 |
| Big Companies are Making Big Website Changes: Part II
|
|
| Friday, November 09, 2007 |
Getty Images is not a mainstream consumer site, but it is a mainstream site for graphic and web designers. The recent redesign came as a shock to my system, "Where is everything? How do I do this now?" It must have shocked many others as well. From the home page you can Go to previous site. This is a good indicator that something went wrong.
Once inside of a product search, the new design makes more sense. The left column navigation is very useful. Part of the art of finding the right photo is figuring out how to wade through the maze of photos that you do not want. The new website offers a number of ways to accomplish this easily. In addition, instead of having to click through to another page when viewing the multi-product listing page, you can click a small icon near each photo to "View more images like this." Access to this feature on the multi-product listing page has cut my photo searching time by 50%.
Back in the boom days, it became clear that massive design overhauls on popular websites was risky business. Forcing a user to learn too many new features at once can have dire consequences -- he may leave the site and purchase elsewhere. "Slow rollouts" became a standard in the industry for this reason. Getty chose the riskier route, and as such, now maintains two massive sites: the new site and the legacy site.
|
Posted by Colleen |
|
| 
|
|
|
|
|
