There are many Internet sites full
of suggestions and recommendations for how to design a better blog. Quite
simply, a good blog must meet multiple criteria to be appealing enough for
others to want to read it. I have
used two sites to help evaluate three of my fellow-student’s blogs. Michael
Martin (2008) author of Pro Blog Design
offers seven elements essential to good blogs. Tristan Higbee (2010) of The Backlight offers 26 design tips to make
your blog better. Additionally, I have made several changes to my own blog to
reflect suggestions from my fellow students, and have incorporated several
ideas from Martin (2008) and Higbee (2010) as well.
Jeannine states her purpose as
being “to vent what may be on my mind in a humorous fashion and hope that I
have followers!” She has a very attractive blog design, one that speaks “Diva,”
from the moment her page loads. Martin (2008) suggests that having a good
design, one that “allows your eye to glide around the page naturally, without
being continually drawn to a certain area of the page” (the Balance secion).
Jeanine’s design does this masterfully.
The content on Jeanine’s blog is
varied and aligns with her stated purpose. One of her posts describes her
relationship with an Indian woman, Maya, eyebrow stylest who uses the thread
method, as a metaphor to describe the similarities between Maya’s culture and
her own.
Tristin Higbee (2010) suggests aligning the elements of a
blog (where the first paragraph starts) to the left margin of the blog title.
Jeanine will improve the look for her blog greatly by consistently applying
paragraph formatting to her first paragraphs. Also, there is a need to
carefully proofread for grammar and punctuation.
The Threads post is quite lengthy (over 1700 words), and would
benefit from a bit editing for conciseness of thought. Higbee (2010) also recommends
breaking up big blocks of text with headings to make reading more pleasurable.
Additionally, the blog would be greatly enhanced by the addition of a picture
of Maya (Higbee, 2010).
Lastly, in that our class blog is intended to be a
professional blog, I suggested that her wonderful whimsical material might best
be placed in a separate blog.
The template Jeanine uses allows her posts to appear in
reverse chronological order, a comments box that is close to her posts, and
easily navigated to.
Overall, I think Jeanine is doing a great job! Martin (2008)
makes the point that a blog needs to set itself apart “A great design does
something more. It goes further than the regular web site and it makes itself
unique” (section on Remarkability). The design of Jeanine’s blog is truly remarkable!
Hilary is a graphics designer and part time photographer.
Her post design and layout is exquisitely simple with artfully-appointed
graphics. It is crisp, clean, colorful, and yet professional (Higbee, 2010).
Her look has a minimal number of font styles and colors, borders around her
images, uses lots of white space, and has well-cropped pictures. Like Jeanine’s
blog, Hilary’s is truly remarkable!
Recommendations I made for Hilary include using headings
within her body of text to help break up the lengthy, uninterrupted-page-of-text
look. Higbee (2010) says, “Bold headings are great… This makes your posts look
more structured, and also makes them easier and faster to read” (Item 16.)
Secondly, Hilary has a nice link color and a different hover
link color, but could use a color for a link that has been visited. This would be
very helpful to her readers to know which links have been visited.
Lastly, I thought her blog needed a purpose – a focus for
the type of content she intents to post there.
Hilary’s content is appropriate and well written, and her blog
titles provide enough detail so I know what to expect when I click on the link.
I like how she used a smaller font for the references. The blog archive is in
reverse-chronological order – a very logical ordering and my preferred one. She
has a link for comments at the end of each blog. The length of Hilary’s posts
seam reasonable, and her headings are detailed and clearly separate her topics
within her blogs.
I’m very impressed by Hilary’s blog, especially the design. She
is not afraid to use lots of white space (Higbee, 2010). I wish I had her eye
for color and design! She did a great job!
Denise states her blog’s purpose clearly in her original
post: to inform, persuade, encourage to take action, and to entertain. Denise
has lots of stories to tell, and she has a flair for the humorous. She uses a nice
interplay between her blog title, 118
Degrees: Hot Tips on Communication, and the very warm-tone colors she uses
in her template. They are perfect for her “Hot Tips on Communication” theme.
I made a couple of suggestions for Denise. First, if she
uses headings within her body of text, it will help to break up the lengthy,
uninterrupted-page-of-text look. Higbee (2010) suggests, “Bold headings are
great… [they help make] your posts look more structured, and also makes them
easier and faster to read” (Item 16.)
Secondly, a couple of formatting items: She should be
careful to ensure equal spacing between lines as the irregular white space is distracting,
and a personal preference is to maintain the color of her font from post to
post for professional content. To me, it seems a bit too playful for the
business-oriented posts. Higbee (2010) states it this way, “Your [font colors]
need to be appropriate for your niche.”
Lastly, I like her link color, and really appreciate that I
can tell by the change in color that I have visited a link. It would be helpful
to me as a reader to have a different color for when I hover over the link.
Let’s me know the link is “live.”
Denise’s content is appropriate, and well written. Her blog
titles provide enough detail so I know what to expect when I click on them. I
like using a smaller font for the references, as it visually distinguishes them
from the text body - minimizing their importance, and helps to visually minimize
their length. This is important because blogs are supposed to be shorter rather
than longer.
Denise’s blog archive lists posts in reverse chronological
order, making it easy to know which posts are newer and which are older. She
has provided a space at the end of her posts to invite comments. Overall, Denise
has done a great job!
Evaluating blogs from other class members caused me to
research what goes into a great blog. Good blog design incorporates many
different elements. All three of my fellow-students had great blog designs and
colors. Suggestions to Jeanine involved a few formatting changes, the breaking
up longer posts with headings, adding a picture to add interest to her posts,
and separating out her personal stories to a separate blog. Her strengths
included meeting Martin’s (2008) criteria for “Remarkablility” in her blog.
Recommendations to Hilary included deciding on a focus for
her blog, using headings to make her posts look more structured and easy to
read, and using distinct colors for her links, visited links, and link hovers.
Hilary’s strengths include her ability to write, and her keen eye for color and
design. Her blog design, also, was distinctly remarkable.
I thought Denise might want to consider bold headings to break
up her longer posts making them easier to read. Additionally, visually
distinguishing her link color from her visited links as well as her link hover
colors. Denise has a great way with words, many stories to tell, and a lively
and passionately designed blog.
My learnings have allowed me to incorporate several key
elements of great blogs into my own blog, Words
& Phrases. First, I needed to use bold headings to break up my lengthy
posts.
Second, visually distinguishing my links from my visited
links and my link hover colors would help my readers to know where they had
been and had not been in my blog. Unfortunately, although I have spent hours attempting
to do this, and have used a number of different templates, and even borrowed a
PC thinking a problem may be occurring within my MacBook, I have been unable to
accomplish this recommendation!
A third recommendation that I employed was to a link for
readers to make comments. Lastly, I intend to add additional content and a
picture associated with my About Me section, and to not be afraid to add more
white space. My blog will have been greatly improved as a result!
~ Susan
References
Higbee, T. (2010, December 17). 26 Blog Design Tips
for Non-Techies and Non-Designers. Message posted to http://thebacklight.com/blog-design-tips-for-non-designers/
Martin, M. (2008, June 26). 7 Elements to make your
blog look great. Posted to http://www.problogdesign.com/design/7-elements-to-make-your-blog-look-great/
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