Allen Ellison’s Technobabble

I discovered an application that combines two of my passions: photography and Adobe AIR.  I should preface this by mentioning that my comments are taking into account two other AIR applications that also allow you to browse Flickr (DestroyFlickr and Skimmer) and Flickr.com’s own in-browser features (which are impressive particularly when it comes to their slideshow presentation which is Flash and the Flickr Organizer which is one of the more seamless AJAX applications I’ve seen).

You can find out more and download the application at flickroom.org.

The Installation Experience

Unfortunately, it’s par for the course.  Like most AIR application installation badges, it’s appearance is always the same…regardless, and does not change if the user already has the application installed, or it’s already running, or do anything interesting from an integration perspective. In addition, the user isn’t provided with any information about the progress of the installation.  But to be fair to the folks at Flickroom, this is true for most Adobe AIR applications. For an example of a state-aware installation badge, check out mlb.com/onbase

A larger concern is that the application hasn’t been signed by a Certificate Authority (it’s a self-signed application), which means that the user has no guarantee that the Publisher is who they think it.  It’s a bad practice and it prevents risk-adverse users from installing the application.  Again, Flickroom hardly stands alone when it comes to this practice.

First Impression

There’s a whole lot of functionality built into this application — which is impressive — but unfortunately, the UI is confusing and it’s unclear to the user how much functionality is available, how to accomplish what they’re wanting to do, who the application is actually targeted at, and how to navigate the application.  For example, if you select another Flickr user, it’s unclear how you would return to the view that is about you.  As a photographer, as egotistical as this sounds, I’m always returning to my photostream so that I can manage it.  I’ve come to the conclusion that the UI is heavily inspired by Adobe Lightroom’s UI — but any functionality that varies from Lightroom’s is enfused with different UI metaphors that causes confusion.

• Top-Level navigation — it’s unclear what actually is the top-level navigation — is it the icons at the very top? The tab on the left (which I can’t seem to get back and am not even sure how I closed it)? Or the words across the top “Profile | Photostream | …”
• Back/Forward buttons at the top — while in theory I assume they’re supposed to work like a browser’s back/forward buttons, I have a difficult time mapping it’s concept of history to what I remember clicking on.
• Collapsible Top-Level Menu — why?
• Photostream Browsing — I like the fact that Flickr refers to it as a stream — and a stream implies a smooth flowing sequence of imagery, as opposed to PhotoChunks when the user is forced to select between arbitrary chunks of photos (1-30, 31-60, etc.).
• FullScreen/Maximize Application — You can maximize the application, but so far as I can tell, you can’t make it go full-screen.  Unforgivable for a flawless playback experience.  Also, I’ve fallen in love with the UI the Skimmer folks created to manage the minimized/maximized/full-screen/widget state — worth taking a look at.
• Browser/Flickroom Integration — It would be awesome from a viral marketing perspective if I could embed an object in my HTML text to allow Flickroom users to view my picture full-screen against an intended background for the image..as a light-weight experience.  Adobe AIR allows that (and it could double as an installation badge, extra whammy!)
• In-Browser Widget — they do offer an in-browser experience of the application that requires your yahoo email address to tie it back to your photostream? Wha? While my Yahoo ID might not be a secret on Flickr.com, I’d like it to be and it’s confusing why you can’t use your Flickr ID.  This might be a Flickr API issue, but I am surprised.  Oddly enough, the in-browser experience doesn’t launch the application if I already have it installed.  That would be my preference.
• Live Feed — this is great! a real-time notification of Flickr events.  No idea how I opt in or out of different types of notifications, or even how I disable them, but it’s a move in the right direction.  Unfortunately, while writing this blog article, someone posted a comment about one of my photos, and I received four separate toast alerts about that one comment.  Also, if I’m going into a meeting, I guess I have to kill the application to keep from getting the toast alerts.  I have a whole lot of opinions about notification applications that I’ll save for another blog post. At least when you quit the application, it quits.
• Chat — a good idea still in its infancy.  Photophlow has much more potential as a photograph community sharing UI — it’d be cool if these folks joined forces.

What’s Missing

Everything I’ve mentioned until now are issued that can be refined over time.  As a photographer though, it seems like there’s a niche that’s un-addressed — the photographer that wants to manage his/her online portfolio — and that means powerful tools for managing groups of photographs (both formal and ad hoc), managing tags, photograph titles, descriptions, adding them to groups, etc.  In essence, taking Flickr’s Organizer to the next level.

I can’t wait to see the next version!