lgf: LGF Wins Two Categories in Warblogger Awards
“Best Designed Blog†and “Best Blog Overall.”
I’m glad to see that Little Green Footballs won best designed blog at the Warblogger Awards. It’s well deserved, it is a very well done site. A nice, clean three column layout which still has plenty of content space. A lot of three column layouts crowd the content, but lgf has struck a very nice balance.
I’m not going to take the time for a full review of Tom DeLay.com, it’s just not worth my time, but I thought I’d point out a couple of problems.
Problem 1 - Boring!
The site has very little visual interest. The only graphic element in the design is a poorly done header image containing a picture of Tom DeLay. Yawn. If you don’t want to take the time to do something interesting, stick with a default template of some kind. Then at least we’ll know you don’t care.
Problem 2 - Comments
What I found objectionable about the comments is that there isn’t a single blogger’s URL showing anywhere. The only way to find out if the commenter is a blogger is to click on their name and go to a second page on the site which tells you if they left a URL. Annoying, and a little misleading. Showing a blogger’s URL is a simple way of putting the comments in the context of their other writing. By putting them one step away from the comments, you are removing this context.
In my experience, bloggers make up a significant percentage of commenters. Here though, I only managed to find two bloggers, William Teach and Becky, who left their URLs. It seems unlikely that all these are all people without blogs. Something odd is going on there. Either they’re being filtered (a note at the bottom of the comment page suggested this might be the case) or there is something odd about the way the site is functioning that is filtering out most of the URLs. Either way, the comments do not appear to be working as they should.
Problem 3 - Links
Far and away the biggest problem I see is the links in the content section of the blog. They’re hidden. Even in the small image I’ve placed above, the links should be at least partially visible. Sure you couldn’t read the text at that size, but the links should be bold, or italic, or colored. Anything to make them stand out from the regular text. They don’t stand out though. The text style of links is identical to the rest of the text unless you hover your mouse over a link. The image above contains three links in those first few paragraphs, but you’d have to hunt to find them.
The content links also have a flaw that’s a pet peeve of mine. Links are regular weight when there is no mouse over, but bold weight when hovered over. This causes the text to move whenever a link is “found”. Scroll your mouse down the page and each link passed over will make the text move. You might want to take Dramamine before you try that.
Summary:
This is a poorly designed site with little visual interest. The comment section is of questionable value, with commenter’s URLs placed one step away or missing. The link styles are horribly done. They are difficult to find inline and cause the text to shift in an annoying way when found. Everyone should strive to set an example. Unfortunately, TomDeLay.com is striving to be a bad example.
h/t to Raising Farrahzona » A Blog Roll I Will Never Be On for pointing out the site. I’d heard it existed, but hadn’t seen it yet.
I’m not going to take the time for a full review of Tom DeLay.com, it’s just not worth my time, but I thought I’d point out a couple of problems.
Problem 1 - Boring!
The site has very little visual interest. The only graphic element in the design is a poorly done header image containing a picture of Tom DeLay. Yawn. If you don’t want to take the time to do something interesting, stick with a default template of some kind. Then at least we’ll know you don’t care.
Problem 2 - Comments
What I found objectionable about the comments is that there isn’t a single blogger’s URL showing anywhere. The only way to find out if the commenter is a blogger is to click on their name and go to a second page on the site which tells you if they left a URL. Annoying, and a little misleading. Showing a blogger’s URL is a simple way of putting the comments in the context of their other writing. By putting them one step away from the comments, you are removing this context.
In my experience, bloggers make up a significant percentage of commenters. Here though, I only managed to find two bloggers, William Teach and Becky, who left their URLs. It seems unlikely that all these are all people without blogs. Something odd is going on there. Either they’re being filtered (a note at the bottom of the comment page suggested this might be the case) or there is something odd about the way the site is functioning that is filtering out most of the URLs. Either way, the comments do not appear to be working as they should.
Problem 3 - Links
Far and away the biggest problem I see is the links in the content section of the blog. They’re hidden. Even in the small image I’ve placed above, the links should be at least partially visible. Sure you couldn’t read the text at that size, but the links should be bold, or italic, or colored. Anything to make them stand out from the regular text. They don’t stand out though. The text style of links is identical to the rest of the text unless you hover your mouse over a link. The image above contains three links in those first few paragraphs, but you’d have to hunt to find them.
