Don’t you hate it when you’re looking at a product on a website and you think “I wish I could see that image a little larger…” and then you notice a “View Larger Image” link and think “Oh! Perfect!” and then you click on it, and the larger image is about 5% larger than the image you were just looking at, or sometimes it’s even THE SAME size as the original image? Well, how would you like it if the image you got when you clicked on “View Larger Image” was actually smaller than the original image.
That’s precisely what just happened to me, and I’ve had enough of it so I’m making an example of RC Willey. I happen to be in the market for a dedicated freezer. I’m not sure if that’s what you call it, but to me freezers are a lot like web servers. You’ve got your standard shared fridge/freezer, and then you’ve got a dedicated freezer which does nothing but freeze things, right? Right, so nomenclature aside, let’s move on. As it happens, I went to RC Willey to check out their freezers, and started by looking at the cheapest one, a lovely Frigidaire (clever naming, because “frigid” means cold and “aire” is like “air” only it’s French or something, which means it’s fancier than if it were just Frigidair, or Frigid Air, or something bland like that). It has 5 cubic feet of space, but I don’t really know what that means. I mean, I can guess, but I don’t really know how many pints of Ben & Jerry’s will fit in that.
I’m looking at the photo on the Frigidaire 5-cubic foot webpage on the RC Willey site, but the photo is pretty messed up. It’s grainy, out of focus, and I can’t get any sense of how big the thing is from the photo. I see some things in the freezer but I can’t tell what they are. But help is on the way, because there’s a “View Larger Image” link underneath the photo. So I click on it, and I get a popup window as you see below, not including the red lines and text.
The larger image is actually SMALLER than the original image!!!
What else can I say? Other than that I recommend RC Willey hire a new web design firm.
Lol, that is so funny! I have seen some before that have been pretty bad, but none actually smaller than the original photo. Great post! Totally just made my night.
Josh
I totally agree and this was on my list of blog topics to blather on about.
My experience in retail and in web development has helped me understand that this problem is more than just a web development company problem. The original photos were probably delivered, by the manufacturer or in house out of house photography company, with a variety of problems Things like too small out of focus wrong product, colorization etc. I have seen it all. I have many clients (company owners, marketing departments etc) who struggle to see that professional photos like professional design sell their products better. I have a few clients who actually get it and have very good photographers deliver high quality images in a variety of web developer friendly formats. I don’t know why people don’t get it that a picture is worth a 1000 words.
Let’s not forget the print ads that have grainy placeholder pictures that were missed during the final review… That drives me nuts. Something you are looking for, catches your eye, and as you focus in, you realize that the picture is 5 dpi and you can’t read what it is.
Oh man, I freaking *hate* that. What is the point, people? And are we so bandwidth starved these days that we can’t include large JPEGs with websites?