Flickr
Being someone that started designing user interfaces and interactions in the mid nineties when the work was steeped in physical metaphors, e.g. ‘the desktop’, and misalignment were clear indications of the strength or weakness of the metaphor, I find it interesting that these ‘rules’ are being ‘broken’ with wild abandon. I see user interface visual rendering’s light source that do not adhere to any ‘laws of physics’ I am aware of to date. In addition, I see interactions that can only exist in that would only be allowed in a professional enterprise application where people tens of thousands for a ‘seat.’
With that stated, there are two things that are of interest now in Flickr -
- the ‘Photostream’ and its relationship to the Sets;
- the relationship to the other social site
Photostream and Sets
I am not sure why I would need to refer to my page as a ‘Photostream’ as oppose to something more typical like ‘album’ or ‘collection.’ Moreover, the metaphor / taxonomy does not seem cohesive in its current state – ‘~stream’ and ‘sets.’ Again, if I had to imagine an improvement, it would suggest either ‘rivers’ and ‘streams’ or ‘album’ and ‘set.’
Flickr in the social space
One of the things that is odd to me about the Flickr experience is how it relates to the rest of the social community.
Understand…