The content links also have a flaw that’s a pet peeve of mine. Links are regular weight when there is no mouse over, but bold weight when hovered over. This causes the text to move whenever a link is “found”. Scroll your mouse down the page and each link passed over will make the text move. You might want to take Dramamine before you try that.
Summary:
This is a poorly designed site with little visual interest. The comment section is of questionable value, with commenter’s URLs placed one step away or missing. The link styles are horribly done. They are difficult to find inline and cause the text to shift in an annoying way when found. Everyone should strive to set an example. Unfortunately, TomDeLay.com is striving to be a bad example.
h/t to Raising Farrahzona » A Blog Roll I Will Never Be On for pointing out the site. I’d heard it existed, but hadn’t seen it yet.
I’m not going to take the time for a full review of Tom DeLay.com, it’s just not worth my time, but I thought I’d point out a couple of problems.
Problem 1 - Boring!
The site has very little visual interest. The only graphic element in the design is a poorly done header image containing a picture of Tom DeLay. Yawn. If you don’t want to take the time to do something interesting, stick with a default template of some kind. Then at least we’ll know you don’t care.
Problem 2 - Comments
What I found objectionable about the comments is that there isn’t a single blogger’s URL showing anywhere. The only way to find out if the commenter is a blogger is to click on their name and go to a second page on the site which tells you if they left a URL. Annoying, and a little misleading. Showing a blogger’s URL is a simple way of putting the comments in the context of their other writing. By putting them one step away from the comments, you are removing this context.
In my experience, bloggers make up a significant percentage of commenters. Here though, I only managed to find two bloggers, William Teach and Becky, who left their URLs. It seems unlikely that all these are all people without blogs. Something odd is going on there. Either they’re being filtered (a note at the bottom of the comment page suggested this might be the case) or there is something odd about the way the site is functioning that is filtering out most of the URLs. Either way, the comments do not appear to be working as they should.
Problem 3 - Links
Far and away the biggest problem I see is the links in the content section of the blog. They’re hidden. Even in the small image I’ve placed above, the links should be at least partially visible. Sure you couldn’t read the text at that size, but the links should be bold, or italic, or colored. Anything to make them stand out from the regular text. They don’t stand out though. The text style of links is identical to the rest of the text unless you hover your mouse over a link. The image above contains three links in those first few paragraphs, but you’d have to hunt to find them.
The content links also have a flaw that’s a pet peeve of mine. Links are regular weight when there is no mouse over, but bold weight when hovered over. This causes the text to move whenever a link is “found”. Scroll your mouse down the page and each link passed over will make the text move. You might want to take Dramamine before you try that.
Summary:
This is a poorly designed site with little visual interest. The comment section is of questionable value, with commenter’s URLs placed one step away or missing. The link styles are horribly done. They are difficult to find inline and cause the text to shift in an annoying way when found. Everyone should strive to set an example. Unfortunately, TomDeLay.com is striving to be a bad example.
h/t to Raising Farrahzona » A Blog Roll I Will Never Be On for pointing out the site. I’d heard it existed, but hadn’t seen it yet.
There are almost as many reasons to quit blogging as there are to start, but I’ve noticed a trend. A significant number of people seem to quit blogging because of the time and effort that it takes. A perfectly valid reason. Blogging can be time consuming, and a lot of the time consuming parts aren’t very much fun. Consider how much time do you waste on spam comments and trackbacks for instance. How the annoying little details of links and quotes and making your post look like you want? What’s the solution? Here’s a short list of things that I use to make things go a little smoother.
That should give you at least a start on streamline your blogging workflow. Sure it takes a few minutes to make some of those changes, but each one can save you time in the future. Then the time you devote to your blog can be spent… blogging.
Staying with the “starting from the top” theme, my second design review subject is Michelle Malkin’s Internet broadcast site, Hot Air. A powerhouse conservative blog which is currently averaging 67,917 hits per day.
Style:
The content packed layout was designed by The Blog Studio with a minimalist color scheme. It is a clean black and white design, with a moderate use of gray and some red highlights. Prominent advertising does not compete with content.
The overall style of the blog really quite good. The whimsical use of graphics and the Cox & Forkum logo in particular are well suited to the writing style of the blog.
The details of the site were not overlooked. The typography is well done, and a careful use of negative space makes the text flow nicely.
On a negative note, the blockquotes crowd their contained text on the top and bottom of each quote in the blog posts which I find a little annoying. They also crowd the left edge of the quotes in the comments, which I find more annoying. Both of those aspects are more a matter of personal taste than anything though. The CSS in general is actually fairly elegant.
