James Howe wrote:
> I've just put together a web gallery of images that I've taken with my
> Olympus E-500/E-3 cameras. The web site was created mostly using the
> Lightroom 2.0 Web gallery generation capabilities, with some minor
> modifications to tie things together. It's still in an early state and I
> hope to make some improvements as time (and HTML knowledge) become more
> available. The web site is http://www.jameshowephotography.com and I would
> be interested in getting feedback on both the site and the images.
>
As to the site design and operation:
I like the clean, simple look. And I'm a fan of displaying images
against black or very dark gray, as you have done. I sometimes like a
very narrow white border, 1 or 2 pixels.
The main page loads quickly, as do individual images within
sub-galleries. However, the sub-galleries are very slow to load. It
looks like this may be due to creating all the thumbnail navigation
images on the fly? I don't know how this gallery designer works, but
pre-creation of the thumbs, storing them on the server and just
downloading them as needed is common and fast to load in other gallery
software I've used.
Element placement is not worked out. Some images overlap the text box
and/or the directional arrows. I very much like the fixed arrow
locations, which allow browsing without mouse movement, but they should
be placed wider apart and image sizes controlled to keep from
overlapping them.
Upon first entering a sub-gallery, there is no obvious way to navigate.
The arrows aren't visible until the mouse approaches their neighborhood.
I assumed that the 'thumbnails' button would open a page of thumbnails
for the sub-gallery. I didn't discover that it is a filmstrip means of
navigation until later, when I wanted an overview of the sub-gallery.
The filmstrip overlaid on the current image with images translucent
until the mouse goes over them is just too trick for me. I think a
gallery should make it easy to see images, not hard. Whether implemented
in a scrolling filmstrip or a separate thumbnail page, I like a way to
see an overview of the gallery and generally find galleries without it
frustrating. Adding CoolIris (nee PicLens) is another way to do this.
Just personal reactions to the design. I hope they are helpful.
Moose
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