Friday, December 31, 2004

Just Observing

Just Observing

Have just spent awhile clicking on the "next blog" up in the right hand corner of this blog. Have no idea how many I clicked through. It left me wondering just what the bloggers wanted the most...some wild site design or to be read. One after another, the blog was so complexly designed, and unreadable. In some cases, the type was very tiny. Others had dark lettering on dark background or light on light. Many, of course, were in another language, which is neat...if the language is one the readers know. Invariably, if the background color was pink, it designated a female, as if the blogger had been brainwashed at birth that girls wear pink and boys wear blue. The males seem to prefer green, for whatever reason. In any case, over-elaborate design obliterates the writing. Be good if the bloggers would consider this, cause so many complain about the lack of comments they get. If it's difficult to read, nobody is gonna read it. Just that simple. Something to think about.

4 comments:

Nan said...

I see great potential in your blog as a "must read". The observation you made was very funny--mainly because I've noticed the same thing. I also clicked on "next blog" many times when I first started blogging back in October and did this until I would hit a site where I got "locked in" and could only get out by hitting the reliable "control, alt, delete". This, plus seeing the blogs of many scary people, made me promise myself never again. Now the way I find the best sites is to go on a treasure hunt of sorts. I go to a site I have found and liked previously, find a comment that tickles my curiosity, and click on the name. Some are dead ends, not delivering the hoped for easily readable,entertaining,and fairly clean blog. Others are interesting and I bookmark them to see if they continue to be readable. If you hit any snags in posting, the dashboard has quick answering blog help. Or if I can be of any help just drop by my site and leave me a comment. You'll recognize my site quickly--it's dull and unappealing.
Best Wishes, Cate

Watch 'n Wait said...

Thanks for the kind words, Cate! I dropped by your blog and found a completely different world than my own. And very readable. :)

Leege said...

Very good point. I've discovered a lot of the same thing when I've done the next blog button myself. I agree that I would rather have a lot of readers than a fancy site. If it gets too complex, you can't even read anything on the site and sometimes not even have an idea what the site is about or who is producing it. However, I think a lot of the reason for that is they realize that there are literally tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of guys doing the same things that we are doing. They know that, and they're trying to stand out as much as possible with new skins, graphics, whatever. I don't do that myself, partly out of taste but partly because I don't have the HTML programming smarts as some of these guys. It's a fine line between being unique and being unintelligible.

P.S. to Just Observing; I took the holidays off. Planning to post at my shop tonight.

Travelcedric said...

As with you, and the other comment posters, I too cruise the "Next Blog" button...gives me something to do. And I too have noticed that the fancy, overdone pages turn me off. I just skip by them. And really, isn't a Blog meant to be read? Simplistic, easily readable is the key. I'm guessing that this is what caught your eye on my Blog, and I find your Blog easy to read as well. I definately will be back.