Time’s Year in Images – Great Shots but the User Experience Sucks

by Karoli on December 22, 2007 · 17 comments

I’m on the Time.com site trying to view their year in images, and I cannot understand why they think it is a good idea to reload the page every time I advance to the next image. It is either a way to falsely inflate the number of pages I’m viewing while on their site or it’s just bad, bad design. If I can embed a slide show from my flickr images on this site that will either: a) autoplay, or b) advance to the next image with a simple click on the “next” button without loading the entire page, so can they, ads and all.

This comes right on the heels of loading up CNN.com and having a video autoplay with no input from me, delaying the page load and subjecting me to a preroll ad on a video I didn’t want to watch in the first place.

My suggestions:

Set your video to be paused when the page is first loaded, giving the user the option to view the specific video or not.
Give your users a slideshow and if you want them to click more, link the slide to a page with the single slide, description, and/or link to the original story, if available.

The user experience as it stands right now is so bad I will not make it through all 48 photographs. The only loser? The photographers, who deserve credit for making these beautiful images. Sorry photogs, but I cannot abide the continual reloading of the page. It makes me as crazy as having to click through 5 pages to read a 2-page article.

Technorati Tags: Time, CNN, Year in Images, web design, usability, user experience

Tagged as: News, Web

http://contentious.com Amy Gahran

>It is either a way to falsely inflate the number of pages I’m viewing while on their site or it’s just bad, bad design.<

Heh — my suspicion is it's BOTH!

- Amy Gahran
http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/ Karoli

Amy, I'm afraid you're right. I don't begrudge them wanting to make money and be profitable, but giving this kind of user experience will cut into that profitability. People will just forego clicking through.
http://apublicdefender.com Gideon

Oh I hate this too. It's so basic and yet so many websites make this error. I usually leave after the first two images.

Btw, how did you get nested comments in 2.3.1? Tell me!!! I want! Quoter doesn't work at all.

Also, sorry to hijack, but I d/led Flock. Some good, some bad. Do you still use it?
http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/ Karoli

Hey Gideon, happy holidays and all that.

I am using the Disqus commenting system — threading's built in. Go to Disqus and get the WordPress plugin and your own account. It's really a nice system.

I use Flock every day — just not always for this blog. I love it, love it. It's the only browser that I can write posts to different Blogger blogs from without a problem (and part of my job is managing a few of those).

Karoli
http://apublicdefender.com Gideon

Happy Holidays! So you like this commenting system? It doesn't seem to show the most recent comments in the sidebar, though. I like that feature.

I'm going to have to keep exploring Flock… but since I don't use flickr or twitter or facebook that much, I don't know if it really has value for me.
http://obscurelyfamous.com Daniel Ha

>> It doesn't seem to show the most recent comments in the sidebar, though.

There will be Disqus-specific sidebar widgets to address this soon. We're pretty excited about this bit.
http://obscurelyfamous.com Daniel Ha

>> It doesn't seem to show the most recent comments in the sidebar, though.

There will be Disqus-specific sidebar widgets to address this soon. We're pretty excited about this bit.
http://apublicdefender.com Gideon

Ah, okay. I'll keep an eye out for it. I need to tweak the CSS before I apply it to my posts too and since I'm hopeless at that, it probably will take a week or two.
http://apublicdefender.com Gideon

Ah, okay. I'll keep an eye out for it. I need to tweak the CSS before I apply it to my posts too and since I'm hopeless at that, it probably will take a week or two.
http://apublicdefender.com Gideon

Ah, okay. I'll keep an eye out for it. I need to tweak the CSS before I apply it to my posts too and since I'm hopeless at that, it probably will take a week or two.
http://apublicdefender.com Gideon

Happy Holidays! So you like this commenting system? It doesn't seem to show the most recent comments in the sidebar, though. I like that feature.

I'm going to have to keep exploring Flock… but since I don't use flickr or twitter or facebook that much, I don't know if it really has value for me.
http://obscurelyfamous.com Daniel Ha

>> It doesn't seem to show the most recent comments in the sidebar, though.

There will be Disqus-specific sidebar widgets to address this soon. We're pretty excited about this bit.
http://apublicdefender.com Gideon

Ah, okay. I'll keep an eye out for it. I need to tweak the CSS before I apply it to my posts too and since I'm hopeless at that, it probably will take a week or two.
http://www.drumsnwhistles.com/ Karoli

Hey Gideon, happy holidays and all that.

I am using the Disqus commenting system — threading's built in. Go to Disqus and get the WordPress plugin and your own account. It's really a nice system.

I use Flock every day — just not always for this blog. I love it, love it. It's the only browser that I can write posts to different Blogger blogs from without a problem (and part of my job is managing a few of those).

Karoli
http://apublicdefender.com Gideon

Happy Holidays! So you like this commenting system? It doesn't seem to show the most recent comments in the sidebar, though. I like that feature.

I'm going to have to keep exploring Flock… but since I don't use flickr or twitter or facebook that much, I don't know if it really has value for me.
http://obscurelyfamous.com Daniel Ha

>> It doesn't seem to show the most recent comments in the sidebar, though.

There will be Disqus-specific sidebar widgets to address this soon. We're pretty excited about this bit.
http://apublicdefender.com Gideon

Ah, okay. I'll keep an eye out for it. I need to tweak the CSS before I apply it to my posts too and since I'm hopeless at that, it probably will take a week or two.