One more
When I bring up the Photo Info screen, there could be several improvements:
It sometimes comes up partially off-screen. This may be because it's remembering a previous location and my window isn't as large as before, but I don't think it should ever come up off-screen.
When I want to drag it to a new location, there's only a very thin location in the top where you can drag. If I put my mouse in the "Photo Information" title, it won't drag to a new location. I have to put it in the narrow space above that. This causes me to miss the drag all the time. I mentally think of this like a title bar drag in Windows and the "Photo Information" title should be defining the bounds of the title bar drag area, but it isn't.
I'd love to see the lens info (which lens it is) in this screen. I know we can see the focal length. But I'd like to see "70-200 f/2.8" so I know which lens it is.
The information displayed would benefit from some dividers to partition the info into a few sections. This would make it easier to find what you are looking for that a flat list. For example, you could put a divider after the two dates, then after ISO. This would put all the exposure info in one section and would make it easier for your eye to land on visually. The eye likes groups of 2-5 similar items much more that one giant list. It just makes things easier to process visually and focus in on the info you want.
When I bring up the Photo Info screen, there could be several improvements:
It sometimes comes up partially off-screen. This may be because it's remembering a previous location and my window isn't as large as before, but I don't think it should ever come up off-screen.
When I want to drag it to a new location, there's only a very thin location in the top where you can drag. If I put my mouse in the "Photo Information" title, it won't drag to a new location. I have to put it in the narrow space above that. This causes me to miss the drag all the time. I mentally think of this like a title bar drag in Windows and the "Photo Information" title should be defining the bounds of the title bar drag area, but it isn't.
I'd love to see the lens info (which lens it is) in this screen. I know we can see the focal length. But I'd like to see "70-200 f/2.8" so I know which lens it is.
The information displayed would benefit from some dividers to partition the info into a few sections. This would make it easier to find what you are looking for that a flat list. For example, you could put a divider after the two dates, then after ISO. This would put all the exposure info in one section and would make it easier for your eye to land on visually. The eye likes groups of 2-5 similar items much more that one giant list. It just makes things easier to process visually and focus in on the info you want.
You don't have to drag the area above the title, the whole box is draggable (with the exception of the 'photo information' text which is a link')
I've verified the cursor changes to a move cursor (4-way arrow) in all our supported browsers on my system. Are you not getting the move cursor?
The goal with positioning the box is to have it appear as close to where you last left it without being out of the viewport. Its possible that some other changes have messed up the calculations/context elements for the popup. I can look into it.
You don't have to drag the area above the title, the whole box is draggable (with the exception of the 'photo information' text which is a link')
I've verified the cursor changes to a move cursor (4-way arrow) in all our supported browsers on my system. Are you not getting the move cursor?
The goal with positioning the box is to have it appear as close to where you last left it without being out of the viewport. Its possible that some other changes have messed up the calculations/context elements for the popup. I can look into it.
Thanks for responding. The pop-up does indeed sometimes come up off screen sometimes (in Firefox 2 on Windows) so perhaps that got broken some time.
There is absolutely no way to know that the title is a link or to have any idea what it would do if you clicked on it. It's a bolded title. It has no visual effect to look like a link. You have no previous convention in the Smugmug UI where a title would be clickable to a full screen view. I have obviously been playing with this dialog for awhile to write this stuff up and had no idea it was a link.
Even though I now know it's a link, I still find it annoying that I can't drag in that area. Convention on all OSes I know of says that you drag in the title area to move the window. Convention doesn't say that you should move your mouse around until you find a move icon. I think you need to respect the title bar convention and find a different and more obvious way to open the full screen view of the photo information.
Some ideas for better ways to get you to the full screen view:
Put a full screen icon (like the host OS uses) next to the close X
Put an actual link at the bottom of the box that says "full screen view".
Shopping cart polish issues
I don't use the shopping cart much (I tend to print my own), but I noticed these things in a recent experience.
No image size matches D2X without cropping. A native D2Xs image (which is 2848x4288) or a D2Xs image cropped in Photoshop or Lightroom with "preserve aspect ratio" set, does not show any sizes in the shopping cart when you enable "Hide Products that Need to be Cropped". This is apparently because the D2Xs sensor is not exactly 3:2 (it's 3.01123:2). Since it's relatively common for sensors to be a few pixels off an ideal ratio, it seems like you need to increase your tolerance for what actually matches a print ratio. The D2Xs is only 0.3% off of 3:2. It seems like you ought to allow more tolerance than that, perhaps as high as 1%.
