Importance of Design
Since turning I’m Blogging That into something other than my personal blog, I’ve wanted to reinvent myself with personal blogging and naturally my source to do that was at Raise It, Clean It, Blog it where I initially thought that I would just blog about my daughter’s daily life.
To reinvent myself there as a personal blogger (along with my many other talents) I decided that a new blog design was in order.
And yesterday, when I completed my hot design from Mindy’s awesome template I got to thinking about blog design in general.
What does it matter to you, as a visitor of blogs and websites, how a website looks?
Personally speaking, I really can’t stay at a site too long where I find navigating confusing or the design harsh on my eyes or just bad in general.
And each time Mindy codes something for Kiss My Code that is absolutely amazing, I’m compelled to redesign if for only the sake of using whatever she has created.
Today, my thoughts were reconfirmed with a post about the importance of the location of your RSS feed subscription link. And I realized I’m Blogging That doesn’t really have the best placement for RSS and probably never has.
On most sites, blogs anyway, you’ll find this link near the top and in your face. It’s helpful for me as someone who subscribes to every feed when I like just one single post from a blog.
So once you’ve gotten past locating RSS for the site what else is important? If you organize your site in order of importance how should your sidebar(s) flow?
Here’s my thoughts of order of importance and there just may be a template in use at I’m Blogging That to accommodate my design and information importance.
- RSS: Get more subscribers!
- Quick About: Throw something brief at me about you as the author so that as a first time visitor, I have a little background information on who’s talking to me. For multiple authored site, I like a full page about the authors so that I can reference their knowledge and experience for writing such a blog post.
- Navigation: Where’s your contact, about, archives, blogroll/links pages? I want to hit those up before I leave to make sure I’ve gotten all the important information about your site and see who you, as a person recommend for reading.
- MyBlogLog or BlogCatalog: I really do love these little picture things placed on websites to acknowledge my visit there even if I have chosen not to leave a comment.
So, with my list there, I ask you what’s important for you when visiting a website or blog? What do you enjoy seeing and what do you hate?
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Design is sometimes a good thing. If the writing is awesome, but the design is bad, I’ll ignore the bad design. If its the other way around, I’ll just try and figure out where they got the design, and most likely not come back.
Honestly, other than that, not much’ll bother me. Like I said at Ciao9to5′s blog, I’ve got a nifty add-on for FF that lets me subscribe easy-peasy. I do like to see my picture on the MyBlogLog stuff. Reminds me when the seasons/holidays change that I need to update my Yahoo av, XD.
January 3rd, 2008 at 12:23 am
I do agree with you about designs, for me it should be clean, neat, and organized so that the reader will have a great time reading the content of the blog, anyways, nice posts you have: although it’s a personal blog, it is interesting and informative :-)
January 3rd, 2008 at 9:06 am
Sarah » I agree… if the writing is awesome I’ll just subscribe to the feed so that I don’t have to come back and look at the design. But if there’s something brightly colored that is just too much for me on the site, I may never get to seeing what the writing is like.
Dor » Even though you have said that you don’t agree with me your following statement says that to at least some extent, you do. “Clean, neat, and organized” are all a matter of the design of the blog.
Thank you for the compliment to my blog posts… even though I haven’t considered this a ‘personal’ blog in quite sometime.
January 3rd, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I stumbled upon your blog while visiting blogcatalog.
This is a very interesting post.
This is my first visit here. So, what made me stop and read your blog? What made me hang out a while and click around?
1. The first thing I noticed on blogcatalog was your page design. The design itself made me click on it.
The design is wonderful. It’s very clean and easy to navigate.
2. Your picture. After your page loaded I first noticed your smiling face. You remind me a little of my cousin and she always made me laugh until I peed my pants. (Sorry, too much information.)
3. I clicked on your “about me†and yep, I was right you are one funny lady! I’ve made note of your birthday and I promise I won’t forget it.
4. You write very well. I’m so jealous of people that have a talent for writing.
You have a very nice place here.
I’ve added you to my google reader. I’ll be back. I promise I wont be a stalker!
January 3rd, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Angie » That just may be one of the best comments I’ve ever received. There’s nothing like good ol’ feedback and I appreciate you giving yours.
Stalking is great, I encourage it but showing yourself as a known stalker is so much fun.
I promise to return the visit…
Thank you again for the feedback and compliments.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:43 pm
Hi Katy,
Design is the first thing that your visitors notice about your blog. Investing on your blog design is worthwhile.
Interesting blog you’ve got here. Happy blogging! :)
January 5th, 2008 at 8:37 am
I couldn’t agree with you more. :o)
February 28th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
I like something that is clean and simple with eay navigation, like you mentioned. Good work!
Keep posting!
February 29th, 2008 at 6:37 am
Traffic Formula » Thank you! :o)