Sunnyvale, California — Just a week ago Yahoo Inc. signed a search deal with Microsoft, while in another development earlier today, the company announced some big changes to its social-bookmarking site Delicious. Now, Yahoo-owned photo sharing site Flickr has a redesigned search results page. Yahoo claims the new design makes it easier to browse through the billions of photos and videos on the site, and to connect to the communities that can help make sense of them.
Similar to the way many search engines display a range of thumbnails, users can now break-down through small or medium size previews of photos, and view detailed information about the shot without even having to visit its photo page. It is also a lot more direct in the way it leads users to various other parts of the service such as groups, other users, and photos with similar tags. These suggestions now sit on the right-hand side of the results page.
Flickr’s new search allows you to view things like metadata and view counts, without having to venture into the photo’s page on Flickr. (Credit: CNET)
Noteworthy of these enhancements is the new “View” controls that appear at the top of the Flickr image search results page. This View exhibits the image results in different sizes and formats.
“Note the new ‘View’ controls at the top of the page, these allow you to display the results in different sizes and formats,” says Shanan Delp on the Flickr Blog.
Furthermore, there is also the addition of an “i” icon every thumbnail for both small and medium views, clicking this icon provides more detailed information about a particular photo or image. We are also doing some whiz bang stuff in the small view to take advantage of as much space as you have on your screen, just try resizing your browser to see, Delp said.
Flickr has also enhanced on the formation of links corresponding to the current search results. These links are based on how Flickr users have tagged photos and include links to photographers, tag clusters and places related to the current search.
Also included to the Flickr search result page is a side menu displaying pictures based on their tags. You will get recommendations for:
- Groups
- Photographers
- Tag clusters
- Places that are most closely related
Now, when a user performs a more sophisticated search using more descriptive search terms that will bring out a more specific search result, the Flickr search result page will display these descriptive terms at the top of the page truncated on how the Flickr search algorithm interprets this in the most sensible way. Clicking on this descriptive filters will bring in more relevant search results.
“Lastly, we are exposing simple summary information on the page as you refine your search,” says Delp. “For example, try looking for Creative Commons licensed videos of dogs made after 1st January 2009 and you will see all that information listed above your search. Over time, we will bring more and more advanced features directly into the page.”