A Rant on Thumbnails. . .

[catscradle]

Okay, just need to say this because I've been all over the net shopping for beads. Thumbnails - by clicking on them I should get a larger picture so as to see the details. When I click on a thumbnail, I shouldn't get an image of the picture at the same damn size. That sorta misses the point. If you don't have a larger picture, then you don't, in fact, need a thumbnail. You just need a picture. The coding is simpler, trust me on this. I'd say about a good 40% of websites out there do not get this point.

Now, I get that many business do not have the money to hire professional web designers and that they do it themselves armed with the HTML knowledge of one of those laminated cheat sheets you can buy in a bookstore for a buck next to the algebra and geometry ones, but there's a simple logic being missed here and I just find it curious. By looking at your small picture in which there are no details, in what way does clicking on the thumbnail and then looking at the same picture again out of context of the webpage, enhance one's appreciation for the picture? Perhaps those with Attention Deficeit Disorder might get something out of it, but for the vast majority of us, we're just seeing the same picture.

So what do people think they are doing by adding a thumbnail link to the same small picture? Do they simply think that all pictures require a thumbnail? That there is some sort of potocol they must follow or the HTML Standards Police will come looking for them? Or do they really think that the details suddenly come alive when we view the same small picture twice from a slightly different angle?

Granted, it's a petty thing to rant about in the scheme of the world and all it's horrors, just there's only a finite amount of times I can experience this phenomenon without wondering "What the hell?"

Comments

[dirtyoldlady.livejournal.com]

What really drives *me* nuts is when they don't have a thumbnail--say they have a huge, 500x600 pixel image, and they "thumbnail" it by calling up that same image on the webpage, but designating it to display at 50x60 pixels. People on dialup like yours truly don't necessarily have the time or patience to load the freakin' huge image. ^_~

I can just see me now as a granny:

"You kids today have it too easy! Why in my day, we used to have to dial into the 'Net with MODEMS! And sometimes the connection DIDN'T GO THROUGH!" :D

[catscradle.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hear ya on that. I'll chalk that up to lack of graphics knowledge or a graphic program other than the point one all PC come with. The same type of people will take a picture from their digital camera and just chuck it up on the web without compressing the image so it's not 6245K.

It's annoying, but I can understand the ignorance on posting images. Especially in an age were many have DSL, cable or ethernet hookups and don't notice the download time like people with regular phone modems.

But posting thumbnails to the same sized image. . . to me that just defies logic. I mean, they're selling a product - you want to increase the chance people will see the product and want to buy it from you *g*

[dirtyoldlady.livejournal.com]

Yes, definitely. :D Opposite ends of the "don't you even know what a thumbnail *is*?" scale. :D