This site, and all its
contents are copyright
©2003-2008 Keith Cooper
How do people see your site?
Survey of professional photographers viewing habits
Below are some results of a small survey carried out of members of the ProDIG mailing list. ProDIG is a (UK based) list for -professional- image makers, with an international membership.
By 2007 the mix has not changed much - more people are using LCD screens and bigger ones at that...
|
|
The What's New Page gives a quick overview of the hundreds of pages of articles and picture on this site. This page is part of the Usability section of our Info and Resources feature |
The survey (2004)
This information has been gleaned from 32 replies.
Whilst most people completed all the details, a couple of items were missing.
Questions allowed multiple responses
Computer type
| 23 Mac users |
3 using OS 9.? |
| 13 PC users |
3 using Win98 |
Screen type
| 18 using CRT's | 12 screens are 19" or less 15 screens are above 19" |
| 8 members are using LCD/TFT screens | |
| 2 using laptops | 1x12" 1x15" |
| Screen resolutions: | 2 at 1024x768 9 at 1152x870 (864) or 1280x854 (960) 20 at 1280x1024 and above |
7 are hoping to soon be moving to LCD/TFT screens.
These 7 people planning on moving to LCD/TFT screens for internet work are likely to be running them at their native resolution of 1280 x 1024
24 using calibrated screens
Browsing style
- 23 browse at full screen
- 8 browse at less than full screen
Browser use
- 4 use netscape
- 18 use Safari
- 13 use IE various versions
- 1 uses Omniweb
- 1 uses Camino
- 2 use Opera
- 4 use Mozilla
Conclusions and discussion
The survey was only intended to give a qualitative view of the web browsing setup of professional photographers.
It would seem that the Apple Macintosh platform is still preferred and that most people have moved to OSX.
Overall, Safari and IE are the browsers of choice.
Many use calibrated screens (as would be expected in this profession) however this has a somewhat variable effect on web graphics (see article on web colour)
Large screens are common and the majority view their pages at full screen size.
From the point of view of someone designing a site for photographers, it would seem clear that you must test your site on PCs and Macs and give some attention to what pages will look like at full size on big screens.
There has been quite a bit of work on browsing habits (Keith used to do HCI research some years ago) and some useful links are included here and in our usability/design page
Web usage patterns
- http://www.govtalk.gov.uk/schemasstandards/egif_document.asp?docnum=804
Document based on UK government study of browser usage patterns in people accessing e-Government sites - http://www.acm.org/sigchi/chi97/proceedings/paper/sg.htm
Academic paper describing some detailed studies of navigational and site visiting patterns - http://www.uie.com/browse/user_behavior/
Interesting articles about user behaviour
Other areas of our site that may be of interest...
NEW -- Create your own customised A3 size wall calendar from a choice of 90 of Keith's images. Choose your own images for your own custom printed calendar - 12 months starting any month of the year - many all new images not yet in our main gallery.
Digital Black and White. Keith was recently interviewed about digital black and white photography for a magazine article. We have an expanded version here covering some of his thoughts, techniques and tips for those thinking of trying black and white.
As well as our Commercial Photography services and Training there is a growing collection of photography Articles and Reviews on the site aimed at helping you get the best out of your own photography. We also have a growing collection of Photography related information and links that we hope you find useful.
New site features and some of Keith Cooper's latest work are always covered in the What's New page.
Visiting Leicester or wondering where it is? We have views from the Leicester traffic cameras.