This is slightly off topic perhaps, but still important, I think, being a designer and all. Design community sweethearts A List Apart is conducting a survey aimed at people making websites this year, and the result will be made available later this year. If you think you’re the target audience, do take the survey, it just takes a few minutes so don’t be daunted by the fact that it is 18 pages long, most of them are really short.

As we explore our blogs and clean out the clutter in this ongoing series on WTF Blog Design Clutter, we’ve looked at the pros and cons of blog clutter with too many “friend” pictures and badges, calendar archives, and most recent comments and shout boxes. Remember that clutter is in the eye of the beholder – the visiting user – not necessarily the blogger. What we see when we visit and use our blogs is not necessarily what the visitor and return reader see or experience. We need to explore our blog’s design through their eyes to help them use and read our blogs.

The usability factor in web design is critical. We often add design elements (widgets and gadgets specifically) to our blog for fun or novelty. We’re flush with the excitement of the latest and hottest whizzbang goodie and we want to share the fun on our blogs. If your blog is getting cluttered with a lot of WordPress Plugins, Widgets, Gadgets, Scripts, and whizzbangs, maybe it’s time to analyze these design elements to find out which ones are most important to your blog and its users – and which one are just clutter.

Today, I want to explore the pros and cons of microblog clutter on your blogs. Are you microblogging?
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In this ongoing series on WTF Blog Design Clutter, we’ve talked about blog clutter with too many “friend” pictures and badges and calendar archives, two of the many elements many use to clog up their blog’s sidebar. “Clutter” is a matter of perspective. If these added design elements really work for your blog, serve your blog’s purpose, and enhance the reader’s experience, leave them. In fact, put them at the top where they are the first thing people will see next to your post title and content beginnings. Promote them. If they are that important, let them stand out.

If they are not important, then they do become clutter.

One of the most popular blog clutters are the Most Recent Comments and Shout Boxes that many feel are important elements to a blog’s design.

The web is now social. People are experimenting with all types of methods to bring the social to their blogs and emphasize how social their blogs are – or at least appear to be. Among the most popular and easy to do are most recent comment widgets and chatting shout boxes. read more

If you are a member of a social networking service, it’s natural that you want to put the HTML code in your sidebar that shows off the faces or avatars of your buddies. After all, that’s what these social networking sites are all about. Your face on their blog and their face on your blog.

Is it? What good it is? How does it help your blog?

As part of this going series on WTF Blog Design Clutter, let’s look at the visual social clutter that clogs our blogs.

If your blog is a social blog, and the pictures of the folks participating on your blog might be helpful. People like seeing their faces or avatars on other blogs. Besides, it should be good link juice, right?

Maybe. read more

Remember the old adage that you never get a second chance to make a first impression? You personally may get a second chance to sway that first impress, but your blog doesn’t. If you don’t grab them within the first micro-seconds of a visit, they won’t subscribe and they won’t be back.

Digging through a lot of blogs recently to research an upcoming article, I found myself thinking “WTF” as I looked at the designs. I was constantly distracted from the content I was eager to read through and quote towards things that blinked, flashed, or listed irrelevant stuff. My eyes had to work overtime to stay focused on the information I was there to glean.
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Your blog archives are the list of months some bloggers keep in their sidebar that link to monthly chronological collections of their blog posts. In the early days, a site with such a monthly listing in their sidebar meant this was a personal blog. Without it, it was a website or professional site.

Are you still displaying your blog post archives? What benefit do bloggers get when the offer a long series of months and years in the sidebar of their blog? Do visitors and readers really use them? Do you?

With all the worry about duplicate content and Google’s PageRank, if your blog is generated similar or duplicate content within the categories and tags, then why do you need to clog their databases with archives?

Have you ever found archives in a search result? I do all the time. I click though hoping to find the answer to my question and find nothing. That information might have been on page 4 of that month’s archive of posts, but now, the natural chronological push from the present to the past of the blog structure may have pushed the information I need onto page 6.

How would I know? read more

Apparantly, this is the week for blog redesigns – with both Joi Ito and John Battelle of Federated Media either deploying new looks, new blog frameworks, or posting new screenshots of what their blogs could look like.

I know Thord has been working on the redesign of The Blog Herald as well.

Anyone else dropping a new look & feel on their blog this week?

Over the past few months I’ve added some new plugins and services to my blog at Webomatica that are solid and useful enough to recommend. All are working great with WordPress 2.5.

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Paul Scrivens, aka Scrivs, talked about limiting your design at his design blog Emersian.

As a part of that post, he talked about the current design of The Blog Herald:

Now let me say that I think BH has a beautiful aesthetic about it. However, without trying to read anything do a quick scan and scroll of the page and ask yourself what caught your eye? What were you inclined to clickthrough on? Now going back to look at the site let’s see what content is being offered to the reader on the homepage excluding any ads which take up a ton of space on their own.

Interesting thoughts considering that Thord is working on a redesign…

And a final thought from Scrivs’s post:

This constant struggle between achieving business objectives and making sure your audience gets everything possible out of a site without overwhelming them is one of the things that I love about design so much. it is one of the reasons that we have no problem redesigning so often to the enjoyment and dismay of our audience. Design never seems to be a finished product even when you reach the deadline. There never seems to be a 100%, but a constant struggle to maintain a 90% completeness.

Skimming through Twitter tonight, I came across a blog that I had not read before – The Blog Design Blog – which is an excellent resource on blog design – including tips, tricks, galleries, and how-to guides revolving around the business of designing great looking weblogs.

Their current feature post is entitled How to Blog Design Style Guide. The post takes a look at nine key areas that you should examine while designing a blog – and provides great examples that you can emulate and aspire to in your design.

The post is full of great advice – such as this section on how to ensure that your blog has a great header design:

How to make your header design great for your blog:

1. The first element in a blog design that I like to design is the header, because I feel that it sets the tone for the rest of the blog design. So I recommend to decide on what message you want to convey, title, and taglines before getting to work in photoshop. This will prevent a lot of headaches and changes down the road.

2. While there are many different ways you can design a header for you blog, it is important to remember to prioritize the communication of the purpose of your blog above everything else. A reader needs to be informed as quick as possible as to what the purpose of your blog is.

3. Get creative and don’t be afraid to try different things until you find a header design that works for your blog. This is generally the first thing people see when they come to your blog so make it memorable.

Take a look – you won’t be disappointed…