Blog Usability - Pt 2
Category: Design...
Posted Wednesday, June 11, 2003 at 05:13 PM [GMT-6]

I want to follow-up on my earlier post about improving the "visitor-friendliness" of blogs. In hindsight, I don't think I made a very good case as to why, philosophically, usability issues should matter to the average Jo/e Blogger.

In a way, it's an issue of responsibility. This "personal publishing revolution" that many of us are participating in has created new opportunities for expression, but it's also created new problems that authors and journalists never before had to deal with.

How many mainstream journalists, for example, ever question what typeface and size will be used when the newspaper publishes their reports? How many novelists get to weigh in on details such as page color and width, or line-height? These things are generally beyond their control, and thus beyond their caring. And, in any event, every copy of the newspaper or book is going to look like every other copy, so why sweat it?

That's no longer the case with blogging. Bloggers are writers and technicians, whether they like it or not. They are responsible for both the creation and the delivery of content. Trouble is, every visitor sees a potentially different version of that content, depending on their choices of operating system, platform, browser, monitor settings, etc.

Oh, sure, it's possible to blog without knowing a whit about web design principles; that's the beauty of the beast. But it's irresponsible to be unaware of the consequences of bad design...if you care about your readers, anyway.

Interestingly, web design standards and web browser technology have progressed to the point where you can shift much of the burden of meeting reader expectations back to the reader. You no longer have to tell her what font to use, at what size, for example. You can leave those choices up to her. But this means that you relinquish control. It might mean that you provide suggestions for how your blog will be presented, instead of requirements. And that implies that you're comfortable letting other people see your blog in a different light than the one you see when you browse it.

People visit and read blogs for their content, not their cosmetics. A poorly-designed blog with good content will still attract readers...but perhaps not as many and not as often as it otherwise might. And, as high quality blogs — in terms of both content and layout — continue to proliferate, bloggers ignore usability issues at their own peril.