Quick Feedback for Pro Blog Design’s Future
24 Image by Nattu.
I want to know a little more about you the readers here on Pro Blog Design. Are the posts here exactly what you want to be reading? Could I be doing things better?
If you could take a minute to answer the short polls below, and leave a comment if you’re up for it, then hopefully together we’ll find a way to make things even better!
We also have the winners of the business card prize draw, and a little treat for you at the end of the post.
Question 1 – What Image Editor Do You Use?
I use Photoshop, so it’s natural for me to use that in any tutorials I write here. But how many of you actually have Photoshop? What about the free alternatives?
Question 2 – What Blog Platform Do You Use?
Again, I’m fairly set in my ways. I love WordPress and rarely look at the other options. That will all change if needs be though!
Question 3 – What is Your Favorite Type of Post Here?
Question 4 – Would You Like to See “Design Review” Posts Again?
I used to take a blog and review its design here to list the things I thought it had done particularly well, but also any areas I saw for improvement. The idea was that by reading the case-study, you might learn from it and apply the ideas to your own site.
You can read them in the Design Review tag, e.g. my ProBlogger review.
Question 5 – Do You Use The “Recommended Elsewhere” Section of the Footer?
Question 6 – What Do You Think of the (Lack Of) Posting Schedule?
Posting here can be quite sporadic. I tend to make 1-2 posts per week, but there’s no real rhythm to what days they appear on and sometimes I can go a full week without a post.
That’s generally considered a bad practice, but as a blog reader, it’s just something that doesn’t bother me in any of the blogs I read. What do you think about it though? I will happily set a more rigid structure if it would work better for you.
Your Comments And Suggestions
All I have asked above are some of the questions that have been most pressing to me.
If you have a comment about any of the questions, or about any aspect of the site, please leave it in the comments below. Or if you’d rather keep your comments private, email me. I will respond to every comment or email individually.
Winners of the 4000 Business Cards
UPrinting were kind enough to offer 1000 free business cards to each of 4 lucky readers last week.
Chosen at random from everyone who submitted a link to their favorite business card, the four winners are:
- Dan Cole – His blog, Ledger Pad, has some WordPress and coding tips.
- Randa Clay – Writes one of the best design blogs around at RandaClay.com.
- Redwall_hp – Covers just about every topic that a webmaster could want his blog, Webmaster Source.
- JD Hartley – Writes at his personal blog, jdh23.com, including a good few tech topics!
Congrats guys, I’ll be in touch with each of you soon. Thanks to everyone who entered; I had a great time looking at all the creative cards yous found!
Last, But Not Least…
I’ve had this lying around on my computer for a while now. The first comic, WordPress vs MovableType, was published way back in April, and I’m not sure if there’ll be any more.
Regardless of that, here’s a little story on the effect the right wording can have perception!
Enjoy this post? You should follow me on Twitter!
ExpressionEngine user here Michael. It wasn’t it in the list of platforms so I tooting the EE horn here. ;)
Wow, you really packed a lot into this post, Michael. A load of polls, contest results, and a comic.
Great post for user feedback. Delivering it for the people is what it’s all about.
I want to get it out there and nominate my blog for your Design Review, if you choose to bring it back. Mainly because I am new to it all and I really would appreciate professional opinions and analysis on what is good and what is bad about it, and how to improve.
Plus, you could make it a giveaway/content type thing if you get a good enough response. I could see newcomers to the blogging community lining up in droves to seek the inbound link, let alone the advice, so I think this is a valuable resource you should definitely tap into with great potential.
for question 3, I love all of them :) and something that attracted me here was, you don’t post anything and everything, but the best of everything :)
Q1: I currently don’t use a image editor but I want to. My problem is that a) I think Gimp **** (I used it long enough and I’m sick of it) b) Photoshop is expensive for a hobby, especially if you don’t know if you manage to work with it c) Paint.net won’t run on the Mac I want to buy.
So undecided,… :/
Q2: Self written Django application. That doesn’t mean I don’t like posts like “look at this wordpress theme” or “10 cool things you can do with movabletype” – I use them as inspiration what I can implement in my blog
Q3: Everything about design. Working on my blog / page is just a hobby and I lack some skills when it comes to design. So I am always happy to learn something new.
Q4: Yes – would be great for learning what a “good design” is
Q6: Quality posts > frequent posts.
I am happy with ProBlogDesign. If there is a post it’s worth reading and I always get some new informations I can use. So I just close this comment with “thanks for the good work”.
I use Corel Paintshop Pro as image editor because it’s cheaper and can do almost the same as Photoshop.
I use photoshop but since the logic board is crapped out on the mac right now tell I can get 800 bucks to fix it, I’m stuck with a vista laptop using gimp. It’s ok but it’s very very weird especially after using photoshop for a few years.
So maybe a post on how to do similar things between photoshop and gimp, I dont know just an idea.
Joomla user here, I also like WordPress but have only used it on one site, and that was only a fairly basic install (with a custom theme).
Very funny comic too, btw, it’s great to see that I’m not the only one with irrational customers :-)
Paint Shop Pro!
I enjoyed this post and the polls.
;)
Thanks for the feedback everyone, and to the 50 or so people who have filled in the polls so far! Your input has been invaluable already even! :D
Deron,
Wow, not sure how I forgot that one! I mustn’t have been thinking straight! xD
Redwall,
Originally it was just going to be 2 or 3 questions, but as I thought about it, more came into my head! Since they were all polls, I figured it couldn’t hurt to throw in a few more. :D
Adam,
I’ll keep it in mind. I used to get a fair few requests for reviews, and it was hard to choose which ones. In the end, I tend to pick blogs that are well done (Something unique that might inspire a reader), but not quite perfect either. (I won’t be going though CSS galleries to pick out candidates! Want to have enough to actually say :D ).
