It was a little funny for us to win a Webby Award for Best Navigation/Structure (we also won for Best Practices – yay!). "Funny" because we’ve always felt like there were some big changes we needed to make. As Flickr grew organically, the site became a little, well … "rambly" over the years. So, we’re changing it :)
Breaking with the grand Flickr tradition of just whipping the tablecloth out from underneath you, we thought it might be more polite to let you know that there are some changes coming, what that means for you and why we think it’s better.
So, while we were flattered by the judges’ opinion, here are the first of the changes we’ll be releasing in the next week:
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New Navigation
We’ve rationalized the site’s navigation, cleaned it up and (hopefully) made it much easier for both new users and experienced users. The new system breaks down into: You, Your Contacts, Your Groups & The World (aka Explore).
Aside from that, there are some other large changes in the new release:
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New Search
Search has been greatly improved (with full booleans and multiple tags, you’ll be AND, OR, NOT and +ing and -ing your heart out), We’ve also added a search box to the top of every page and redesigned the results pages, so you can search for anything from anywhere. -
New and Improved Organizr
We’ve given the Organizr a complete overhaul, aiming for maximum speed, more flexibility in searching and browsing while making your workspace bigger. -
Person Menu
The pink balloon? Popped! Now you can mouse over anyone’s buddy icon and get a useful menu which lets you jump directly to their photos, profile, favorites and more. -
More Photos
In our continuing efforts to show you the millions of photos on Flickr, we’ve bumped up the number of photos you can see on most pages around the site. (And, when you’re searching, you can toggle between seeing thumbnails or a larger version of each photo with some extra information.)
We’ll post more details just before and right after we launch. Now back to testing and debugging…