Appearance May Not Make You, But it Can Break You
December 10, 2008
Let’s pretend for a minute you have a job interview today. It’s one of the biggest career moves you could possibly make in your early adult life. You had gone out a few days ago and bought a nice business suit, new shoes to match, and got a nice haircut while you were at it. The big day finally came and you go to put on your new suit and realize somehow there is a stain right on the front part of the shirt. It is too big for your tie to cover it but you dress in it anyway and head off to the interview.
Now studies show that you can be judged by the interviewer on the appearances like this. Your qualifications may be above the grade, and you may show ambition with a great sense of accomplishment coupled with a good sense of humor, but that stain just rubbed him the wrong way. Now if the stain was not there it may not have improved you interview but having the stain there sure caused enough irritation that the interviewer may have felt something was a bit “off”.
Relate this to the appearance of your blog. Having a good looking blog won’t make you successful. All the qualities that make up a good blogger will make you successful like: networking, writing good content, keeping the blog current and up to date, relating to your readers, and so forth. But if the appearance of your blog is too distracting, or is just a bad looking theme, it can cause readers to feel unpleasant. It should be a fairly pleasant experience to come check in on your blog.
So what are some of the top most annoying things about a blog that could cause problems?
I will list a few but I would like you guys to list at least one by replying. But how about when the there are so many Google Ads you can’t find the content? Or how about when the theme is too dark and you can’t read the text? I have read blogs where it is so dark and the text looks like it is trying to hypnotize me while I am reading. Shouldn’t a blog be fresh and clean… easy to read?
What else? Ideas anyone?
Newspapers, magazines and books are made with black ink on white background for a reason – it’s easy to read and doesn’t strain the eyeballs.
If I land on a page anywhere on the Internet that has dark background with bright text, I leave immediately.
How about a stupid title and one that is misspelled?
Haha. Good point about the titles. I am also not a fan of the dark background blogs. One of the most annoying things that I have found is to many freakin’ widgets! The page takes 10 minutes to load because there are 1200 widgets all jammed into the sidebar.
Don’t get me wrong, widgets can be very useful, but be selective and don’t select ‘ALL’.
What else…what else
Oh, yeah. Here’s a good one. What about the videos or music that automatically start up when the page is loaded. Usually, the site/blog will have this crammed down at the bottom so you can’t turn it off in time. It gets them their advertising pageview, but sure is annoying!!
I’m a web designer, and I do a lot of work with accessibility. People often forget that they are not the target audience. All those bells and whistles might be nice for them, but are annoying for most of their audience. Those bells and whistles are also often restricting the accessibility of the site. Make it difficult for people to view your content, and they won’t be back. Keep the design neat and clean, and let people judge your site by the content. A beautiful design is nice, but only if it adds to the content.