Thursday, 30 April 2015

Discussion: How Important is my Blog Design?




Okay, so you find a new blog and you like the content. The writer has a really good style and sense of humour. They post regularly about interesting things and they always respond to their comments. Perfect right? Except their blog design is giving you a headache. They have blue text on a green background and their sidebar is cramped with badges and widgets and links (oh my!) that seem to go on for miles down the page. Not only that but it takes five minutes to load one page.

Now tell me, if my content is really good, does it matter if my design is really bad? Maybe my design isn’t bad exactly. Maybe it’s just a little bland. Maybe it doesn’t run completely perfectly but it works efficiently enough to not give you a migraine.  Is that better?

Personally, I wouldn’t normally follow a blog for its fancy design. I’ll admit that when a blog is well built it will make me more inclined to check it out. The main thing for me is that the homepage is clean and easy to navigate. Obviously it would also help if the pages loaded quickly and if the text was easy to read. The most important thing is the content of course. That’s the reason I keep coming back. That said, my first impression is based on what I see. If I can’t find your other articles easily or if your posts are hard to read, then I probably won’t return unless your content is ah-mazing.

Does anyone feel (a little bit) influenced by a blog’s interface?

21 comments :

  1. Oh yes, however good a blog is, the page should load fast or if not at a reasonable speed to go through the posts. Another factor is the visibility of the text. If it starts giving me a headache then no would I bookmark or follow it. And final factor is the accessibility. I have seen a few where the menus aren't that great at exploring. These 3 are the most important to me

    Floryie
    http://thebookdrealms.blogspot.com

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    Replies
    1. It's so true about the menu being important. There are so many times when I want to see someones 'about page' or look at their older posts but I can't because their menu is hard to find or they don't link to their archive.

      Thanks for commenting! :)

      Delete
  2. I see what you're saying. I wrote a post like this a while ago and found that around 80 percent of people won't read a blog because of its design. It was this scary figure that motivated me into changing my own blog design. Also, I agree that loading time is certainly important. If a website doesn't load quickly then I find I'm more than likely to just hit the back button and find another relevant website. I can see how a blog could loose alot of readers that way.
    I'm just rambling now...
    Great post!

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    Replies
    1. I don't know what your blog looked like before but I really like the design you have, it's bright and easy to navigate. Long loading times are just kind of off-putting I find so I try to make sure I don't have too many features that could slow down my loading time.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      Delete
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