Confused by "standard sizes link and compact camera sizes link". I like that you can pick "standard sizes" or "compact camera sizes", etc.., but it would be nice if after you picked one of those, the controls you used to pick them showed that state (like tabs do). I know there's text that indicates it, but it would be even better if, by looking at the very controls, you could tell which one was selected. As it is now, you just have them all showns as links all the time, even when the clicking on the currently selected one will do nothing. This is not generally a good UI concept. The tab concept is great for this. At a minimum, you could just remove the link from the current selected on. Hmmm, after playing with this some more, I now realize that these links are not subset views, but simply shortcuts to that section of the sizes. That was certainly not obvious to me the first time.
Alignment issue for +- controls. Firefox 2 on Windows Vista Home Premium. I see this:
Note how the + and - controls aren't lined up with the number.
Complicated Look for Checkout. The checkout screen for the shopping cart looks complicated. In the top box, you've got a mix of a whole bunch of things. Some are simple controls that are appropriate for the newbie user, some are not. Further, they are organized into three rows, but have no alignment the other direction which contributes to making them look like a jumpbled unorganized mass of controls (that looks complicated). At a minimum, I would suggest moving the quick copy somewhere else. This is an advanced feature with a bunch of different controls that you are putting right in the most prominent part of the screen. In general, I think you'd want the shopping cart experience to allow newbie users to get their job done in the most streamlined fashion and put more complicated things in a place that they can find and explore them if interested, but not in a place that they make the overall experience look more complicated than it needs to be. This is similar to my comments about quick settings in the customize gallery screen. 10 controls in this top box when, in reality, a newbie users only needs a few of these to successfully use the cart.
Help button leaves the shopping cart. If ever there was a place where the help button should provide help without leaving the shopping cart (probably in an overlaid window with a close corner or a done button), I would think this is probably one of those places. You just never want a person who's about to buy something to lose their cart and the flow of finishing the transaction. The person who presses the help button from the Smugmug shopping cart is taken to the help screen for the shopping cart. The shopping cart is gone. They are left to figure out how to get back to the shopping cart on their own.
Move photos could save a LOT of steps
I'm going through my gallery. I find a photo that I want to move to another gallery. I select Move Photos. Up comes the screen with nothing selected. I have to find that photo again. I only have access to thumbs so I can't even tell which one it is at this small size. I have to exit the move photos screen to write down the filename so I can identify it clearly in the move photos screen and then select move photos again. Now, I scan the filenames to find the one that matches what I wrote down. When I find it, I select a destination gallery and then I'm done. What a pain.
Here's a different way to do it. I find a photo I want to move to another gallery. I bring up move photos. That photo is already selected for me. I select a destination gallery and I'm done. A LOT fewer steps.
Please, when I select move photos from the Smugmug view, start with the current photo as the selected photo. I ALWAYS want to move that one. I may want to move others too, but I always start with one of the ones that I want to move. If not, no problem to deselect it.
Rearrange doesn't - sometimes. My gallery is set to sort by filename. I decide that I'd like to put a different picture as the first item. I click the "rearrange" checkbox and drag one of the images to the front. It says "saving" in the upper left corner. Now, I do some other operation on the gallery and woah, my gallery doesn't show the new order I just set anymore. It's gone. To make it reappear, I have to to customize gallery and change the sort order to "position". Whoops. I shouldn't have to do that. I clearly told you I wanted to change the sort order when I clicked the rearrange checkbox and then dragged an image to a new location. Smugmug should have just changed this setting to position automatically and respected my new order automatically.
Here's a perfect example of a customer support encounter on this very issue.
Create sub-category in customize gallery dialog
I'd like to be able to create sub-categories right in the customize gallery dialog, right where I set the sub-category. The workflow goes like this. Go to customize gallery. Change the category. Go to change the sub-category. Darn, the sub-category doesn't exist. Go to control panel. Go to customize, go to categories. Create sub-category. Go back to gallery and start over.
How nice to just be able to create a sub-category right where you find the need in the customize gallery dialog. Same for custom categories.
The idea is to allow the user to solve their problem right where the problem occurs rather than making them go to a set of tools, fix the problem, then come back to start over.
Category list is in random order
I go to the sub-categories list in the control panel to create a new sub-category. I want to choose Airplanes as the parent category. I look in the list. I see some things in the list that look like they are in alphabetical order, but I don't see airplanes. I scroll down and eventually find airplanes somewhere in the middle. The list of categories appears to be half alphabetical order (just enough to fool you) and half random. I sure seems like it ought to be fully alphabetical order. I could see maybe making an exception for categories in use (listing them first), but other than that, alphabetical.
