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"Collections"
Daily Ink
Stored in: Flickr News
Posted On: March 14 2007
By: Bryan Partington
Archival Photo
People have been asking the Flickr Staff for "Sets of Sets" since .. umn .. wow .. I can't even remember since when.
Let's just say that people have been asking, begging, pleading, demanding, screaming for and throwing infantile tantrums about "Sets of Sets" since practically the dawn of Flickr.
.. or at least the dawn of 'sets' anyway.
I've never been much for sets. My line of thought was that any organization you could do with sets could also be done using tags, so what was the point of sets? Of course, Sets aren't about organization as much as they are about presentation. This is to say that tags don't announce to the world that they contain any more than one photo, or that they belong to a comprehensive organizational scheme. Sets do, and people love them for it.
"Collections" have definitely been designed with presentation in mind. Flickr could have gone in a few different directions with the concept. They could have simply created an ability to nest sets in other sets as if they were photos. This would have offered maximum organizational flexibility, but in terms of presentation would have been very awkward. They'd have needed to add an additional line of text below each set listing the number of sets inside, as well as the number of photos. Then there'd be the confusion over the visual look of the "set's frame border" being the same whether it was a set of three photos or a mega-super collection of over 1000 photos. Then you'd be mixing sets and regular photos at the same level of organization inside the super-set, which would be a bit ugly.
So instead Flickr went with a solution that perhaps sacrifices some flexibility for a more distinct nature. When a visitor enters into a collection, they have a decent idea of what it is and what to expect. This will encourage navigation, which is the whole point of 'presentational organization' in the first place. Even the 'mosaic effect' serves to visually differentiate "collections" from "sets", so that while hopping quickly from page to page on a merry ride through flickr, you can catch the differences fairly easily.
Limits and focus are what make sets better at presentation than tags, and limits and focus are what will make "collections" a good complementary feature for sets.
Otherwise, in Flickr News:
- Previously: Flickr 333
Utata Ink is a daily publication edited by Bryan Partington (striatic). Photos used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and obtained via the flickr API unless otherwise noted. To make a contribution to Ink, please visit Ink Me.
