We are now in the Web 2.0 era. Where blogging has become cool, social networking rules, and terms like AJAX, tags, RSS and podcasts have become commonplace. But how do these next generation websites enhancing the User Experience? Flickr is one such site that has taken digital photo organization and sharing to the next level.

Before and After
Before Flickr, sharing photos with others was a pain that was not very user-friendly. Users had to create folders/albums, upload photos, add descriptions, and figure out a way to distribute it to their friends and family. Flickr has taken the album analogy out of the equation, instead focusing on interconnectivity of user tagging and using the metadata already available.

The Users
With 30 million unique visitors each month and over 8 million registered members, Flickr has to appeal to many different kinds of Users of different ages and computer knowledge, which means the user experience, is of utmost importance. Each User has a different purpose for visiting the site. A registered member may go on the site to upload his or her latest photos. A regular visitor may use it to search for a photo. A first time visitor might have heard or read about it and wants to see what all the fuss is about.

Sign Me Up
Flickr’s goal is to sign up new visitors for their service to become a member. The homepage and site itself is done pretty well to try and accomplish this task. A button to create an account is proximately displayed up top. Their tagline “Share your photos. Watch the world.” is big and bold and immediately gives a first time visitor an idea of what the site is all about. Below that, a familiar search box. The use of white space around the sign up button, tagline, and search help make each of these important parts of the site stand out and be more noticeable. The bottom half of the screen allows someone to learn more about the features and functions Flickr provides. The tour itself is well organized, clearly explaining the features and benefits with matching screenshots. At the bottom of each page of the tour there is another big button to sign up to be a member.

Searching
A search for “apple ipod” brings up a lot of results but also a confusing screen with many different options to look at. Not only is there a main search box but there is another one on the top right corner. What makes matters worse is there are text links for a “Camera Search” and another link for an “Advanced Search”. Scrolling down a little further below the advertisements is a third search box for Yahoo! search. With so many search options, it can be quite confusing of which one to use and what results to expect from each. Flickr should just have one and only one search box so there is no ambiguity.

Layout
On my fully maximized browser I only was able to see 2.5 photos because of so many links and options up top,. It would be better to clean up the top so it is not as confusing and so the User can see more photos initially. Also, the ads on the left hand side of the screen do nothing except diminish the user experience. Studies have shown that web visitors initially focusing on the left side. For a site that stresses photos, why show them ads when they expect pictures? Simply switching the photos to the left and the ads to the right would benefit the User (although probably would lower Flickr’s advertising revenue). A simple rearranging of the layout produces a search screen that looks much more visually pleasing and would enhance the user experience:

Current		Improved

Final Word
Flickr has all the social aspects of a Web 2.0 site. The interface design of Flickr is done well considering the vast differences of Users age and experience they have to satisfy. But with so many users and visitors daily to the site, the usability of the search results page could probably be improved. Hopefully, when Flickr comes out of their perpetual beta, they will make changes that focus on the User and improve the usability of their site.