Image galleries are one of the most popular page types on the internet. Done well, gallery pages load (fairly) quickly, provide the visitor an easy and straightforward approach to find and view thumbnails, and, display the larger images in a pleasing way. But, gallery pages can also be done very poorly. On some pages, the "thumbnail" is actually displaying the "larger" image in a physically smaller area, causing the entire page to take a long time to load. Depending upon the content of the images, the thumbnails can be too small or unnecessarily large. One of the most annoying layouts involves the use of frames where the frame used to display the larger image is too small, resulting in horizontal and/or vertical scrollbars.

We have provided links to some pages that show various layout styles of image galleries. Notes with each link provide issues for you to watch for on that page. As far as design features and implementation shown in these sample pages, we would recommend Page 6 and then Page 4 because of the layout of the thumbnails and the larger images displayed in new windows.