Achieve User Goals Through Usable Design
11Yesterday, we talked about achieving your own goals through your blog’s design. Of course, you won’t achieve anything if you’re putting your visitors off. The key is to balance your goals with your reader’s goals.
What do they want from your blog?
There is more to it than simply reading the current page. A reader may want to do a whole host of things on your site. Most blogs are very similar though, so what a reader wants to do on one blog is usually the same thing they’d want to do on any other blog.
I would consider the following to be a bare bones version of the usual priority list for a blog reader. The bolded words are the actions, and beneath them are some of the questions that a reader might ask at that point. Your job is to make those questions as easy to answer as possible.
How Can Your Design Help Them?
- Well formatted posts. Good post formatting will stop posts from appearing as walls of text, instead letting them appear more manageable and friendly.
- Logical order. Article title, then post content, then discussion, then comments form. That order makes sense for laying out the elements of a post. In a similar fashion, find the logical order for the rest of your design.
- Give the information they need. What is the blog about? What is it called? What is this article called? All are questions that need answered on a first impression.
- Uncluttered design. If they are looking for your subscription options, make them easy for them to find. Go through your sidebar, and assess whether things like the monthly archives are really necessary.
There are many ways that a design can be used to help out your readers. Listing them all would take days, and I haven’t even begun to touch on accessibility! What aspect of your design would you describe as being user-friendly?
Enjoy this post? You should follow me on Twitter!
Michael I’m glad you mentioned the balance between your goals and your reader’s goals. I think it’s easy to get caught up in one and forget about the other.
Hmm? My design. I hope it’s uncluttered and easy to navigate, though both can be improved. While I still forget at times I’ve been making more of an effort to use better post formatting, particularly above the fold.
This is exactly what has been going through my mind lately. Some bloggers actually still stick to heinous design practices that lost all their luster in the beginning days of the web. I have highlighted some of those practice in this post http://bloggingbits.com/top-10-things-to-do-to-put-off-your-readers/
Steven – I agree. Focusing on both can be hard at times, but essential. Your design is well spaced out and doesn’t feel cluttered at all to me. :)
Mohsin – It’s a shame that so many still fall into those traps. It seems to me that they see their site as something to be “viewed,” as opposed to being “used.” :(
Off-topic (apologies), it was nice to see your photo over on Problogger. No surprise to see Darren have you as a guest author, as your posts are always well-thought.
Great job, Michael.
Thanks David. I’d been considering the photo for a while, but I managed to continue putting it off. Turning down a request from the ProBlogger, right after he had invited you to post on his blog, is very hard to do though! :lol: (Of course, he was as nice as ever, and wouldn’t have minded at all if I hadn’t given a photo! Great guy.)
Now that it’s up though, I have no more reason not to add it to the About page here. :)
Either that photo was taken a while ago or I was way off with how old I thought you were! How embarrassing – let us never speak of this again…
lol Kristarella – It’s about a year or two ago, but not too much longer unfortunately. :(
There’s nothing unfortunate about it – you’ve shown your opinions and advice to be worthy of our time, even worthy of Problogger readers’ time.
Someone once reviewed my blog and said that my youth and immaturity were apparent. As if he expected that all young people should have the maturity of a weathered oldie. Perhaps my youth was obvious, but I think he was probably more immature than I am… whatever, I’m over it. You definitely shouldn’t worry about that stuff, people who judge you are not worth your time. :)
I wouldn’t worry about that kind of comment either. If someone goes out of their way to insult you, I’d say they have the bigger problem regardless… ;)
Thanks for the kind words though. :)
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
Brainstorming is a really powerful tool that a lot of designers forget about! I still use the ‘web’ method when doing any sort of design. If I get stuck I always have something to look at!