sth radical on my main root page

[tsienni]

I know I'm a minimalist freak. Recently I did some experiment on my Pbase root gallery because I was just a bit fed up with gallery thumbnails. So I got rid of them entirely and only left the text links to all my Pbase galleries.

http://www.pbase.com/tsienni

I forced a tree-view by default and made my page look like an index. The only drawback that I can think of now is that all those galleries at my root page won't be listed in Pbase search engine because I made them non-public. This is OK with me since 1) I give the text links, so people still could be directed there. 2) all the sub-galleries are public, so they will be found by Pbase motors. Because these are the real galleries, I guess it's fine so far.

Overall I feel a bit unsure, though. Somehow I get some hunch feeling that this is not a good page design. I started to think of more pitfalls but came up with no more. So I come to ask this in our forum, hopefully I can hear your wise opinion. Any input is appreciated. Thanks in advance.

/ Tsienni

[alangrant]

There are a few small points that could be confusing for anyone who lands on your root gallery.

One is that they will see "tree view | thumbnails" at the top right of the page. Clicking on "tree view" brings up a blank page. Then clicking on "thumbnails" brings up your tree view!

Some people might not notice those links. But for anyone familiar with PBase they might think "I've landed on the tree view, I want to switch to thumbnails" and get a bit confused.

Also, the "this gallery is empty" line at the bottom looks a bit odd.

Apart from that, and nothing to do with the root gallery, I found some text very hard to read on the grey background. For example on this page:
http://www.pbase.com/tsienni/nbi
the words "Tsienni" and ">> ci-joint 1" at the top left made me squint a bit.
And on this one:
http://www.pbase.com/tsienni/fete
I initially read it as "ove is on its way".

[jswaters]

Over and above anything else, my feeling is that a thumbnail gives viewers an idea of what they'll find when they visit your galleries - something text does in a very general way. Photography is a visual medium, after all.

Jenene

[tsienni]

Thanks, Alan, you raised several valid points that I for sure would consider thoroughly. From what I checked from my statcounter data, in a number of cases it did go like what you described - people actually ticked thumbnail view mode to compare. But I wonder how you could possibly hit on a Pbase page that displays a treeview without you yourself having hit the button to change? also thanks for those small details I made some minor adjustment accordingly.

And Jenene, thanks for the comment. Interestingly what you've said is roughly what motivated me to make the change. Because I think images here are real content at Pbase, not merely illustrations, so at the first page I feel those thumbnails are distractions - I only want the text as the introduction.

I'll run this experiment in the mean time and see what happens. Thanks again for the feedback!

/ Tsienni

[tsienni]

for some reason Statcounter stopped registering new hits for my Pbase site since this morning. Does it affect everyone or just me, hmmm I hope it's not because of the change I made on my page.

[edit] there's few shown up in my statcounter but significantly fewer than what Pbase stat suggested. this is new for me.

[pinemikey]

Did you ever consider an image map? You can change your CSS to eliminate ALL text on your root gallery. Then you simply add an image map which you can create in your photo editing program...more than likely Photoshop, with a map of links to the coordinates on the image. What this does is it allows you to control the style of text and the positioning more. I used to have a simple map with no thumbnails because I felt mine had too many thumbnails. I've compromised a little with the new slideshow and only eight thumbnails which balances out I feel.

[tsienni]

No, Mike, I'm ignorant. Truth told, I've never even heard of this image map thing. I definitely should give it a study over the weekend. Thanks for the suggestion!

After some reflection, I made the galleries public but put them under the text in a tree view format. No way to get around that Pbase machine-generated "gallery is empty" message, so I hope this compromise solution could work fine.

On that Statcounter note, I finally come to realise that not all the Pbase hits would be registered by Statcounter, so my observation is that some of them were just left unreported.

[andrys]

for some reason Statcounter stopped registering new hits for my Pbase site since this morning. Does it affect everyone or just me, hmmm I hope it's not because of the change I made on my page.

Frankly? Since you asked here. If I just came upon your text
table of contents, I'd leave. There's no indication at all what would
lie behind so you are asking people to do extra work to go see what's
behind the outline and most people here are here specifically to
see photos. They are probably not word-oriented while here.

[edit] there's few shown up in my statcounter but significantly fewer than what Pbase stat suggested. this is new for me.

That's no surprise though. In addition you had made your
root not see-able, redirecting people (from what I remember)
and I think that if the root here is the starting point for statcounter,
it could hinder statcounter, which is external and subject to similar
rules of viewing.

Today, you've got thumbnails at the bottom, and those ARE enticing.

