright primitive and ugly: you have gallery icons to click through one painstaking layer at a time (re-evaluating your options at each landing), you have the back button, and the bread crumb which helps you jump arbitrarily backward quickly--but not forward, laterally, or some combination.
In other words, don't confuse painfully primitive and limited technology with a failed user paradigm!
So when a web-based photo site has 7 lavels of nested galleries, and you have to click through each layer to finally get to a measly 9 or 10 photos, it's enough to hunt down whodunnit and strangle them. But the same poor structure, represented in a far more elegant and non-sequential way, that wasn't constricted by the severe tunnel-vision of typical web-presented hierarchies, and that intelligently highlighted exactly where the end goal was and assisted you in getting there--that would be a mere trifle.
Furthermore, tagging can completely obviate the problems presented by poorly represented hierarchies--and in fact they can compliment each other. With a strong tagging system, users can then rely on even more complex hierarchies to "physically" MANAGE their data, while relying on tagging to provide effortless USER NAVIGATION.
Tagging is in many respects the ultimate expression of an easy-to-use hierarchical system. It's multi-inheritance (unlike the inverted tree paradigm), can be "nested" arbitrarily deep, navigation is not just up/down/sideways but totally random-access, and the loose structure is very fast and intuitive for users to traverse and morph.
In other words, keywords are a better way to represent "organic" hierarchies. (E.g. most people have more than one parent.)
That's why it's IMPERATIVE that you guys get your keyword system fixed! (Particularly the feature of appending useless filename substrings onto the keywords that users may have spent days/weeks crafting off-line in the IPTC fields.)
But instead of making the decision on hierarchy levels FOR your customers (or their customers), why not let your customers decide themselves? Allow n-level hierarchies. And instead of thinking of them as "categories", "subcategories", etc., just allow a gallery to be nested within a gallery [even with pictures as siblings], and let your users think of that how they will. Some of your customers will abuse it, some of their users will undoubtedly become frustrated with the sheer clickiness of endlessly nested galleries and too few pictures at the bottoms of them. (There are smugmug galleries like this as it is even with limited nesting ability.)
But have some faith in your customers to make that choice for themselves. Sure you may lose some money because print purchasers don't stick around long enough to order prints, due to very bad design decisions. But I'm guessing (actually have no idea) that you get more of your revenue from subscriptions, rather than prints (?). And either way, there are alot of people with unique needs, and you'd stand to earn back some of that lost revenue of people that may be leaving and you don't even know why. (A good example is having one or more sideline photography businesses and personal photos on the same site--and running out of structure to do it.)
Another argument for n-level hierarchy is just sheer frustration. It's clear that your users just don't have enough "wiggle room" to figure out a structure that works best when it can only be so deep. They find themselves refactoring several times in order to get their model of the world to fit within the low cieling of smugmug design. With more space to move, they could reduce the number of refactorings many times. It's like protein folding: they ultimately fold very compact (few levels ultimately), but during the process go through several phases of unwinding (lots of levels), and if prohibited from doing so, can't reach their final, maximal state.
But rather than gambling you hard-earned revenue on what you seem to believe is a philisophical debate (?), why not rely on science? Search out similar usability studies, or hire a firm (or people) to do your own. Better yet, build the feature, but test-flight it to, say, 2% of your (new) users, and after a few months compare the overall revenue, instrumented proxies for satisfaction, and possibly real satisfaction surveys. Then you could make the change--or have good ammo to argue against it--with confidence.
Thanks and I hope these thoughts help. I'm really starting to like smugmug, and would be headover heels in love with it, if only the keyword system weren't broken, and if the maximum size for preview of images (that is not the full original size), weren't an appalling 800 pixels! I have my fingers crossed.
Jim Collier
You've posted the same thing several times. Please read this:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=54157
and this:
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=32241
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And thank you for those links! Obviously I didn't find them in my search. Excellent, excellent, outstanding! I can't tell you how excited (or "incredibly relieved" is more like it) I am to learn that XL images are in the works! I'm so glad I crossed my fingers.
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