A Site With A View

Have you ever noticed on some sites, and e-commerce sites are usual suspects, that the option to 'view all' or to view a lengthy listing of items generally results in the associated thumbnail imagery being scaled down, and in some cases, becoming downright indicipherable. As a result, they lose their visual communicative value altogether.

A likely argument for altering the thumb dimensions is to prevent the page from getting too lengthy and/or weighty. However, the benefits of maintaining clear visuals, especially in an e-tailing environment, far outweigh the negatives. A site that does a good job of executing on this well is Nordstrom.com. However, you'll notice and this is not uncommon, that there are boundaries surrounding the view filter. For instance, the user is not given the option to view all 200 plus items on a single page. This is likely for the usability protection of the user in that 99 has probably been deemed an optimal viewing number without encumbering neither the page length nor weight and ultimately, the user experience. Its sometimes tempting to want to get ahead of one self and see it all in one shot but as they say 'all good things are worth waiting for'.