They’re an easy way to maintain a photo gallery on a site, but are the ones out there on www.union.edu serving a purpose? Are they contributing to the rest of the site or merely there for the sake of wanting Flash? Photos need context, particularly when visitors may be unfamiliar with a program or department or even Union.
Is the intent of the collection of images to archive an event or a montage to reflect the entire program? Is that a student participating in community service or research? Is that an image of a new studio or lab that will enhance the educational resources? Is that a group from a Minerva or Greek or Theme House? Don’t let the visitor wonder. Reinforce the connections to key initiatives and diverse opportunities at Union with captions.
Are their examples on Union’s website you like? Are there other examples of photo display out there that work better for you?
Jason Slater
Me, I like Flickr.
And yeah, it is Flash for the sake of Flash. All that motion makes me dizzy.
Ken George
me too (dizzy that is)
[...] slather some blue over those buttons, dose liberally with Flash, and is it ever possible to have too many [...]
Current light box installs work really well with thumbnails that load larger images over the current webpage. No new windows, no pops, and dare I say no flash. But typically all the thumbnails are shown on a page. With limited screenspace we play with on the Union site, this could be a problem. The current Flash program solves that problem, but it’s difficult to slide through to see all the photos, whether full size or thumbnail versions. I love lightboxes, but with limited screen space you might run into problems. I did on the last version of my own site, and had to introduce a scrolling frame (yuck!): http://iamdooser.org/v3/work/takephoto.htm