Blog Survey '08
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!
Comments
HI Richard, Great that you
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
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
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
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:
You can read my latest post that touch this issue, here
If it aint broke, dont fix it...
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
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!
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
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 :)
I think the logo is just
I think the logo is just fine :)
The black shadow and outline is just perfect :)