That said, there's another aspect of categories which, sadly, often have been overlooked. I'm referring to the Gallery Descriptions. Over time, gallery descriptions have fallen into disarray, leaving many categories with old and outdated descriptions, others with incorrect descriptions, and yet others without a description at all.
At the moment, gallery descriptions are most prominent when submitting new deviations. However, as part of this project, we hope that they will become more evident as you browse the site. One of our goals is to make a simple, navigable category structure focusing on descriptions that are clear, concise, and consistent.
Gallery Description Project
We will be working with individual volunteers to make changes to their categories, working one top-level category (i.e Digital Art, Fan Art, Anthro) at a time. All of the changes will take place behind the scenes, and won't be immediately evident to the community at large. But you will begin to notice new, updated descriptions popping up in various categories in the next few weeks.
We're not going to lie, this isn't a small project. It's likely going to take us several months from start to finish, at which point we'll naturally post another celebratory journal announcing the completion of the changes.
What Will the New Descriptions Be Like?
Our goal with the new descriptions is simple. We are working to ensure that the descriptions are as clear to the community as possible. To further this goal, we've come up with the Three Cs. Clarity, Conciseness, and Consistency.
Conciseness refers to our goal of short descriptions. We want to avoid descriptions that exceed 2 or 3 sentences. That way you're not overwhelmed with information and can quickly sort through the categories to find what's best for your deviation, or what you're looking to browse.
Consistency refers to our goal of a uniform look and feel to the gallery descriptions. While there will be slight variation between the galleries, overall the descriptions should be formatted and read similarly.
A Better Browsing and Submitting Experience
Our overall goal with this project is to improve the overall experience when browsing and submitting, making it easier for everyone, whether they've just found the site, or they've been here for 12 years, to utilize the categories to find and share the best work possible. We welcome feedback on these plans and the changes as we progress, just leave them on this article!
