Photo gallery

[Raffles]

I made this originally for a website to showcase pictures for a club at university but I didn't finish it and left it languishing on my hard drive. I decided to finish it off yesterday, give it a stupid name and put it online.

Please tell me what you think - aesthetics, code, usability, accessibility and whatever else you can think of. Cheers!

Photo gallery

[dman_2007]

Overall Looks good, here are some of my suggestions :

1) consider adding end link as well alongwith the start link
2) Make all the photographs of a reasonable consistent size with a link to load original size photo
3) ability to view thumnail shots of all the picture.
4) ability to start viewing photos from any of the photo in the collection instead of always from the first.

[CaffinePhil]

I think it looks great. Is Shampoo software?

[Charles Sweeney]

It's a photo gallery! Not a great deal one can say, really.

I was initially confused. I expected to click a picture and see that picture alone OR go to that album. After a while I figured that I should click on the Albums link at the top to go to the album page. I much preferred this method.

[Raffles]

1) consider adding end link as well alongwith the start link
2) Make all the photographs of a reasonable consistent size with a link to load original size photo
3) ability to view thumnail shots of all the picture.
4) ability to start viewing photos from any of the photo in the collection instead of always from the first.

Cheers dman. I suspect you didn't manage to get beyond the front page, though, which is a problem I can see now (as Charles Sweeney has mentioned as well).

1. What do you mean by end/start links? A breadcrumb trail?
2. This is difficult because the originals are different dimensions. I can make the height/width a maximum size, which seems very sensible. As for linking to the original size, if you click the header above the row of images (e.g. "Melbourne, Australia", you will see all the thumbs for that album. Then clicking one of them shows you the full size image.

3 & 4 are answered in 2 I think.

I think it looks great. Is Shampoo software?

Yes, you can download it if you want (link in my sig).

It's a photo gallery! Not a great deal one can say, really.

Why not? You could say the same thing about anything - it's just a web page! Perhaps you can comment on whether you like the layout, whether you think the fonts are appropriate, whether the colour scheme is retina-burning or pleasant, whether you think it has been coded properly, and so on. Your comment about the confusion is a very valid one, for instance.

I was initially confused. I expected to click a picture and see that picture alone OR go to that album. After a while I figured that I should click on the Albums link at the top to go to the album page. I much preferred this method.

I can understand the confusion now that you mention it. On the front page if you click a picture it just appears overlayed. To go to the album, click the album's name (the header above the row of thumbnails). This displays all the pictures for the album and clicking any of these thumbnails brings up a larger version.

I think you're right in that clicking one of the 6 or so thumbs on the front page should just take you to the album, this seems like more obvious behaviour.

Thanks for your comment.

[Charles Sweeney]

I can understand the confusion now that you mention it. On the front page if you click a picture it just appears overlayed. To go to the album, click the album's name (the header above the row of thumbnails). This displays all the pictures for the album and clicking any of these thumbnails brings up a larger version.

I think you're right in that clicking one of the 6 or so thumbs on the front page should just take you to the album, this seems like more obvious behaviour.

Thanks for your comment.

My pleasure. I'm easily confused!

[dman_2007]

Cheers dman. I suspect you didn't manage to get beyond the front page, though, which is a problem I can see now (as Charles Sweeney has mentioned as well).

1. What do you mean by end/start links? A breadcrumb trail?
2. This is difficult because the originals are different dimensions. I can make the height/width a maximum size, which seems very sensible. As for linking to the original size, if you click the header above the row of images (e.g. "Melbourne, Australia", you will see all the thumbs for that album. Then clicking one of them shows you the full size image.

3 & 4 are answered in 2 I think.

Yeah, you're right. I wasn't able to go past the front page, all my comments were based on the overlay slideshow. Clicking the start link in the overlay mode, i thought would bring up the start of the album, but now i see that it starts the automatic slideshow. I was suggesting an end link (based on my earlier asumption) which would bring up the last image of the album. The non overlay version is much more flexible and incorporates all the suggestions i made.

[Brian Harnish]

I think the design itself is really good. The excellent use of color and layout provides a compelling and different user interface for the gallery. However, there are a few things I noticed.

1. It doesn't lend too much of an opportunity for search engine optimization. All you have on the site are pictures. Why not consider adding more content? If you plan on promoting the site, it would be of tremendous benefit to you to add content (not more images, but actual text content) in order to get one-way inbound links and promotional help from others.

2. In addition, search engines don't follow images that are linked. I would recommend adding at least some text links that provide an opportunity for search engines to go to each page that has an image, therefore providing more opportunity for indexing specific pages.

3. There's no site map. Without a site map, you're making it difficult for search engines to index every page on your site. You only have six pages indexed in Google, whereas with a site map and text links underneath your images you could have all of your pages that include images indexed on Google, providing better opportunities for more traffic.

I think it's a great looking site, and with more work, you'll be able to promote the heck out of it online.

[flashcrawler]

Its a nice site. Very good photographs. You do have talent. I would like to recommend perhaps placing bookmarks up, so people can share your pics via Digg,stumpleupon etc. That might bring in more traffic.
One thing I love is how fast the page load.

[wolverinegrad]

I actually like the functionality of site meaning I like the layout and once you click on the pictures. But aside from that I'm not clear what the business model would be. It seems as if the site is just for a personal site maybe you can use it to show your vacations or wedding albums. The site looks good if you could find a way to code a ranking system, or by using many available open source code to make a flickr type site then it could actually be marketable some how. The site itself looks good from a personal point of view, but more needs to be done to make it business worthy. In my opinion ofcourse.