30 Oct 2003 | Paul said...

Absolutely agreed.

It seems that the Gap's ilk are just as noteworthy; while perusing clothes at Old Navy last week, I found they had a "view on one page" option. It was better than paging through all 26 pages.

30 Oct 2003 | One of several Steves said...

I've started noticing this option more and more. Which is a very good thing. If you've got a broadband connection, it's usually quicker to load one page with all the results rather than click through page-by-page. And it allows much easier comparison, instead of having to go back and forth because you're torn between an item on Page 2 and an item on Page 8.

It's a quick and simple way to give control to the user, which almost always helps improve customers' perceptions of the site and the company.

30 Oct 2003 | Martin Mes said...

For a reasonably small set of results, a "view all at once" option is helpful. If the number of items is too large (hundred plus?), you'll want to choose the number of results shown. Good example: Alamy.com

31 Oct 2003 | Chris from Scottsdale said...

I agree, this is a great feature. One thing I like about the Getty site (you mentioned Alamy.com, Martin) is that I can view I think 90 images on one page. That's my default.

Chris

31 Oct 2003 | dmr said...

Absolutely nothing is more lame than clicking 'next' 250 times to get thru a few hundred images. Gimme 200 at a time!

Gigposters.com is a great site, but I don't think I can go back anymore just for this very reason. I just can't click thru 20,000 images 9 up on a page; how lame!

31 Oct 2003 | Don Schenck said...

I think sites limit the number per page because some programmer said "it's too hard" to make the number of images per page configurable.

I forget the book -- Code Complete maybe? -- but I read a book that said "it's too hard" is NEVER a valid reason.

My answer is always: "We can do anything you want, given enough time and money".

31 Oct 2003 | said...

iStockphoto.com is the worst and this function was sorely needed in it's redesign. You have the option of setting the number of results, but oddly it only adds 1 to 3 extra rows of photos...dumb.

31 Oct 2003 | Matthew Oliphant said...

My answer is always: "We can do anything you want, given enough time and money".

That's a line I use at work. But it ends up going like this:

Me: Is 60% of your users "getting" the application enough?

Them: No way, we want 100%!

Me: It will take another 3,000 hours and 4 months just to get to 90%.

Them: How about 70%?

31 Oct 2003 | Matthew Oliphant said...

Oh, and an on-thread comment... :)

One of the reasons for not filling a page with images of "all" products available, such as the 90 and 200 examples given above, (other than bandwith availability) is mental load of the user.

My guess is that even though a user can view 24, 90, 200 images on a page at a time, comapring anything in the last 1/3 with anything in the first 1/3 will be difficult, because the information stored in working memory for the first 1/3 is already gone, replaced by stuff in the last 1/3.

Taking into consideration what is available in the viewing pane of a Web page, having 24 fit in a view on a 21" monitor with 1280x1024 resolution might work, but most people (granted, home users) are still on 17" monitors with 1024x768 and 800x600 resolution (these 2 resolutions are neck-and-neck).

I bet most people prefer to see a badoopie-load (tech term) of images at a time, but for comparison purposes (as opposed to foraging for a particular item that already specifically fits the users predetermined need) I bet [hedge] the option of 6 to 12 (or 7 +/- 2 :) images at a time is beter for performance.

One option that helps is offering the user a "maybe" option. As they scroll through all the images they can tag each one they think might work for them, then reload the page with all their "maybes". I haven't seen this used much, but here's an example of what I mean, even though they only display 15 at a time.

31 Oct 2003 | Ben in Chicago said...

At my day job, we have a technical limitation on search results. For any given query, our engine will return an arbitrarily large result set. It fetches the results a chunk at a time. So the idea of "Show All Results" does not really apply.