1 galleries with xx photos
If I have a sub-category with one gallery in it, the category page will say "1 galleries with xx photos". The word "galleries" is plural instead of singular. Strangely, the home page doesn't have this problem for a category with only one gallery in it.
I don't need breadcrumb navigation. I don't need navigation. I don't need it to look like a breadcrumb. What I do need is the gallery name fully described in whatever way looks good and is clear. Breadcrumbs are a famililar way of showing the hierarchy, but I'm OK with anything that is clear.
To give you an idea what I face, I have galleries with a name like "Highlights". We'll guess what - I have 30 galleries with that name because every sporting event I do has a sub-category that describes the event and then multiple galleries in that sub-category (one of which is "Highlights" and others are often player's names). I only know which gallery it is when I see the categorization.
As a further example, go to here: http://friend.smugmug.com/Sports/406225. This is a sub-category for a soccer season. It has a "Highlights" gallery in that category. All my sporting event sub-categories have a "Highlights" gallery. When I'm prompted for a password for a "Highlights" gallery, we need to know which "Highlights" gallery it is and the only way to describe that is to see the categorization. If one comes in the front door, via the sub-category link that I just gave you, then you can probably remember where you are. But, if someone sends you a link to the Highlights gallery and you bookmark it and then next time you go there you are prompted for a password, you will have no idea what gallery it's asking for a password for.
FYI, this happens to me all the time when I'm following Statcounter links to see which galleries are being viewed. I get promtped for a password and I don't know which gallery it is. It also happens when my viewers share links to images they like with each other, but aren't already cookied for the password. They've been previously told the password so if they are told what gallery it is, they can probably enter the right password, but not when it gives them no idea where they are going.
Okay, we're working on this. I had hopes of getting it out before now but it's trickified by a few features like hide gallery owner and themes. Thinking through them now.
Great thread. Hopefully I haven't missed this recommendation along the way somewhere, but what about implementing something like http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ for keeping track of and voting on recommendations?
I think this would provide great visibility all around as to what's been recommended, what's being worked on... Much easier I think than hunting through a thread trying to find out if your idea is in there - or not...
Just a thought. Hope someone likes it (and bumps it up the list to "implement"
Suggestion to change "flyout" window above photos
Can you provide an alternative for the "flyout" tab for PhotoRank and Photo Sizes?
After soliciting feedback from people who have visited my site this is one of the most frequent DISTRACTIONS they mention. The repetitive "flying-in" and "flying-out" effect every time the mouse passes over a photo gets very annoying after a while. Additionally, the tab either covers part of the photo or, if it has been moved to the bottom, covers the caption.
The problem is, I WANT the functionality this tab provides: PhotoRank and Photo Size. It seems like this could be accomplished just as well using simple icons/text next to the photo which a visitor could click on.
I'm sure the idea of a fly-out tab seemed really cool at some point, but feedback from my visitors clearly indicates that it's just a little too much special effects over-engineering when simple icons would provide a more user-freindly experience.
Portfolio pricing hard to find
I was setting up a new account for our local scout troop. I wanted to set portfolio pricing to be 1 cent higher so we can track print sales. I looked all over the UI, on every nook and cranny of the control panel. No portfolio pricing anywhere. Finally, I went to the pricing for a specific gallery and found portfolio pricing there.
Shouldn't you be able to find ALL account level settings from the control panel? I'm fine with also seeing portfolio pricing in the gallery pricing UI, but I really think that one should be able to find portfolio pricing in the control panel too (probably the "Pros" page in the control panel).
Comments
When I bring up the Photo Info screen, there could be several improvements:
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You don't have to drag the area above the title, the whole box is draggable (with the exception of the 'photo information' text which is a link')
I've verified the cursor changes to a move cursor (4-way arrow) in all our supported browsers on my system. Are you not getting the move cursor?
The goal with positioning the box is to have it appear as close to where you last left it without being out of the viewport. Its possible that some other changes have messed up the calculations/context elements for the popup. I can look into it.
Thanks for responding. The pop-up does indeed sometimes come up off screen sometimes (in Firefox 2 on Windows) so perhaps that got broken some time.
