Should you use an image gallery/carousel?

Question

So I made some time ago a website for a client, that produces balconies, stairs, roofings and so on. He obviously want to show his work in a gallery.

After seeing and using a lot of websites, that don't have a gallery and only the images that you scroll through, I feel like I should remove the gallery.

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NOT using a gallery

Pros:

1. No thumbnail, only one image is loaded
2. The image on the website is also shown in Google Images (no low res thumbnails)
3. The user can easily scroll though the images at the speed that he wants (better UX)

Cons:

1. Images may not be sized big enough to show all the details

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Using a gallery

Pros:

1. Faster loading times, because only the low res thumbnails need to be loaded(better SEO)
2. Image is filling the entire screen (shows all details)

Cons:

1. Images on Google Images only show the low res thumbnails
2. Zooming in and out on images in the gallery view often provides a bad UX

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Maybe you can help me decide what to do and complement my pros/cons.

This is what I mean by a image gallery (low res thumbnails, high quality images):

Answer 1

Carousel if:

There are a few images you want the user to focus on, you can put them as default. You just want to give the impression that there are a lot of images available, but you don't really need the user to see them.

Gallery if:

You're not sure which images are actually the most important and want the user to be able to peruse them to find the one they're most interested in.

From your usecase I would go with gallery.

Answer 2

There is no one way to go about this. The answer depends on your business case, your client's preferences, and which CMS plugins you prefer to use.

These sorts of considerations are also affected by current trends in web design. Right now, carousels are not in. For example, the rotating images on the home page above the fold have somewhat fallen out of favor, with many designers preferring a single image. This is in part because the carousel won't allow you to focus on any one thing for too long, and companies often want you to concentrate on one idea that will sell. Another reason is, carousels often require JavaScript-heavy plugins that can slow down your page some, particularly if poorly implemented.

In terms of being able to enlarge the image or having a long way to scroll through thumbnails, a lot of it can be fixed or mitigated via good web development practices. Images should always be optimized, and many CMS's (like WordPress) have multiple ways of doing this for you. The carousel in your example has a full screen view option. Thumbnails can be paginated or progressive infinite scroll can be applied.

If you have a few images, a carousel might just be overkill. If you have a ton of images, the carousel would make sense, further down the page. Whichever path you implement, run some speed tests in DevTools or in other apps, make sure to get rid of any latency and optimize everything, check both desktop and mobile. If a plugin just doesn't work, find another one, even if you have to purchase it. (Pass the cost down to the client then.)