Your opinion on gallery design

[Scott Conners]

I'd love to get some turner's opinions on the design of gallery you prefer. I know what I like, but I'm not sure how it looks on other machines, to other people who don't just say "pretty!" to every option. I've put up a couple of galleries with different designs, mostly with the same photos. Answering the poll is great, and I'd really love to hear what you have to say. I'm particularly interested in how the galleries with sliding and fading pictures work for others out there. I'm curious about how well the pictures fit on your screens and how easy the gallery is to navigate. Here are the links:

Gallery Style 1
Gallery Style 2
Gallery Style 3
Gallery Style 4

Thanks for your input!

[Doug W Swanson]

Hi Scott,

Of the 4 choices you have I like #4 the best. It's easy to navigate and you can see many of the items at once. If someone is looking for a particular item (let's say a salad bowl) they can see a couple different smaller pictures close together. Then they could look at larger pictures of each bowl if needed.

A couple of the others seems harder to navigate around.

Hope this helps....

JMHO
Doug

[Jason Clark2]

I prefer #3, you can still see the thumbnails while viewing the full size image.

Jason

[Scott Hurley]

I agree with Doug - # 4 seems the best to me.

[Robert McGowen]

I would go with #4. #1 is good and #3 is okay. #2 should not even be considered. Good luck with your choices.

[Greg Ketell]

I like #1 followed by #3, then #4. I wouldn't stay visiting a site using #2.

[John Terefenko]

I chose #3 but 3 or 4 would be just fine. I think it is better to be able to see the thumbnails then to have to go through the entire gallery. People loose interest quickly. If something strikes their eye then they will click on it. Nice work by the way.

[Brian Effinger]

While the slide show works on all of them, the only thing I would do differently is put a brief description under each photo. And I mean brief - just enough to take in quickly.

That being said, I like #1 the best. It just has the best layout, in my opinion. You look at it and know instantly what is going on. The only criticism I have is that you can't click above or below the navigational slider to move the preview photos.

#3 is second, for some of the same reasons as stated above, but it just seems clunkier.

#2 is my least favorite, because you have to sit through the slide show, or scroll through it all to see any one photo. Just too cumbersome.

And #4 looks like amazon.com to me. Not that there is anything wrong with that - just not as elegant in my opinion.

Oh, and btw, I like the colors and the fonts.

I hope that was helpful.

Brian

[Joe Wiliams]

I like the navigation of #3 but prefer larger main pictures, #4 is a close second.

[GLENN THOMAS]

Hi Scott.

My vote would be for number 4. I found the thumbnails to be a little distracting in 1,2,and 3 when looking at the larger picture. I also never cared too much for a slide show on any web site because there may be some photos I would like to linger on and others I may want to skip. Some times slide shows are too fast and some times they're to slow. I guess it would be like a guided tour through a museum vs self guided where you can look at your own pace. Just my 2 cents.

Glenn

[Harry Hagan]

#1 hands down for me.

It’s more intuitive for me, easier to navigate, and too many smaller photos are a distraction on the other options.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Scott - nice turnings!

I chose the #1 option. I like the smaller images located on the left and the way you can still see them even while viewing a larger photo of a turning. That was probably what I didn't care for in the rest of the options - that once you chose a turning to see the larger photo of it - you lost sight of the other turnings.

I know you can click next or back - but that requires extra effort and some folks will lose patience after awhile if they have to click out of a large photo each time to find what is next.

[Jeff Bratt]

Nice work!

I like #3 best, then #1, then #4. Not #2.
Comments:
#1 - I like the layout, seeing both thumbnails and large main picture, but the navigation buttons are pretty small. Having a slideshow option is nice, but not necessary.
#2 - no index/thumbnails, can only go forward and back one pic.
#3 - clean look, fewer distractions from the pics, easy navigation. There's no slide show option.
#4 - index disappears when viewing large image. Large pics seem to load very slowly.

I've got a relative hi-res screen - if using a smaller size, I might choose differently.

[ROY DICK]

#1, then #3.

Roy

[Kent A Bathurst]

Hope you don't mind my thoughts - not a turner, but I have spent a lot of time over the years looking at beautiful works of art, on-line and in person world-wide.

I like #1 by a nose over #3. Here's my logic: Take the piece you like the best, or is most representative of your style, and display it large-size front-and-center. I sat for a few minutes looking at your presentation piece before moving on to thumbs. It made me want to continue on.

Captions would be nice, especially if there is a way to turn them off/on. Maybe an [info] button or something under the photo - I don't know anything about software capabilities.

Very nice work, Scott.