There is absolutely no way to know that the title is a link or to have any idea what it would do if you clicked on it. It's a bolded title. It has no visual effect to look like a link. You have no previous convention in the Smugmug UI where a title would be clickable to a full screen view. I have obviously been playing with this dialog for awhile to write this stuff up and had no idea it was a link.
Even though I now know it's a link, I still find it annoying that I can't drag in that area. Convention on all OSes I know of says that you drag in the title area to move the window. Convention doesn't say that you should move your mouse around until you find a move icon. I think you need to respect the title bar convention and find a different and more obvious way to open the full screen view of the photo information.
Some ideas for better ways to get you to the full screen view:
- Put a full screen icon (like the host OS uses) next to the close X
- Put an actual link at the bottom of the box that says "full screen view".
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I don't use the shopping cart much (I tend to print my own), but I noticed these things in a recent experience.
Note how the + and - controls aren't lined up with the number.
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I'm going through my gallery. I find a photo that I want to move to another gallery. I select Move Photos. Up comes the screen with nothing selected. I have to find that photo again. I only have access to thumbs so I can't even tell which one it is at this small size. I have to exit the move photos screen to write down the filename so I can identify it clearly in the move photos screen and then select move photos again. Now, I scan the filenames to find the one that matches what I wrote down. When I find it, I select a destination gallery and then I'm done. What a pain.
Here's a different way to do it. I find a photo I want to move to another gallery. I bring up move photos. That photo is already selected for me. I select a destination gallery and I'm done. A LOT fewer steps.
Please, when I select move photos from the Smugmug view, start with the current photo as the selected photo. I ALWAYS want to move that one. I may want to move others too, but I always start with one of the ones that I want to move. If not, no problem to deselect it.
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Here's a perfect example of a customer support encounter on this very issue.
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I'd like to be able to create sub-categories right in the customize gallery dialog, right where I set the sub-category. The workflow goes like this. Go to customize gallery. Change the category. Go to change the sub-category. Darn, the sub-category doesn't exist. Go to control panel. Go to customize, go to categories. Create sub-category. Go back to gallery and start over.
How nice to just be able to create a sub-category right where you find the need in the customize gallery dialog. Same for custom categories.
The idea is to allow the user to solve their problem right where the problem occurs rather than making them go to a set of tools, fix the problem, then come back to start over.
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I go to the sub-categories list in the control panel to create a new sub-category. I want to choose Airplanes as the parent category. I look in the list. I see some things in the list that look like they are in alphabetical order, but I don't see airplanes. I scroll down and eventually find airplanes somewhere in the middle. The list of categories appears to be half alphabetical order (just enough to fool you) and half random. I sure seems like it ought to be fully alphabetical order. I could see maybe making an exception for categories in use (listing them first), but other than that, alphabetical.
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If I have a sub-category with one gallery in it, the category page will say "1 galleries with xx photos". The word "galleries" is plural instead of singular. Strangely, the home page doesn't have this problem for a category with only one gallery in it.
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(the dirty details on installing Brainstorm using Drupal is here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Brainstorm/Installation)
I think this would provide great visibility all around as to what's been recommended, what's being worked on... Much easier I think than hunting through a thread trying to find out if your idea is in there - or not...
Just a thought. Hope someone likes it (and bumps it up the list to "implement"
Tim
Can you provide an alternative for the "flyout" tab for PhotoRank and Photo Sizes?
After soliciting feedback from people who have visited my site this is one of the most frequent DISTRACTIONS they mention. The repetitive "flying-in" and "flying-out" effect every time the mouse passes over a photo gets very annoying after a while. Additionally, the tab either covers part of the photo or, if it has been moved to the bottom, covers the caption.
The problem is, I WANT the functionality this tab provides: PhotoRank and Photo Size. It seems like this could be accomplished just as well using simple icons/text next to the photo which a visitor could click on.
I'm sure the idea of a fly-out tab seemed really cool at some point, but feedback from my visitors clearly indicates that it's just a little too much special effects over-engineering when simple icons would provide a more user-freindly experience.
Dale
I was setting up a new account for our local scout troop. I wanted to set portfolio pricing to be 1 cent higher so we can track print sales. I looked all over the UI, on every nook and cranny of the control panel. No portfolio pricing anywhere. Finally, I went to the pricing for a specific gallery and found portfolio pricing there.
Shouldn't you be able to find ALL account level settings from the control panel? I'm fine with also seeing portfolio pricing in the gallery pricing UI, but I really think that one should be able to find portfolio pricing in the control panel too (probably the "Pros" page in the control panel).
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