A simple Flickr.com footer redesign
We all love Flickr. It’s a mostly simple and beautifully designed site that really works. Thing is, over the years it evolved into something much more than a photo sharing community: new features were added, others were polished, some were dropped. That’s a good thing; evolution is the core of success of every service, after all.
The other day I found myself looking at the Flickr footer, marvelling at how well, undistinct it all was. It’s a set of links that looks kinda thrown together in lines, with a reduced font-size and not enough white space to boot. So I thought, hey, can this be done differently?
This is what I came up with, after 10 mins or so:
Some explanations:
- I dropped the table Flickr uses, I don’t see its use anyway, even in its current form, it can easily be done without it. I used an unordered list containing a level 6 header and another unordered list with the links.
- I removed the Activity section - it was too vague and the only thing that I check anyway is my comments, a link that I have moved to “You” column, since it sounds more appropriate.
- I dropped the “Order Prints” link - I understand Flickr and its need to get some money, but let’s be frank here, who’s gonna use a footer link to order prints? Highly unlikely.
- I also dropped the “Last 7 days” link, since its content is contained in the “Last Month” section anyway.
- I moved the unlabeled series of links to a separate column called “Flickr”.
I don’t know if it’s better, but in my eye, it’s more evident. You can clearly identify the different link blocks, and use of white space eased the procedure of scanning and finding a particular link. Sure, it takes more space than the previous one and it’s probably not suitable for every page, but this is a matter of IA, a whole different matter.
June 27th, 2008 at 11:51 am
Καλώς σε βρίσκω και καλό Σαββατοκύριακο!
June 27th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Suggest it to Flickr! It’s awesome!!!
June 27th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
It’s an interesting take. I agree that it looks easier to use and cleaner than the original version. Was it on purpose that you left out the In Your Groups link and if so why?
June 27th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
To be honest I never paid attention to that footer and never ever used it.
Maybe because of it’s design.Isn’t it useless anyway? These buttons also exist on the header…
June 27th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Your redesign reminds me of Digg.com footer
Clever!
June 27th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
@Antonis I did left out the Groups link, maybe subjectively so because I don’t belong to any groups (none that I check, anyway). There is a groups module on the top of the page, plus it’s always available from the menu.
@stelios Not all of them exist in the header. Plus, you dont wanna go all the way up to the top of the page just to find your “Organize” link, believe me.
@stelabouras Maybe, but I don’t really dig (har har) Digg’s all-caps.
June 27th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
It is obviously far better than the official
June 30th, 2008 at 10:34 am
I like the old better.
Useless (but necessary) links should use the less space possible and not attract the eye. + the old way can have variable number of links without loosing its “design”.
p.s. This is just a personal opinion (as always)
June 30th, 2008 at 7:11 pm
@Svelon I agree that the new design is not very flexible, but you missed the point: The point was to make the footer more usable than it currently is.
Footer is not always a place for “useless” links, it can hold much info, presented in a way that makes sense.