Do people actually prefer multi-page views?

[chojan]

In some of my galleries, I have a moderate number of photos (eg. 40), and wondered if it truly is advisable to split them into multiple page views, instead of allowing all to show up on a single page.

My concern with multi-page is that the average non-pbase user may not even notice that there are extra pages to view.

I expect that the whole reason for the multi-page view is to help give those with non-broadband connections a quick view of the first set of photos, instead of having a random assortment of the entire page's list come up over time.

So, I am curious -- do people really think it is still better to split the pages?

Thx,
Cal.

[chojan]

One clarification -- by "all photos on a page" in the poll, I am still suggesting a reasonable upper bound, ie. < 100

[matiasasun]

One clarification -- by "all photos on a page" in the poll, I am still suggesting a reasonable upper bound, ie. < 100

Maybe they´re two responses top this question, at least for me:
a) As the site manager, it depends on the kind of pictures, and the final number. I would say 45-45 pictures per page is the top (I have two with 60 pic/per/page anyway); I always try to stay unde those numbers... A hundred looks like too much for me...

b) As a visitor on another Pbaser galleries I must admit I almost never take a peek at the second page, and if there are three, four or more I just give up. Too much pictures always creates the effect of: "wow, there is too much, and it is gonna be hard to choose" so I just pick. It is even harder if the pictures have nothing in common; that really makes me nervous... But what really makes me crazy are huge galleries with no differences between images; hundreds of similar shoots

So, my guess is that galleries should have less than 50 images in a single well design page, like in an exposition. If that cannot be done, we´ll have to judge if the second page deserves a visit. A lot of them do...

Matias

[jypsee]

It's my understanding that if there are many photos on one page, especially if the visitor is on dialup, then it may take a good long time for the page to load. My family overwhelmingly use dialup and they look at the thumbnails and often don't look at the photo. That's one reason I don't use dim thumbnails.
I have 17 pages of nine photos per page in a gallery of birds of SW Florida. My solution to first page only viewers is to rotate the pictures to the top page from time to time.
I was interested in Matias' concern about what to look at when there are too many photos. When the subject is all the same thing, such as my fleur gallery, then I try to make the photos distinct so that the variety is appealing. And, given time, most photos get viewed mutiple times. If the viewer is interested in the topic of the gallery, then they take time to go through the pages. I think this changes if the topic or focus of the gallery is more diverse, such as in my semidaily gallery; a casual browser is probably not going to look at all the pages (more reason for bright thumbnails).