I met Jeremiah a few days ago through Shel. Unsolicited he wrote about our new homepage. This is exactly the type of product level conversations I want to do more of. We had an internal meeting the next morning after his post and worked to fix/change many of the things he discussed. The changes should go out shortly.
Jeremiah wrote:
When clicking into a specific category, it would be helpful if the tags were displayed on each of the images. (either below it or on mouse hover --the browser status bar is an indicator this can easily be deployed).
We have added the main label for each item to the category page
Although a very minor nit pick (hey I'm thorough --as a former UI designer the details add to the overall experience and impression) some of the images are inconsistently displayed in regards to width. (see example)
Dan has fixed this issue and it will roll out
A tag cloud would be useful for determining data and tag spikes. (my thoughts on tag clouds) -
Actually the most popular section on the homepage is supposed to be a tag cloud we just didn't scale the fonts correctly.
The homepage could benefit by allowing users to create custom homepages categories, and then share with other users. For example, I'd love to see a category called 'Owyang' and would display all images tagged with that.
This is planned for the future - bookmarks and my favorite sections
I tried to insert a badge on my post but got an error for blogger about unclosed html tags --attention support team.
We will look into this issue
Mario Sundar a commenter on Jeremiah's blog wrote that things were a little dense. One of the key paradigms we are trying is a browse metaphor to compliment the search metaphor. The jury is out on this but we will see.
Jeremiah also commented that the URL is too long. We are fixing this. We will also roll out adult filters soon.
I have not yet blogged the core startegic shift we are making (episode 5 will have it... once I actually get a chance to write it...;-). Once I do this homepage should make more sense but either way, it should make sense even without the preamble since that is how most people will encounter it. Jeremiah and others keep the comments coming, you will see us change the site or at least respond to the input we get.
I see that Riya's deployed a few of the changes that were discussed --looking better.
Posted by: Jeremiah Owyang | June 08, 2006 at 02:17 PM
Hi Munjal,
Thanks for taking note. I'm not sure if you had a chance to check out my mini-3-point take on Riya's new look-and-feel. Feel free to check it out here: http://mariosundar.wordpress.com/2006/06/12/munjal-responds-to-my-take-on-riya/
It looks like you are taking worthy user comments seriously. Kudos and good luck.
Mario
Posted by: Mario Sundar | June 11, 2006 at 10:34 PM