So we’ve all audited Umbraco sites where there are hundreds of media items uploaded to the root of site… even when there is a perfectly structured and complex folder strategy in place, AND EVERYONE agreed to use it.
And in amongst these audits… we’ve often discovered a plethora of duplicate images… sometimes in different folders, sometimes in the same.
And this is across different sites, different industries, different eras of Umbraco. The common thread. is that somehow, in a Media picking scenario… ‘just uploading a new image to the root of the Media section’ is… I don’t know?? - easier? intuitive? quicker?
If only we could talk to the editors and uncover why… if only that were possible! - oh, it turns out you can, you just have to ask.
It is interesting, because everyone is different, and there isn’t one reason behind this behaviour, and yeah yeah yeah, we’ve been talking about redesigning the Media section for years in Umbraco… Jeffreys’s dreams, Steve’s plan, Ravi’s something… and we are likely on the cusp of it happening.
Anyway, the thing that interested me on a human level, of the people using Umbraco, and how it makes them feel, and the learned behaviour that they discover to navigate their editorial tasks efficiently, the beliefs that bubble up, which wouldn’t necessarily be something you’d consider when designing a Media Picker, that just has to pick Media…
Some of the key threads, and I’m paraphrasing:
-
I won’t be able to find it again.
-
I don’t know which folder it’s meant to go in
-
I didn’t know it had already been uploaded by someone else
-
I didn’t know I had already uploaded it
-
It takes ages to click through to the Media folder
-
I can’t remember what the file is called, so it doesn’t appear in search
-
I just uploaded it to the Media section, but I can’t find where when I come to pick it
-
What do you mean the media picker has a list view?
etc etc
A revamp of media as a bigger picture thing, probably takes all this into consideration - but what resonated with me, is that feeling of ‘I’ve lost my keys’ - I know they are there but I don’t know where, and I just had them a moment ago. When you remember where they are…there is a Greek word about remembering inate knowledge called Anamnesis and wouldn’t that be a great name for an Umbraco package… and I thought although the Media Picker allows you to search or reorder by last updated, wouldn’t it be nicer, and more Umbracoish, if it said - have you looked on the kitchen table?
So I thought a thin strip of recently uploaded media ‘by me’ and ‘by everyone’
Might be the same ‘on the kitchen table’ helpful reminder?
It definitely improves the picking journey if you’ve just uploaded an image, and you now want to pick it. And it allows you to browse whats been recently uploaded by someone else.
And if you switch to the full recent view, it groups the images by time period ‘Today, Yesterday, This Week’ etc
The main thing that I got from looking at this, and I’m aware this sounds mad - is that ‘Recent Media’ isn’t a filter applied to a list of Media - it’s a ‘place’ in its own right… that you should be able to pick from. It’s a valid way of organising media, a Timeline view, and you see it everywhere in Flickr (if you are old) on your phone, etc
So this package also adds this place to the Media section too!
Editors have politely said they liked it, so this is a bit of an experiment, does this work for other people? it’s switchable configuration wise with the existing Media Picker, so you should be able to swap it over temporarily for a bit and see?
Less politely people have said Anamnesis is a stupid name.. “you can’t even say the word yourself” - that’s not constructive feedback… “nobody will know what it means”…
and that’s why it’s now the Recent Media Picker…
Icon wise… a tricky one, how do you capture the moment of remembering where an image is…
I’ve settled with a polaroid picture, fading… given that sense of nostalgia and the image isn’t far from being grasped…
Anyway, it’s available in the marketplace: Recent Media Picker | Umbraco Marketplace or wherever else you get your Umbraco Packages, be interested in hearing if editors find it useful, if only there were a way we could talk to them.