23: Ideas for reforming the interface for stories. Basically,...

Ideas for reforming the interface for stories. Basically, the thinking is to add more flexibility in setting up stories -- but we really want to keep the feature simple as well. How would you like the Stories section to act? (Speak now, or forever hold your peace...)

15 comments so far...

abertram February 24, 2006, 08:18 AM

I love the idea of "layouting" looks a little static with the template paradigme, but maybe it has to be that way in this web environment.

Could this freestyle layout thing be applied to other functions like "my personal billboard" "my self presentation" or maybe a group "throuh up", where people can add content to a story or a visual landscape... more in the lines of collaboration - content creation in organic groups.

Steffen Fagerström Christensen Team 23 February 24, 2006, 08:42 AM

Yup, it's static to say the least -- but I'm afraid of having a drop-n-drop app with floating photos. It's simply going to scare off the novice user (and probably everybody else). Havew you guys seen any examples of this working well?

The freestyle layout will be applied to your own presentation once it's done. No doubt about that. Could you ellaborate a bit more on the other ones? Sounds like great ideas...

Jean-Pierre Avakian February 24, 2006, 12:31 PM

One small nice feature if you could have something like a blog this feature for stories. Write down the storty, click blog this and voila, goes to your blog. :) I'd love to see that.

Steffen Fagerström Christensen Team 23 February 24, 2006, 12:36 PM

"Blog this story" is already there. We added that a few weeks back -- voila :-)

Andreas Johannsen February 24, 2006, 01:35 PM

You rock. Did you know that?

Jean-Pierre Avakian February 24, 2006, 01:55 PM

You guys really do rock :) I was just going to reply back with the same answer, but Andreas was faster than me :D

Actually I was going to say you guyz RULE !!!

God bless 23... :)

Steffen Fagerström Christensen Team 23 February 24, 2006, 02:26 PM

Didn't know that, no. ;-)

Stories is something that has a lot of potential, but we've felt for a long time that we didn't "nail" the implementation on the first go. Our thinking is to:
- Add some flexibility while keeping the "ease of use" of the current stories. Anybody should be able to add stories, but it'd be nice to be able to arrange photos, resize photos, add links, bolden text, and so on.
- Enable commenting of stories (and include those comments in Conversations).
- Make it easy to send stories via e-mail -- to one or more receipeints.
- Add more hints like "Add these photos to a new story" elsewhere on the site.
- Use the same thinking in the user's own profile. Just as abertram said.
- Enable multiple users to compose stories together through the upcoming groups/zones/areas feature. Again, I really don't know how that'd work. But it would be a very cool feature!

Jean-Pierre Avakian February 25, 2006, 12:24 AM

Keep it up :)

suchayarn February 26, 2006, 03:17 AM

The story feature is one of the best things about 23. I would like to see some kind of notation on the front page that lets readers know there is a story behind this photo. I think the separate sections for writing the story is a little confusing and not necessary. Thanks and keep it coming!

Steffen Fagerström Christensen Team 23 February 26, 2006, 10:59 AM

Everyfiber, you're right: We need to let people know when there are "stories behind the photo". Very good pointe!

I don't know about the other thing, though. The alternative to having fixed sections containing one photo each would be to allow unlimited dragging and dropping. To me doing this would be begging for trouble. Firstly, most Word users have trouble placing images how they want them, and we wouldn't be able to do drag-n-drop as well as Microsoft. And secondly, having fixed section allows us to present data in a structured way. This means for example you could have 3rd party applications designed to help you write stories, or other services presenting stories in new ways. Imagine a service combining 23 Stories and Google Maps :-)

voss February 26, 2006, 02:03 PM

I second the idea about some sort of notification about stories related to a picture, or maybe even highlight it on the front page somehow.

While creating my first story today, I forgot to add an image that was to be placed in the beginning of the story, and although I love the simple interface, it would be nice to be able to decide if you want append or prepend any pictures you add to the story. I had to hit 'move up' about 10 times, which was a bit unnecessary.

Steffen Fagerström Christensen Team 23 February 26, 2006, 02:20 PM

Yup, voss, you're right. We'll add a "Add photo here" icon between all sections in the stories.

Two more things I've been wondering:
1. Does it make sense to tag stories, or should we just rely on photo taggings? (And how should those tags be handled on tag pages? Hmm... that's gonna cause trouble.)
2. Should we allow using photos from other users in stories? The big problem is that you wouldn't have any control of the photo. Alternatively, we could allow this for Creative Commons photos only, and then copy the photos to the original user's account?

suchayarn February 26, 2006, 09:40 PM

Tagging photos seems sufficient to me. As for allowing others to use the photos, seems like that should be limited to CC photos. I'm probably dreaming here but would it be possible to have audio stories linked to photos/photostream?

Steffen Fagerström Christensen Team 23 February 26, 2006, 10:06 PM

About audio: You're not the first to ask, and we'd love to do it! I'm visualizing something like an extended slideshow, narrated or underpinned by music. Stories would go from being a cool combo of photo and text to a multimedia experience. But the $1,000,000 question is: How do we solve this technically? Perhaps a Flash-app, which uses the users microfon? Uploading mp3s? I really don't know...