Dinu,
Thanks, that’s a very good point. Important to keep up the variety I suppose! Will do!
Timo,
Thanks for all the feedback here!
Q1 – Yeah, Photoshop is too expensive for a hobby. I have it for my web design, but as a play tool, it’s very pricey. That’s what made me wonder about it. I’m a PC user (Don’t hate me! ;) ), so I can’t recommend any Mac software, but GIMP isn’t too bad really. It can handle the day-to-day blogger tasks at least.
Q2 – That’s a good point. Hadn’t really thought of that, thanks!
Thanks for other responses. I’m glad you’re enjoying the site! Hope things will stay that way for a good while to come! :D
Michael
I had Paint Shop Pro in the poll originally, but took it out and put in Paint.NET instead. It’s a great program, and can definitely do most things that a blogger will need. :) (Photoshop just has the advantage of a massive amount of tutorials and brushes online)
Jeremy,
Yikes, that’s expensive! :( I think I’ll look into some GIMP posts for the future.
George,
Haha, I think we all get them! Just have to hope they’re evened out by the number of great, rational, clients we get! :D
Carol,
Thanks for the feedback. I really should have put Paint Shop Pro in the poll it seems! Sorry. :(
I am a piknik.com junkie. It is a fabulous free on line photo editor!
As far as posting schedule is concerned, creativity cannot be rushed and I certainly wouldn’t want to impose my will on you. I’m just grateful for your posts, and if you post whenever you FEEL like posting, that’s good enough for me! Your posts are worth waiting for! :D
For question number 3 – please put me down for “all of the above”!
Thanks for surveying us!
I think your posting schedule is about right. I absolutely hate when blogger start posting a lot (and usually crap, because it’s rare to be able to post great stuff everyday, especially for single-user blogs).
I love design showcases (good inspiration) and I would love to see that on your blog more often. That’s about the only suggestion I can make, because I like your blog the way it is. Design reviews would be great as well.
Thanks ;-)
Joni,
Thanks! Means a lot to hear that you’re enjoying the posts! I’ll do my best to keep it that way. :D
rjleaman,
Haha – I like that answer! Makes things easier! Thanks for the feedback! :D
Zhu,
Thank you for answering my survey! I agree with you about the posting rate; 1-2 posts per week is my favorite rate for any of the blogs I’m subscribed to. Otherwise, I get a bit overloaded with their content. :(
Design showcases are a good idea! I’ve never done much of them here (Other blogs do them very well!), but I’ll definitely try some more in the future. Glad you’re up for the design reviews too. Looks like they’re definitely coming back! :)
Hi Michael!
I enjoy your blog very much. I would personally welcome more of your posts, but if frequency would water down the quality, then keep up what you’re doing.
I answered the various poll questions. My blog is on 9rules, and I wanted to customize their leaf-logo to match the colors on my blog better. I tried doing it with Photoshop CS3, which is on my work computer, and I could not get it to take some of the colors. I used Gimp here at home, and it worked like a charm and was so much more easy to use. I also use Irfanview for resizing and cropping the pictures I put on my blog. It’s really great for that type of image editing.
I love what you’re doing here Martin. I’m using Blogger, WP and Joomla for different blogs, so it would be nice if you can generalize your coverage a bit.
On the other hand, if you want to concentrate on WP, you should put your sole focus on it or you’ll struggle either against time..or quality. And I’d rather see more quality than more posts- which is what you’re doing right now. Keep it up!
Rob,
That’s interesting. You don’t often hear of people preferring Gimp over Photoshop. It is much more user-friendly I suppose (Photoshop has a horrible learning curve!). Thanks for answering the polls. If I try to increase the frequency, I won’t let it affect the quality. If it seems to be doing that, then I’ll scale back the frequency again right away! :)
Black Zedd,
Thanks for the reply. You could be right there. WordPress is my specialty, and I know very little about the others. It could be fun to learn them, but I might be spreading myself a little thin! I think I’ll work on getting used to Gimp for now, and then maybe look into another blogging platform afterwards (Between WordPress.org and .com, that’s over 80% of the votes up there. WordPress still has to take priority then :) )
nice way to learn from visitors and inspire them to say their opinion..:) great idea :)
Just to add that I’d rather keep seeing the same number of quality posts rather than more posts (says a blogger with a similarly sporadic posting schedule!)
Voted – I think you should keep things pretty much as it is, except for a few more posts (though you shouldn’t compromise quantity). Photoshop isn’t very relevant, considering all the blogs dedicated to it. WP hacks, on the other hand, is exciting, seeing as how you would have used quite a few of them yourselves.
Oh, and I use WP and Photoshop.
Dainis,
Thanks, it’s been really helpful! :D
Sophie,
Haha, it’s hard to get those posting schedules right, isn’t it?? Thanks for the feedback!
Sumesh,
I know what you mean. This definitely isn’t going to become a Photoshop blog. That niche is well and truly covered (And covered better!) by many other blogs. It is a design blog though, so Photoshop does pop up from time to time. And because it’s not a Photoshop blog, I’m not sure how many of my audience will have it. From the polls, I can now see the majority does though. :D
Thanks for commenting. :)
I use Symphony (symphony.com) because I just don’t feel like most CMS’s are powerful enough and simple enough at the same time. Symphony is somehow able to do it. I also use WordPress for just blogs, and I really like textpattern too.
Thanks for the reply Zhuoshi, I hadn’t even heard of Symphony before! Going to check them out now. :D