Blog Survey '08

Submitted by Richard Dewick on Thu, 25/09/2008 - 15:48.

Inspiration

Having had this site design for the past year I'm about to redesign. Mainly to incorporate new features but also to make the site that little bit more easier to navigate and read.

As a designer I'm interested in getting a users point of view. This is your chance to praise or blaze my design and blog! Don't be shy, I won't hunt you down for criticising it, honest!

After I've received enough feedback I'll publish my findings for all to learn from. So what are you waiting for, complete this short survey and hit submit!

Richard Dewick's blog

HI Richard, Great that you

Submitted by Emma Best on Fri, 26/09/2008 - 10:27.

HI Richard, Great that you guys are going to redesign- we're in the process ourselves and it is a bit of a nightmare :-) Considering I am not a designer, but rather someone who spends all day looking at blogs and websites: maybe I am not the qualified person to answer. However I like your layout right now, but perhaps the green and black is a bit stark? Also some variation on fonts would be nice and perhaps borders for different sections on the sidebar? Hope these suggestions help - Emma

User Feedback is Important

Submitted by Richard Dewick on Fri, 26/09/2008 - 11:18.

Hi Emma, thanks for your suggestions, it's always good to get user feedback no matter how confident you might be in a design. The black background is high on my agenda as it can be tricky to read even if you improve visibility with increased type size and paragraph spacing like I have.

Keep the responses coming, the results I've had so far are very interesting :)

White background

Submitted by Tad Chef on Sat, 27/09/2008 - 00:57.

Black on white is best for readability and the eyes. At least lee contrast. Also the font size is already too large.

Blog Survey 08

Submitted by Hamdani Amin on Sat, 27/09/2008 - 01:44.

Hi Richard. I know the decision about redesign will not be so easy. Because I had redesign recently. In my opinion, you can do a few thing:

overall design:Perhap, a magazine style design, with three column design
Header:You need to redesign your header. This set the tone for your blog. Further more this is the first thing people see when they visit your website
Navigation:I don't where is your page navigation for you blog. Add a proper one.
Overall font:Maybe retain the current font. Choose verdana, arial or lucia grande for headlines and arial or verdana- for body post
Comment areause some avatar. The choice of avatar could be gravatar or mybloglog.

You can read my latest post that touch this issue, here

If it aint broke, dont fix it...

Submitted by Bubbila on Sat, 27/09/2008 - 04:55.

I personally think that you have branded yourself and your layouts very well indeed. However, if you think you can improve upon what you already have in place! then I look forward to seeing your changes.

Best Regards
Steve

Valuable comments

Submitted by Richard Dewick on Sat, 27/09/2008 - 12:02.

Thanks to Tad, Hamdani Amin and Steve for their valuable comments such as the fonts, background colour and design. I'm addressing all these issues so it's good to know my thoughts are correct and so the new design will appeal to you all.

Please do share the survey with a friend and subscribe to my feed to get the results as soon as they are available.

Test!

Submitted by Liam Delahunty on Fri, 21/11/2008 - 18:46.

My opinion doesn't matter, what does matter is action from a majority of your readership.

So, my suggestion is simply to test. Create several iterations of layouts and colour schemes - whatever - and test. A conversion goal for a blog could be RSS signups, pageviews and/or just time on the site.

Conversion Goals

Submitted by Richard Dewick on Sat, 22/11/2008 - 11:02.

Cheers for the comment Liam and yes testing is a must. Always Be Testing is a great book for those interested in testing and conversion goals. I'll let you know how the new design goes down with my readership :)