DesignKlicks

I found it! The most annoying website in the world: DesignKlicks. According to the FAQ, DesignKlicks is a forum for photographers, designers, fashionistas, and other artists to show a personal vision to the wider public for free. These images and ideas are usually locked up in glossy fashion and art magazines that are not necessarily available to regular people for browsing. In my opinion, it is an interesting site with lots of cool content but is a accessibility and navigation nightmare.

The text is available in German or English, though not everything is translatable. Some text stays in German. There are little squares that you can click to change the background color of the site, which I think it unnecessary.

Intended Audience

People interested in new aesthetic ideas. Or extremely patient fans of high photography. I think the whole point of people posting to the site is that you can rank how much you like the photos. The winners get special recognition and less-liked photos get taken down.

Usefulness of Content

In the grand scheme, not terribly useful. But the photos are pretty. Good for keeping up with new ideas and seeing new artists.

Consistency of Design

If "irritating" can be a design quality where consistency is measured, then yes the site is consistent.

Navigation

The navigation in this site is not like anything I've seen. What I want to talk about are the "top," "index," "scape," and "cloud" navigational elements. The top view shows all recent photos in large format. This is where you vote on things you like. The index view shows thumbnails of many photos all shoved up next to each other. The scape view is one of those maddening floating-in-space bubbles of pictures where you just shoot from one photo to the next looking at things by moving your mouse and clicking. I have seen this technology employed with words and concepts that are related (like a virtual thesaurus) where things are connected but floating and you can jump from one related concept to the next. The photos don't really seem related though so you are just jumping around. Lastly, the cloud view shows a bunch of tags with associated pictures arranged in a purple cloud.

The other links on the site are in German so navigation is tougher still for me.

I have to say that I enjoyed just being lost and looking at photographs. But if I had to use this site for anything, I would be pissed.