Photoblog Usability
From PhotoblogsWiki
This page was started in response to this blog.Photoblogs.org entry. Most people with an opinion seemed to dislike the personality of Jacob Neilsen who wrote the original article. Instead of cutting him down why don't we do something positive and take what he (and others) say that holds true for photoblog design and usability and build on it?
The following are guidelines only and are not rules per se. When you design and build your photoblog you don't have to follow these rules but it is a a good idea to at least have them in the back of your mind. It is also worth considering standard photoblog design conventions (previous, next, about, comments, archives, etc.). Of course you want your photoblog to stand out artistically and most artists associate 'standards' with 'boring' and challenge conventions at every opportunity. Your photoblog does not have to look like every other photoblog out there but if you challenge accepted photoblog navigation conventions by making your users click on the image to bring up your site's navigation links when they're used to seeing 'next' and 'previous' in the same place on every page you should not be surprised to loose some readers.
A good test of your photoblog design is to use your Mom for usability testing. If she can't find her way around your site without prompting from you then what chance will your average web user have. The standard photoblog visitor may be a little more web savvy than your Mom but she has a lot more invested in seeing your artistic creations than any other user. If she can't find her way around you might want to re-think your design.
- Photoblog title and navigation on every page (use of tag line)
- No About page or Contact information
- No picture of the photoblogger
- Navigation:
- The Calendar is the only navigation (use of categories and archives)
- Un-intuative navigation
- Content
- Mixing media (text and images)
- Browser Compatibility
- Designing for screen sizes to avoid horizontal scrolling
- Opening new browser windows and pop-ups
- RSS feed
