Staples Evolves Full Screen Circular Browsing To Next Level

Within the Staples SmartCircular site, a new circular viewing mode has been added called ‘Full Screen’.  While this is not the first SmartCircular client to deploy full screen (Meijer & Target for example both have this feature) browsing, it is the first time that the new visual ‘Look Ahead‘ feature has been layered in within the slider navigation bar.

This small feature solves a key usability issue that when a user is dragging the shuttle on the slider bar, the user has no idea what content lies within say pages 14-15.  By showing a thumbnail image of what content is contained for any given page number, the user can actual have a small idea of what sort of content is on that page.  It’s a bit of a copy from the Vista or Windows 7 taskbar which has a similar feature, but none the less a very effective enhancement.  At this point, adding this UI element (e.g., Look Ahead) to any and all slider bars (regardless of the circular viewing more) is going to be the ShopLocal’s team recommendation going forward.

Note the small thumbnail image that appears under the shuttle on the page slider bar. This is the visual "look ahead" working really well.