I take great pleasure in bringing you this Guest Post written by Gerald Martin who also writes on being a radiology technician for www.onlinecollegedegrees.net as I have said in one of my previous posts I am now opened to accepting guest posts. Making a blog look unique can be a trickier prospect than it seems from the outset; it’s completely open-ended and can thus go very well or very poorly, depending on what your blog’s goal is. Regardless, here are a number of things that you should almost never do, unless your blog’s goal is to alienate and annoy potential readers to your blog:
1. Embed auto-playing music.
Music is not necessarily a bad thing; music that plays as soon as a potential reader loads a page almost always is. It makes as good an impression as yelling at a stranger, and it’s one of many reasons why no one uses MySpace anymore. If you run a music blog, embed streaming media players that don’t auto-play. Also consider linking out to music you want your reader to hear, so that they can listen at their leisure, rather than in an agitated state.
2. Embed Un-skippable ads.
No one liked pop-up advertisements in 2001, before everyone’s browser included a tool to kill them instantly. Now no one likes un-skippable ads, which make users wait before they can view your blog’s content. Unless you have something that you know everyone wants, stick to targeted ads that make sense for your reader base, rather than irrelevant ones that waste their time.
3. Use Flash exclusively.
The lure of Flash is understandable. It can make things pretty, it makes them detailed; it can make them wholly, uniquely yours. It also makes them drain resources on almost every modern web browser and can’t be viewed on any device running Apple’s IOS, making the technology dated and impractical as interface designers move into the future. Furthermore, Flash is a poor choice for blogs because it renders text solely as you design it, rather than in a medium that looks best to your reader (whose eyes might not be able to render text as small as yours).
4. Choose an obnoxious font.
Bad font choice can do wonders to hurt your credibility, especially if that font is Comic Sans MS (famously used on the tags of Beanie Babies by comic artists too lazy to open their own text, and eight-year-olds the world over). Colour combinations can be equally devastating; avoid yellow on white, for example. Stick to a more conservative font and a color combination that complements your layout, rather than one that renders your content unreadable.
5. Create a bad blog layout.
Deliberately terrible layouts can make for good art but rarely convey information in an effective fashion. Stay away from noisy embedded background images, resource-intensive add-on, and other unnecessary decorating. Make your content as accessible as possible and your readers will be relieved when it doesn’t take them a month to find something in your archives.
-This post was written by Gerald Martin who also writes on being a radiology technician for www.onlinecollegedegrees.net
2nd and 5th, I hate it the most. I am a very much design enthusiast and my decision to visit any site again and again, largely depends on the overall look and feel of the site which if goes otherwise, I won’t feel like visiting it again. Content is my secondary priority but still a very important priority. One more thing to add, I hate sites which are there to just showcase ads. I really feel like…huh!
You have said it Aswani i love a good design and that is why i visit site like http://www.cssdrive.com because it showcase good design and some beautifully crafted sites.
A bad layout and pop ups are a big turn off :(. Hate visting MFA sites
I like visiting those sites which have good and clean design with good content.
Pop up ads should be a no no for me i don’t like them either site that are not layed out nicely is not nice on the eyes either clean design and less clutter is the way to go. Thanks for your comment.
It all depends on the content you post. If you post really high quality content and have a stable reader base, you could add an ad after every sentence in your article and still have people coming back.
You made a valuable point Andreas but for some ads are a turn of we need them but should keep them at a minimal you should not make your blog looks as if it has nothing more to offer other than ads.
Indeed the quality of the blog design is crucial in keeping the visitors close. This are some good point of what not to do. But also I think that the use of pop up can be added here.
As for me i love a great design i will always visit at website with good design i myself dislike pop ups for me they are a no no. Thanks for adding your voice to the debate here.
I absolutely hate sites that have the pop-ups. The bloggers are trying to get the reader’s attention, but they’re annoying them which will likely drive them away from the site. Unfortunately, I don’t think that they will be going away anytime soon. It seems as though almost every blog that I visit has them embedded.
When bloggers are trying to monetise their site and start to installing those ad codes you have to be very careful i would always get my site to see if it comes with any pop ups i really don’t want to turn away my readers or potential subscribers.
Most of this goes without saying, thankfully, this has been improved over the last few years as wordpress took the prime role of being a platform for bloggers. You see these less and less, but there are still bad examples!
Anyway, it’s good to have a reminder like this for the new bloggers, it will help them stay in line and not chase away their visitors by having a”good” idea 🙂
Hi, Gary. Great stuff for a first guest post. Gerald really did good here. I dislike pop-ups myself and steer clear from them. While bad layouts are not enjoyable as well, it’s the pop-ups that are most annoying, especially if you can’t skip them or can’t close them fast them enough.
– Wes –
Most of us will agree that Pop ups are very annoying bad layout is not good but can be overlooked but pop ups and atu playing music i really don’t like sometimes we really need some quiet surfing
auto play music is bad, but pop over pushing their newsletter blocks the content which is 10x worse.
I tend to surf with my computer on mute just encase some site has audio. But I can’t stop those newletter pop overs! arg
Hello Gary, Gerald,
These are some of the very good points raised by you here . I absolutely abhor that annoying popups that appear on every page. Also the bad contrast in pages is pain in the eyes and make website less user friendly. The idea is to allow each element of the site to breathe :). That way the website looks less cluttered.
Thanks for posting.
Ashvini
Thanks
I agree with you, these are all indeed features that drive users away. I can think of several others, like pop ups and under, but nonetheless, the point is to make your users experience the best it can be. Great!
This is an important list of items not to include in any blog design. When adding plugins and design features to a blog or website always keep the end user in mind.
I don’t like it when they have an object that doesn’t scroll. They often flicker.
Also pages that require you to scroll horizontally are annoying unless they are done in a creative way.
I agree with what you’ve written about fonts. Website owners or developers should give fonts a great value in designing because it is an important tool in relaying our message which are written in text (fonts). Readability of content is very crucial so we have to choose them carefully and ensure that they deliver the message we want to express.