This exercise is to look at the websites of magazines and newspapers that feature slideshows.
So what is a slideshow
In common with many people my age, much of my childhood and early family life was recorded on slide film. And I myself used slide film in my first camera as a teenager. We would sometime view these by holding them up to the light or by placing them in a simple viewer unit but the real excitement came when we had a slideshow evening. This involved setting up a large screen and then arranging the slides in cartridge or carousel units to feed the projector. There would always be a few that ended up backwards or upside down. Viewing was a very interactive affair, the family would be gathered and discussions would often involve lots of pointing to areas of the screen.
Over the years I have accumulated many slides from grandparents and will hopefully take custody of my parents slides at some point. However I don't currently have a good working projector or a suitable scanner (needs to have backlighting).
But the term
slideshow has evolved and now would more commonly be taken to mean "any display in the form of a series of static images, such as on a computer screen".
Examples
The course notes direct us to look at a series of examples:
Characteristics
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Do the different sites present slideshows in essentially the same way, or are there subtle or substantial differences between them?"
The Guardian: This is unusual in that it starts to play sound as soon as the show starts. This is one of the 'cinematic' ones due to the pan and zoom effects applied to the stills. Images can be viewed with or without caption text. With captions active, navigation is then a matter of following the links from there.
The New York Times: This didn't seem to be a slideshow as such, more a sequence of images to step through manually. That said, I liked the simplicity.
The Times: Again not really a slideshow, another series of images to step through manually. Quick to load and update. All image links route via a login page so a very short experience for non-subscribers.
Paris Match: This delivers large images and is what I would consider more 'sensational' in its content and therefore layout (e.g. lots of use of the colour red). The mechanism is a little unorthodox, each page seems to redirects to another on a timer.
Stern: For me the link provided by the OCA always gives a 404 error (page not found). My inability to read German meant traversing the site was difficult but I did manage to find a few image sets. These were presented simply on 'clean' pages in a way typical of more serious news.
Telegraph: Nice big photos and plenty of social-media type sharing options.
So there are numerous differences between the various slideshows, sufficient to give very different overall viewing experiences.
Some basic characteristics I can identify include:
- Position within a page and sizing
- Proximity to advertising and other content
- Play controls (stop/start/pause/full screen etc)
- Navigation controls and linking
- Sound
- Transitions (effects and speed)
- Technology used (Javascript/Flash etc)
- Performance (bandwidth usage/load times etc)
- Sharing options (social media options, Tweet this etc)
Common Features
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Are there any features that all the slideshows have in common?"
In the loosest sense yes, they all have a set of images in a sequence that can be viewed on screen and that either carry caption information and/or link to further news items. Beyond that the numerous variations in approach mean that no two are really the same.
Viewer Choice
"
How do the slideshows differ in the amount of choice that they offer the viewer for playing them? Is the viewer choice a good thing?"
Again this varies by site and implementation. Generally the viewer cannot do anything beyond the configuration options offered by their browser. Some sites offer the viewer limited options. These include stepping forward and backward through the sequence. Displaying thumbnails. Displaying in full screen (though the resolution doesn't usually increase so can go very blocky).
If I were a regular visitor to a site I would welcome more options for viewing so I could tailor my experience to my own preferences.
Failings
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What are the most obvious failings, in your opinion, of these slideshows?"
My first impressions of the slideshows from the sample links were not good, they all seemed to have issues for me. And I am always surprised to see how many HTML errors (standards violations) these pages have (counts included below), which makes browser rendering somewhat of a lottery:
The Guardian: The Flash based content will prevent those accessing from Apple platforms. This starts to play sound as soon as the show starts and with no obvious way to turn it off. Irritating if your are listening to music or maybe browsing in an open environment (office space). Navigation was my main issue here. Clicking on the images just seemed to stop and start the show. To find the news item I had to activate the captions and follow the links from there. Linked content opened over the slide show, using the browser back button then reloads the page and so the slideshow resets so there is little continuity if you wanted to then view the next story.
30 HTML errors.
The New York Times: This didn't seem to be a slideshow as such, just a series of images to step through manually. That said, I liked the simplicity.
62 HTML errors
The Times: Until you mouse over there is no visual cue that this is anything other than a single still image. Again not really a slideshow, another series of images to step through manually. All image links route via a login page so a very short experience for non-subscribers.
32 HTML errors
Paris Match: Too much RED, aarrggghhh. And the timed jumps are completely independent of the viewer, it changes even if you still looking at the current page.
596 HTML errors (anybody's guess as to how the page should display, amazing it does)
Stern: I liked the clean simple presentation, no major criticisms here.
30 HTML errors
Telegraph: I accidentally mouse-overed one of the ads and it immediately expanded to cover over the slideshow. Because of this I found the advertising content far too invasive. Image transition involved re-loading the whole page so content 'jumps' about. This was truly awful for me.
166 HTML errors (wonder it displays at all!).
NB Pages can be
validated at
http://validator.w3.org/. As a Firefox user I like the
HTML Validator plugin.
Pages can also be
tested for accessibility, always a challenge for multi-media type presentations. An example tool would be the
HiSoftware Cynthia Says.
Features to include
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If you were constructing a slideshow for one of these sites, list the features you would include, based on your experience so far?"
As a viewer the objectives and therefore the desirable characteristics are not necessarily the same as those for providers. As a viewer the priority is finding interesting and relevant news and being able to drill down for more detail where required. As a provider the whole enterprise has to be financially viable, which typically means the two routes of advertising based revenue or subscription news services.
I like the animation of something like the Guardian but want to see the associated news without jumping away, so more like The New York Times.
See my earlier post for notes on how I have used the Nivo Slider for news items on my own website:
http://ocaphotopwdp.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/web-portfolio-technology.html
Set apart
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What features set your two chosen sites apart from the rest?"
Of the sites the two I prefer are Stern and The Times. This is because they offer static pages that don't jump about and don't have distracting animated advertising. They also offer simple navigation allowing the viewer to proceed at their own pace.
