slower.net weblog

< back to www.slower.net

1. David 2.22.06 / 11am

   Nice! Tiny. When I first hit the page there was no thumbnail under ‘featured’ - should there have been? I can’t recreate this now.
2. supercommon 2.22.06 / 6pm

   Individual photos load too slowly. It seems less photo-centric than your slower.net design, maybe because the navigation is towards the top. The gray around the arrows on individual photo pages makes them stand out more than they should. And your photos feel small, even on a modest screen. More photo, less navigation.
3. Jacob 2.22.06 / 7pm

   change = good. I’m all for it, and the idea has promise.
4. James 2.22.06 / 9pm

   I had the same problem with no thumbnails under ‘featured’ the first time I loaded the page. Apart from that, very slick.
5. ford 2.24.06 / 9am

   I’d miss the 900 pixel photo frontpage. I like to check the site everyday to see your latest and I’d rather not have to click through. Perhaps there could be a link from pictures to a complete “story”.
   I love the dog show pictures. They’re really fantastic. They deserve a show of their own.
6. tomleininger 2.24.06 / 8pm

   For those of us on the 12inch laptop it is very veiwer friendly. I like it very much. It does seem to load a little slow. Very clean and simple place for complex photos, just like visualdiaries.com.
7. raul 2.25.06 / 2am

   There is something compelling about getting that fresh image up front that makes good photoblogs so compelling… Even if the stories on the front page changed often I think the site would tend to “feel” more like a portfolio site. My guess is people would tend to explore more but visit less often. I know for example that since Jay changed his format to something similar that I tend to visit less even though I find his recent stuff fantastic. Perhaps it would make sense to also set up a http://www.sequential.slower.net for traditionalists/daily visitors.

   Otherwise it’s definatetly a cool way to showcase photo stories…

   Not a fan of the lilac/ultraviolet.

   Don’t like the 1 pixel bounce on rollovers on the right.

   I think the story thumbnails should have some type of rollover as should ‘others’ and ‘featured’ when they are live links.

   Clicking on the actual text in thumbnails should also take you to the story (right now these portions of the thumbnails do not link).

   I miss having a date for context although perhaps it adds some mystery to the images.
8. malcolm 2.25.06 / 9am

   this is pretty good, but the navigation in your portfilio section is a little hard to get used to; i’m talking about the section itself, not the click-through from image to image.

   the design (format) change between the two portfolio galleries is distracting - autoloading flash-type objects in one and manual click-through in the other. also, i don’t mind that some of the photos resize (the one of richard branson is HUGE) but others may find this distracting.
9. Rachel Stein 2.25.06 / 8pm

   I see you’ve addressed some of raul’s notes almost all of which i noticed when i logged in yesterday. One thing he noted that still annoys me is that the cursor turns into an edit carat when over the title text on the thumbnails.

   Other ideas- “others” should either vanish, be dimmed, or act as a toggle when the others are revealed. It should not highlight and do nothing.

   I miss the hovering arrows on interior pages.

   I hate animation on the load. Seems trendy. In 6 months it will be everywhere and feel dated. A better way to use ananimation would be to navigate from image to image without a page reload and do a crossfade.
10. supercommon 2.27.06 / 1am

    The text is anti-aliased all weird, and looks forced on a Mac/Firefox. The front page looks small, boxy–it doesn’t make me want to explore further. Doesn’t feel like a homepage.

    I don’t like the comment prompt at the end of every show. I leave a comment maybe 1/10 of the tenth, and the prompt is just annoying and useless the other 9/10ths. Maybe you could put a little chatbox icon or something next to the set title on individual photo pages and just link to a comment page.

    It’s looking better overall, but I still don’t think I’d visit it as religiously as your flickr or slower.net.
11. donald 2.27.06 / 1am

    It’s a sharp site, but it really gives much less prominence to the work in a way that I think is a step back. Your past few design iterations had been giving steadily increasing prominence to the photos which are, after all, why I keep coming back.

    Why not make one featured image full-size with the animated menu below? Think along the lines of 28mm’s cover pages but with thumbnails. If going story-based fits your artistic and practical intent, go for it — but why not go waytoblue story-based rather than portfolio-page style?

    As a commenter, I don’t like the idea of leaving comments per-gallery rather than per-image, but I can see where that would help you. Disallowing the comment view without posting first is an interesting idea, though I’ll be curious to see how it affects your comment yield in the wild. The concept itself is good, but, again, speaking as a commenter I’m a little put off. While it does right off the bat make me feel like my criticism should be especially thoughtful (I love that there are no name/url fields) it also makes me not want to bother posting at all.

    I like the diptychs.
12. donald 2.27.06 / 11am

    Just caught that all image links now move forward through the gallery. I like the left-back, right-forward mapping of your front page much better, and have really come to expect it on most photoblogs I visit (while most of them haven’t implemented such navigation, it’s simple and intuitive and becomes habit quickly).
13. Taylor 3.2.06 / 4am

    I like the “Buying Power” set. The size is good and the movement works well. I find that I don’t often move back through the narrative, so the left/right navigation you use on slower.net isn’t really necessary here.

    Maybe you could lay it out like a newspaper? It’s a proven format. One big feature thumbnail from your latest story, with a short tagline description. Then small thumbnails below of previous stories, maybe a clip from your latest blog entry, links, etc.
14. joe 3.3.06 / 5pm

    I understand the urge to show photos in context, to present essays, a series, a book. I’m trying to figure out how it works for me, the visitor. How do I know when new work is up? How do I know when new work is added to older essays? How do I know how many new photos were added to a series?

    I do like bigger images. Despite the old-schoolers’ 500px rule — hey aren’t these the same old-schoolers who hate photoblogs? — despite the rule, all those old-schoolers’ photos always seem to look better when they’re bigger. Hey, that could be your motto: bigger and slower is always better. Ahem.
15. mdm 3.7.06 / 12am

    Sharp text log here.

    One small thing on the beta. If I click “other stories” off the home page, and click one of the stories, and then go “back” in my browser, I go all the way back to the home page, rather than the “other stories” page.

    At least in Safari.
16. eshepard 3.7.06 / 1am

    They’re actually the same page. What we have here is the magic way that Javascript breaks the back button. I could fix this with a cookie, and I will once the homepage layout is more fixed. Thanks for the report.
17. Lock 3.8.06 / 11pm

    I’d also wish the main photo was bigger. Bigger photos are better.
18. Shakeer 3.11.06 / 8pm

    Do you intend to have any text on the stories? Just the title is cryptic and though I appreciate what it does for focusing thought on the photos alone, a little description or context may help.

    Also, do you intend to put up one story at a time and not touch them after that? As much as I like you, I doubt I’ll be familiar (or attentive) enough with individual stories to track them changing over time. I like the idea of having to wait however long until you put up a new story, slowly enjoying that story and then waiting for your next one or appreciating old ones. It would be a similar manner in which I consume your work now but just on a different sort of schedule and with the nice ability to be able to comfortably look at your past work in a collected manner. And regarding the issue of whether visitors will neglect/forget to visit if it isn’t updated daily or regularly: meh, feeds.

    Anyway, I was unsettled at first but after playing with it a bit, I like it a lot. Much more engaging and interesting.
19. donald 3.13.06 / 10pm

    Love the new front page. Perfect.

Powered by Hemingway flavored Wordpress.

Entries RSS Comments RSS