Collum pointed out this site which is a great example of improving findability for web site visitors and allowing user participation. The web site also supports serendipitous discovery.
Noteworthy - Some Interesting Things About This Design
The main page defaults to to 25 Random photo thumbnails as a collage but you can flip to 25 Most Commented, or 25 Most Viewed. Visitors can email a photo to a friend or leave a comment. Last weekend 3 photos had comments already.
[ Click screenshot to see large scale annotated screen shot of the home page on Flickr.]The photo collage on the home page not only facilities exploration but it also visually tells the user what is in this site without having the standard long textual description - it reveals what is inside. I quickly skimmed for a link somewhere in the footer area for more details "about the collection" and found a very brief description. I would have enjoyed reading even more. I was hooked by the opening act and wanted to probe a little deeper.
As well as browsing the clickable photos in the collage, the site also offers a keyword and subject search.
Wouldn't It Be Nice?
It would wonderful if the results of a search could be enhanced. Right now your search result is a set of thumbnails that you click to see the full size image and record details. Then you click back to the search result list to see the next.
It would be great to offer options like browsing from one long return to the next using previous and next buttons to advance through the set.
An even better option would be showing photos as slideshow with a user controlled timer for the speed of the show aka Flickr or a tool like SlideShow Pro so you can browse the results sets easily.
Small beans, but something that would help me, is spelling out NKy in the title. Audiences are global for digital collections and spelling out the "place" name would make what this site is about even clearer to the faraway visitor.
Thanks for the Inspiration
This site has made me look at some of our earlier digital projects from 1996-1998 with new eyes. They are definitely overdue for a makeover with discoverability and findability in mind.
library findability OPAC serendipity
photos digital libraries
