User-Friendly

Part Two of Blog Usability

Having a good night’s sleep often helps me to ‘think’ things through, with that kind of thinking being done in the unconscious. So while sitting down for breakfast this morning and checking the weather and my mail, I also checked how my latest blog post appears to people reading it on the their mobiles/cell phones or tablets.

First there are the four lines below: Title, Author, Categories and Date & Reading Time

Then the BLOG CONTENT, arguably the meat of the meal. My stats page tells me 8/10ths of people read just the email and they have the opportunity to Comment and or Like. Eight tenths of the time I do the same. Most mornings I have time to read things, but not comment.

People who click through and read on the Reader interestingly get the Tags in a header at the top. Nobody else does. Clicking through and reading on the Blog gets you the following list of additional bits and pieces.

Share this and Likes, another important bit. Then, Related posts. Then Tags, I was surprised to see. Then, the Published by … and About Me paragraph, followed by Leave a Comment. Finally, one after the other, the three new widgets. First the Search Box, followed by the mashed up Categories list and, finally, Recent Posts.

A lot of superfluous stuff in that list that I doubt anyone will read. One thing I dislike about the internet in the last 3 or 5 years … the amount of bloat and padding a reader needs to negotiate their way through!

It’s as if since no one is accountable for the amount of web-space being used … like we have vast distances of free geography to fill up and never mind the amount of electricity needed for cooling towers … and 3000 words looks far more impressive then 1500 words … repetition and padding are the new normal.

I grew up when paper newspapers and magazines were the go, when every inch of print had to be paid for, and flab, repetition and padding were cut ruthlessly. It seems to me we need to renew that contract. To save on cooling towers and save readers.

So. This is what’s going to happen. Starting at the end of my list, Recent posts is gone, as they are more or less taken care of in the Related Posts item. The list of Categories is gone, as the categories pertaining to that post are covered in the third line of the title block, and they are more useful to me in their nested format in settings.

While the Search Box is useful, I don’t know how useful it’ll be where it is. Wait and see is the go with that item. Then there’s Leave a Comment. I’m leaving that where it is.

Then, Published by … and About Me is starting to look rather jaded. It’s up for a make-over. Tags are said to be important but I often suspect the post’s title and categories are doing the grunt work. I might be able streamline Tags … they are a work in progress. Related Posts, Share This and Likes are all to stay.