Over the weekend, I've been doing some extensive image search for one of my online campaigns. I wanted a portrait of a Team manager preferably in his 50s with a happy look on his face which will suggest 'how easy it is for him to manage data with the help of this particualr tool for which i was doing the campaign. Additionally if the image had people in the background, out of focus, like his subordinates, will add value to the campaign messaging.
User behaiour in image search portals:The clarity in the kind of image a user wants as they start to search will be about 30-40% as you keep refining your search keywords is when you will arrive at the right kind of image.
I used istockphotos because they have a good repository and affordably priced. The moment you enter the keyword and hit on search... automatically the option to do a 'new search' changes into 'search within'.... Everytime i have to do a new search I have to change it from 'Search within' to 'New search' adding to more number of clicks and interupting on the thought flow. It was very annoying.
And I also noticed that it threw some completely unusable search parameters as reference for the image keyword i was looking for.
If the option to do a 'Search within' was by choice, it would have been more usable and time saving instead of assuming user behaviour in best possible scenario and automatically changing the search criteria.
This morning I thought I will send my feedback on this particular usability issue to istockphoto and to my surprise they din't have their feedback button upfront. I had to do some searching for that as well... I did manage to find it and have posted my comment. Lets see if they take user feedback seriously.
That apart I found the right image that will suit my copy.
http://www.istockphoto.com/ has a very good image repository and the best part is you can get a good image for web usage as low as $1. These minor edits on crtical functionalities will enable the user to use the site more effeciently.
