Your Favorite Aspect of a Blog’s Design
23This week has been pretty hectic, hence the lack of posts. I wasn’t prepared for a blogging emergency. Sorry guys. Thankfully, that’s just about over.
Today, I want to start ask you a question.
What do you think is the most important aspect of a blog’s design?
I’ve written before about what I think makes a good design, and we’ve talked about those aspects. But if you were forced to choose just one thing, what would it be?
I’ll collect together the best answers (And post my own in the comments of course!), and we’ll see what we can come up with.
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About the Author
Michael Martin
Michael Martin is the founder of Pro Blog Design. He works as a freelance web designer, loves WordPress, and has an unhealthy addiction to smilies.
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I don’t know what “design” refers to, but I think the most important aspect would be the readability of a blog.
Readability, to me, means that a blog is clutter-free, especially on the sidebars and the ads are arranged tastefully, and the images are aligned nicely :)
Your content may be king, but if I can’t find my way around your blog, the most I’d do is to pick your feeds in the reader.
Well, the design should reflect the owner’s personality,
e.g. a cookie/ads cluttered blog says its all…
However a lot of blog starters do the same mistake to get visitors: stuff the sidebars with useless widgets and/or plugins,
e.g. the no brainer weather icons.
I agree with milo: The owner’s personality should be reflected in the design of the blog. That’s the single most important thing: Readability, semantics etc.; that all comes afterwards.
Pelf – That’s true. What good is a blog at all if the words are obscured in design “features”?
Milo And Dominik – I thought you two would say that. You both have very distinctive blogs, where your personalities have definitely had a big input. It makes the blogs much more memorable. :)
I’d definitely second readability. Plenty of white space is preferable next to readable font size. I think I went a bit over-board with this on my blog, but hey a blog’s for reading and making it “readable” should be your top priority.
Focus on the content.
You could have the greatest web site ever, but if the layout is designed in such a way that no one looks at the content, then you won’t have any return visitors!
After that would be accesability – able to access the previous content with ease.
The reason someone will visit your blog is because of it’s posts. If no one ever notices your content, or can’t find more of your content, then there’s no reason for you to have your blog on the net.
One? Well, how’s 3? :D
1. You need a good header
2. Navigation is important
3. Legibility is important
Usability – Every element in a design must explain its use, and of course, it must be of some use first.
Brevity and minimalism – The less is more.
Call to action – CTAs must be spread throughout the content and design.
I could come up with many more, but above 3 points pretty much summarize my view of a good design.
I’ll echo everything Mohsin said. Ultimately it’s all about usability. You can get everything else right, but if your design isn’t usable I’m not going to use it.
However everything in design works together. Your site may be usable, but it’s so hideously ugly I may not stick around long enough to find our how usable it is.
How you design your content is single-handed the most important thing on your blog. You can have the worlds most pretty and usable sidebar, header, footer, everything actually, but if your content (design) stinks, you have absolutely no use of all these wonderful elements. So concentrate on designing your articles with design in mind, and you have come a long way!
A lot of good ideas here. My top two are readability and usability.
What do you think is the most important aspect of a blog’s design?
I use RSS readers for blogs, so I can’t comment on wrapper design. But if we’re talking about the design of content itself, I’d say ‘sensible hierarchy’.
Some blogs I read consist of 8-10 paragraphs, pure text. I make it through 2-3, and skim the rest. Comparing blogs to books is apples and oranges, but unlike books, I expect there to be more going on visually when I read a blog, especially since it’s so easy to contexualize – embedding a YouTube video, inserting a jpg, linking to audio. Not to mention, time is limited; the point must be made with more than just text.
I also like to see topical sub-headers above certain paragraphs of text. It provides shorthand for what I’m about to read, and can also be used for hierarchy: H1, H2, H3.
Then there are the obvious formatting tools – blockquotes, ordered lists, links, bolding. These things can turn noisy really fast, but can often help propel the text and enrich its meaning. Considering people’s tiny attention spans, the treatment of plain text can make an unconscious impression and prevent readers’ eyes from getting bored.
AL and Brian – Can’t argue with that. :D
Redwall – The more the better of course. ;) I think your 1st one is particularly important, and often undervalued.
Mohsin – CTAs are an interesting one. Focusing on getting the users to do what you want. I like it. :)
Steven – That’s true. The design is only as strong as its weakest link. You need to get it all right.
Alex – You mean the actual post formatting? That’s a good point. It takes a fair bit of effort to do that in every post you write, but I think it’s worth it as well. :)
Pinyo – Just right. If you’ve got those 2, you’re doing well. :D
Darren – Thanks for the feed reader perspective. Content formatting is crucial; I agree. The hierarchy is particularly useful in longer articles. I also like bolding phrases. It makes things very easy to scan.
I would have to say the most important thing is content. If you don’t have good content, people won’t be back. Even if your header, sidebar, etc. is junk or doesn’t look nice, if your content isn’t good, you won’t keep people coming back to your site.
My list would be:
1. Content
2. Accessible and semantic markup
3. Community (responding to comments)
4. Value (educational, teaching, etc.)
Just my opinion about what I feel is important, plus if it looks nice, that helps… :)
My choice would be
1) Navigation
2) Color Selection.
*I’m going under the definition of DESIGN as the appearance.
What good is good content if the design isn’t one that allows. A good design is one that shows the content YET does not distract.
Colors should have a theme YET not make users uncomfortable.
Fonts should be clear and readable, I do come by sites with text and background almost blend and that’s not good.
Sure, some things are entirely preferential (like how some prefer light over dark instead of vice versa) but there are other elements that are universally accepted, for example having too striking contrast between background and content, like red background and green text or something.
All in all, a good design is one that people get used to it easily, easily identifiable contents and the choice of colors doesn’t hurt your eye.
Do I make sense?
I’d say out of my list of three things, I’d say the header is one of the most important. After all, you could technically have a one-column layout without any formatting assigned to the text, and just have a good header. Most browser defaults are legible.
Readability and content flow/structure.
Too small font size is a killer – not sure what is up with the extremely small fonts in tag clouds – if I can’t read it, I can’t click on it.
And the organization of the content – easy to find, subheadings that stand out (I’m guilty of messing this up) and proper alignment of … everything.
My favorite aspect of a blog? Its content.
Favorite aspect of a blog’s design? The logo/header image. It is the way to brand your blog or website with only one, simple graphic.
The header can be complicated (but related to the topic as in my blog here) or a simple logo like over at Zen Habits by Leo.
But it’s a must when you want to break through the blogging trashbin and brand yourself towards blogging success.
@Michael: Yes, lol, I meant the post formatting :D
Sorry if this has already been covered in previous comments, but the most important factor for me is this:
Can the most important information be read / found before less important information.
Elliot – That’s an interesting list. In particular, the semantic markup. That’s almost like designing for the feed readers in particular. :)
Madhur – Good choices. Color is always a very memorable aspect of a design.
Goldfries – Yep, that makes a lot of sense. Great design is just there. It’s not noticed. Only the content is noticed.
Redwall – I can think of quite a few blogs like that off the top of my head. :)
Tanya – Very true. Organizing your content well is crucial or visitors will just get lost.
Webplay – That unique aspect to your blog definitely makes ya stand out that little bit more.
Alex – lol – Thought so.
David – I like how you’ve phrased that. Well said.
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