I am currently working with a really awesome research group out of UCLA Libraries called Simul8. The purpose of the research group is to experiment with new designs for UCLA Library Services. The designs include revamping the current library website, but also go beyond to web to thinking about incorporating mobile technologies, and even rethinking the design of work spaces.
The first project that we have been working on is thinking of new interface designs for the UCLA image collection. The image collection contains thousands on images from a variety of topics including science, architecture, history, and art just to name a few. Currently, users have to select a specific image collection from long list, and then perform a search. The search interface differs for every collection, and honestly assumes expert users.
In order to broaden our thinking about image navigation, as a group, we did a competitive analysis of sorts, and found websites that have interesting image navigation features. I thought I would share some of these sites in case anyone else is working in this domain (in no particular order).
Flickr Related Tag Browser
http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/related_tag_browser/app/
NASA Image Gallery
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/iotd.html
Live Labs
http://livelabs.com/seadragon/
Simple Viewer
http://www.airtightinteractive.com/photos/
Mood Stream by Getty Images
http://moodstream.gettyimages.com/
Tilt Viewer
http://www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/tiltviewer/app/
Viewz
http://www.viewzi.com/search/whitevoid-photocloud/
Hardrock
http://memorabilia.hardrock.com/
SFMOMA Artscope
http://www.sfmoma.org/pages/artscope
Glocal
http://www.glocal.ca/
Horizontal Scrolling
http://www.simonhoegsberg.com/we_are_all_gonna_die/slider.html
Pattern Tap
http://patterntap.com/tap
Filed under: Design , image navigation
