Yahoo! has this clever campaign for their personals that I couldn’t help but follow and explore (Not that I’m in the market sorry to disappoint you :). What I saw was pretty amazing, a gallery-like view of many singles…
Very cool, because it’s just so browse-friendly. Visually scan for an attractive face, then click for a bit more info, and if he/she still holds potential then click ahead for all the juicy details. I might be shallow wanting to see what people look like first, but I would bet this is the ‘primary facet’ for many folks, especially in the privacy of their web browsers.
Unfortunately, this isn’t how Y! Personals actually works. The above is just a promotion screen. The actual search results are pretty conventional…
The problem also must balance the volume of results; while the gallery layout can squeeze in 50 results you need to consider the amount of results within the chosen geographical area. I’d probably try delivering the first 50 results closest in geography by default and let the user alter it further. I know in a dense area like New York there’s 92 results of women my age within 5 miles, which ends up being 10 results pages, pages you actually want to view, as opposed to your usually search results. I’d rather have 2 pages. Too many images per page over a modem? Nah, these are worth waiting for.