I just had an interesting revelation. When stumping upon new blogs from websites such as Digg, I go through a step by step method to deem the quality of the blog. I’ll first visit the home page and see how many comments each post has. I tend to think a high number of comments means an interesting post. Next, I’ll look at the design of the site. I know a site design has nothing to do with the content, but for some reason I have a tendency to think that a good design equals a good site. Finally, I’ll scroll through the most recent entries, checking the titles for interesting content.
I seem to go through this method on just about any blog I encounter. Since I seem to go through a preprogrammed method, I’m thinking other people might have their own checklist for quality blogs. So, when you a come across a new blog, what do you do to decide the quality of the blog? Does design play a factor in your opinion of the blog?
7 Comments
Design is a huge part of a blog, I often don’t ready blog posts hosted through blogspot because of a lack of design…I like a nice simple design, nothing too flash, but it has to have some color.
I know my blog’s design probably looks pretty poor - I have a feeling that unfortunately you’re right about the design though…
I simply prefer investing my free time to post content rather than spend the much needed design-time.
However, I’m getting more and more restless to actually use the time to re-design the template. Your post just pushed me a little further to taking that step.
In reality the design has to do alot with catching my attention and reading the whole content of the site. To those that don’t know much about the computer world we go for what flashy and cool to our eyes. So yeah Ron a good looking blog will get you more attention!
As for me, when the design looks good, i’m starting reading it but generally (not all the time), the content is not really interesting
(i mean for French blog lol). Nevertheless, most of the time, the design makes me decide to read or not the blog.
Well I do look at content but before I look at content I look at the design. If the template is pleasing, if there is no background music, no flashing adverts, or popups, popunders, and I’ll go on. Otherwise I’ll close leave the site. If the content is pleasing I’ll read it. Usually I don’t leave comments but on smaller sites I tend to do so, as the content author will more likely to respond.
On sites like Digg, Slashdot, etc., you get fights between the users. Slashdot just posts news and people discuss it. Okay, but here authors post articles and have debates. If the debates are your thing, then discussion boards are what needs to get done. Speaking of which, I think that maybe more of the direction I want to take my site. I like active discussion. Hmmmm…
It may be superficial, but I don’t think we’re the only ones who go about finding blogs by this process. Good design is usually the last issue tended too. If they have a solid design then they probably have everything else all lined up as well.
For those with subpar design, it serves as a great indicator to its readers to run!
I agree with you guys…..the design is the first impression so even if the information is good you already seemed to be turned off. First impressions are huge in the web space.
Post a Comment