Why not put links to the same galleries at the top and thumbnails
(that you reference) so that people can see them and then your outline
will be bookended with the gallery outline that you prefer.

What you've done is original and creative but not particularly
enticing for people who are here to see photos.

[tsienni]

You are absolutely right in your reasoning, Andrys. As I see it, there're two opposing challenges in the root design. On the one hand, you need to give the visitors a clear overview. Thumbnails help them click on. No gallery should be off the first sight. On the other hand, if you put all the galleries there, then a) within each individual gallery, you may control the consistency of the images, but the visual impression of the thumbnails for different galleries, when combined, does not look very much unified. b) the logical connection between them. This actually troubles me the most. I myself am not a pro, photography is merely a hobby for me. As of now my photos on Pbase are approaching 100 MB - I shot subjects on all kinds of things, but if I want to be a bit more serious about photos, it shouldn't be like this. So for me it's not just organising work, before I sort out my old stuff, I have to evaluate them first, and honestly many of my old shots do not look that terrific to me any more. Ideally I long for a coherent style. Difficult at times, though. If I take a break from my Pbase activity, I think that tree view is an excellent reminder with regard to where I stand now.

Why not put links to the same galleries at the top and thumbnails
(that you reference)

That's a good proposal. You just need to figure out the right size for the thumbnails. The medium sized thumbnail is too big to go well in lining together with the text. But if the size is too small, it kills the purpose of using a thumbnail to begin with.

Again, thanks for the feedback. Have a good weekend.

/ Tsienni

[andrys]

... I myself am not a pro, photography is merely a hobby for me. As of now my photos on Pbase are approaching 100 MB - I shot subjects on all kinds of things, but if I want to be a bit more serious about photos, it shouldn't be like this.

I'm the wrong person to say this to because I don't believe life
is that organized but it's nice when it is, as a change. I like a mixture
of things.

We get 500 mb here by the way. And I'd encourage you to keep
on shooting subjects on all kinds of things because (I'm assuming)
it's what you're interested in at the time. You can cull later after
thinking it over. Even 'serious' photographers and pros take tons
of pictures and then show us only what they want us to see. The
trick is to even have the photos you are interested in taking.

I think that tree view is an excellent reminder with regard to where I stand now.

I understand your feeling because I'm still a DOS person (which is
what your tree reminds me of!) and I'm often choosing to be at the
DOS prompt first, because it's faster. Sometimes words tell me
more.

The trick is, What do your viewers want to see when they're here.

Nevertheless, what you've done is innovative and an interesting
break from the norm. It will likely appeal more to book types though!

Why not put links to the same galleries at the top and thumbnails (that you reference)

That's a good proposal. You just need to figure out the right size for the thumbnails. The medium sized thumbnail is too big to go well in lining together with the text. But if the size is too small, it kills the purpose of using a thumbnail to begin with.

Right now the thumbnails you have at the bottom are of enough
interest that I would click on them right away.

Again, thanks for the feedback. Have a good weekend.

/ Tsienni

You too! A lot of work ahead of you. Quite creative too.

[tsienni]

Hi, Andrys,

I made some further change to my site, but strangely, it looks totally different in IE than in FF. I spent the whole day trying to correct the code but to no avail.

I'm terribly sorry to bother you again. Could you please help? I'm now clueless.

http://www.pbase.com/tsienni

Thanks.....

[andrys]

tsienni,

Do you mean the boxes below your title look centered in IE but
in Firefox they're shifted to the left below that?

I have never learned styles, if you can believe it.

But in looking at your user description box code, I changed
a couple of things from what you put in and now they're
centered in both.

=== Area I changed a bit so you can try this ===
------- [BEGINNING of user desc in gallery box]
<P><BR><P><center>
<div style="width:65%;border:2px solid #333;padding: 30px;">
<P><h2>Tsienni's Galleries</h2></p>
<BR><P> <BR><P>

------- [ I removed the </center> and the table style statement and then changed the below. ]

<div style="width:65%;border:2px solid #333;padding: 30px; text-align:left;">
================================

See if that works better for you.

[tsienni]

------- [ I removed the </center> and the table style statement and then changed the below. ]

<div style="width:65%;border:2px solid #333;padding: 30px; text-align:left;">
================================

See if that works better for you.

HUUUUrahhhhh! It works for both IE and FF!!!

Thank you so much for the fix, I just checked Safari, fine even there.

Great great Andrys

[andrys]

HUUUUrahhhhh! It works for both IE and FF!!!

Thank you so much for the fix, I just checked Safari, fine even there.

Great great Andrys

Glad that worked well for you, tsienni.

You definitely have a unique system going on there !