Getty’s New Stacked Search Results

As of today, Getty Images is now stacking their search results. It’s a very intelligent move… one that I think most stock websites will make at some point, as it helps organize and simplify the process of searching for stock images. Getty isn’t the first agency to stack their search results… but the fact that industry-leader Getty has made this move (certainly after a lot of research and consideration) reflects the importance of presenting the most organized and efficient search results possible to the end-user.

When I first perused Getty’s redesigned search results, frankly I had a hard time finding the stacks at first. For some reason, the “See similar images” in blue text (example shown on the right) didn’t catch my eye, even though it’s quite obvious, once you’ve noticed it. But I was in a visual processing mode, not in a text-reading mode, which I think explains my text-blindness on first sight. I was looking for a 3D-looking icon that created the appearance of other images being stacked behind the main image.

The first thing I noticed, actually, was that my total Getty image count decreased dramatically. Actually, my total online image count wasn’t reduced, it was just compressed. It’s still possible for Getty photographers to see their total number of online images – simply click on any of your images, and then click on your name in the image detail.

Sometimes, it was a bit of a surprise, which image was selected to represent the stack of similars. In some cases, their choice seemed counter-intuitive. One of my images, which I saw in a point-of-purchase display at Target, was stacked behind another image for which I don’t believe there’s been as much action.

The net-net is that I applaud Getty’s move to add this new feature, and feel that it’s a good move in the right direction. I hope that art buyers notice the “See similar images” and drill in for the stacked shots, and that they appreciate the organization and compression of search results. I would like to see a sense of depth added, graphically, to images that represent a stack of images, so that there’s more of a visual invitation to drill down into the stacked images.

Click here to see a search query with stacked results, and here to see the result of drilling into a single stack of images.

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments section.