As a Commons user i would like to have a nice overview of all images related to a search query so i can find the image i'm looking for.
I'm not sure if this is a task for the Commons or Search project. Because Commons is the most visible 'victim' of this problem i'm categorising it here.
Let's say i'm looking for a picture of an encyclopedist. This is not a query that has a page or category, so the default search leads me to this page. It looks like this:
The first ten results or so are categories. Probably not what i'm looking for. There's a *single* image on this page. I think 'multimedia' should be the default option for the search result page. The vast majority of searches on Commons are for multimedia files.
Anyway, clicking on 'multimedia' instead of 'content pages' gives me this:
The thumbnails are tiny (especially when you're on a large screen), the description text is full of very specific information that i'm probably not interested in (file size, date, resolution, lots of unformatted text).
Compare this screen to something like Google Images:
The only thing Google displays is the thumbnail, nothing else, in a grid-like view.
Obviously we don't have the resources like Google does, but i suppose that just a better interface design and a bit of work on the CSS would lead to a vastly improved user experience.