Using flash and java to optimize the photographs

While I was looking for photographer’s websites, I came across New York photographer Eric Ryan Anderson’s awesome portfolio, found at ericryananderson.com.

First of all, he gets points for putting his contact information in the page’s title with his name. Also, he keeps the design simple with a black and white all-caps sans-serif theme. The tabs are easily accessible at the top left of the page and follow a logical order by presenting the portfolios closer to the inside of the page and the moving toward the “about” and “contact” tabs. The portfolio tab has a drop-down drawer—a design element that I’m usually prefer because it keeps the page clean (though I’m not a huge fan of the black outline around this drawer). In this drawer, he has several different categories to choose from, which helps to organize the viewing experience. The photographs in these sections take up the majority of the screen, which is ideal.

The “about” pages are simple and to the point. The “contact” page gives the user several options for getting a hold of Anderson, having a form along with his phone number and email. I also like that he added a journal, (basically, a blog), but it would have been better if he had kept the navigation and the look more cohesive with the rest of the website.

One thing I absolutely love about this portfolio website is the number of options that he gives the user. Through creative implementation of flash and java script, he has enabled the user to click forward and back through the photographs or view them as a timed slideshow. The arrows appear when the user hovers over the photograph. In addition, he has a drawer to the right of the photograph that displays a vertical row of thumbnails when the user hovers over a dot. The user can scroll up and down by mousing in the preferred direction. Also, he has another box for caption information that pops up when the user hovers the words “Image info.”

The best thing about this interface besides easy navigation is that the photo is never permanently blocked. My only critique is that it may be beneficial to be able to click once and have the drawer stay open and again to close it. This would be better for the user, but it could distract from the photograph. All in all, I love this interface and would like to implement some of the concepts in my design (once I know how to do it).

Distracting colors, but great navigation

The news website that I’ve reviewed is The Guardian web site. The first thing I noticed when I opened the home page is the amount of color they used. Like many newspaper sites they’ve kept a white background; they chose a cadet blue for their headers and black for their body text, which keep it simple. However, each of the section links on the top navigation bar has a different color, which was distracting, especially since some of the words don’t necessarily sync with their color associations. Even more distracting were the color bars across the top of photo links. While the gray bars on the secondary photos were acceptable, the bright red on the main one was jarring. The home page is full of images, but none are extremely large; however, I think that this is acceptable on a splash page. The treatment of photos within an article is fairly standard for a newspaper; the photograph is featured at the top of the page and is approximately 450 pixels wide.

The guardian website is rather successful as far as navigation. The user can pick a larger section and subsections of those. All navigation is available at the top of each page. The most helpful element of their navigation is that they display links that show each step the user has made so they never have to use the back button to get to the previous page.

One aspect that disappointed me was their “interactive guides” section under Multimedia. I specifically thinking of the “How I paint” guides, which is made up of slideshows that have a start and stop button and little written explanation. I would have preferred to have audio or roll-over elements. Otherwise, the name is slightly misleading in that it doesn’t show the process.

Ultimately, the guardian website is a very successful news website. Their treatment of navigation is very intuitive for the user, and may be useful to incorporate into my website.