Archive for the 'Web Site Feedback - IRJ' Category
Thursday, February 19th, 2009
Advanced Browsing for Videos – Request for Island Reef Job
While I haven’t had time to peruse all 19k videos online, I really hope the Island Reef Job committee considers extending the browsing functionality. Aside from occasional latency problems (attention Akamai), one of my most pressing desires in this application process is to see as many videos as possible and act like a judge to help choose what I think are some of the best submissions. The only way to do this effectively would be through an enhanced interface, which is desparately needed for the general population.
Here is the current layout of the video site. At present as you see, users are limited to seeing 10 thumbnails.
I propose that users are given an advanced option to scroll through up to 100 or perhaps 500 mini-thumbnails on a screen at one time. I realize there are some implications with the AJAX & Flash technology, but I think it is worth exploring. This way when you want to go back to that really worthwhile video instead of painfully toggling between pages and waiting patiently for them to load, you would merely have to scan far fewer pages and all recall the thumbnail image(s).
One nice feature in place is a sub-navigation to allow users to view "most recent", "most popular" and "most viewed" videos. I think at one point there was an enhancement to allow users to see videos by country, but that has since been taken down. Additionally, a really cool feature would be for users to be able to save their favorite videos perhaps in a filing cabinet. Lastly, there is a huge opportunity for the applicants to engage each other in commentary (aside from leaving feedback on Youtube), which leaves a Web 2.0 opportunity for setting up a community on this site. The agency who put this concept and web site has done an outstanding job and the sky is only the limit from here.