Structure:
This WordPress powered site is a completely CSS layout as you’d expect. The structural framework appears very solid, and any modern browser would reliably represent it. Load time is high with 39.86 seconds on DSL or 127.88 seconds on 56K modem.This is a little more than twice as long as my site’s current theme which has a 17 second load time on DSL. This bandwidth drain is mostly caused by the high level of graphics. When I tested the load time, HotAir’s home page contained 66 images.
There is a little sloppy coding to clean up, but it seems to be almost exclusively related to advertising. This is an extremely minor point that would be very unlikely to affect anything. The blog posting code is very clean as are the resulting RSS feeds.
Content:
Content is a Conservative mix of politics and humor. It is graphically rich and updated frequently. In addition to the writing, three or four episodes of Vent, a Michelle Malkin vlog, are posted weekly.
Content is well presented in a clear and uncrowded layout. Very nice use of negative space with the blog posts.
What would I change:
The first thing I would try to change would be the load time. A difficult task that I’m not sure I would have much success with. This site is built around it’s use of graphics and the resulting load time would be difficult to improve upon. The load time definitely does not warrant changing the site style.
I’d make an attempt to clean up the advertisers code too, but this also could be futile. Small corrections are likely possible, but not all will be correctable. This is more annoying than anything. As a perfectionist at heart, I’d like things like this to be perfect, but it isn’t likely to happen any time soon.
Final summary:
This is a clever design, beautifully executed. It’s one of the best blog designs I’ve seen in terms of crafting the design to suit both the purpose and the authors. Well built, well organized, and just a touch of whimsy.
Nothing like starting from the top, so my first review is going to be Daily Kos. Daily Kos is the 600 pound gorilla of blogs, currently averaging 432,000 hits a day.
Style:
The overall design is simple, using a very clean orange on white color scheme. Simple isn’t a criticism, it’s just not a graphically complex site. Graphics can be a huge bandwidth drain if done wrong or excessively.
The layout is a little cluttered. Mostly by an entire row of advertising as well as the traditional row of links. It does have a style switcher which allows for a wider version of the site, but the width difference is minimal. The switcher is a nice idea, but the execution of it isn’t what it should be.
The Daily Kos logo isn’t really to my taste, but it’s well designed and executed. It works well with the site.
The CSS is well thought out and quite detailed. I particularly like how the smaller details were handled. The blockquotes are nice and clearly differentiated, and the section breaks are good as well. The difference between good CSS and great CSS is in the details, and this one is very good. Overall I give the CSS great marks, it’s a credit to whoever wrote it.
Structure:
This CSS designed site is powered by Scoop. It has a good structural framework. It should reliably work on any modern browser. Load time is a very reasonable 8.85 seconds on DSL or 27.08 seconds on 56K modem. This is almost twice as fast as my site’s current theme which has a 17 second load time on DSL. Quality servers would likely be a factor there, but Kos’ very streamlined design is a factor as well.
I’d give Daily Kos negative marks for it’s random sloppy coding, but that appears to be almost exclusively in the advertising and posting rather than the basic structure of the site. Mr. Moulitsas should slap the hands of a few of his authors and that would be cleaned up. I suspect that a few of the authors are writing their posts in Microsoft Word and pasting it into their posts. That tends to add some odd and sloppy coding. No really significant errors that I can see.
Content:
Mr. Moulitsas runs a tight ship. While I don’t care for the writing, the content is well presented.
The site organization is reasonably good. I would think that most traffic doesn’t pass far beyond the front page, but links elsewhere are clearly marked.
What would I change:
While I can see why Mr. Moulitsas dedicates so much space to his advertisers (this is his livelihood after all) I’d try to come up with another option. I would reevaluate the placement of ads with an eye towards increasing the footprint of content. Thigns I would consider would be:
Any of these options would allow me to dedicate more space to the content which is key to readership.
I would also consider making it a flexible width site so that readers with higher resolution monitors can benefit from it. Adding a minimum width to the CSS would keep the site from compressing too much in smaller windows. There are javascript options for min-width as well.
I would crack down on the poor coding of some of the authors. While I am not familiar with the a href=”http://scoop.kuro5hin.org/”>Scoop platform, any reliable platform should produce reasonably clean code. The sloppiness I’m seeing in the posting is likely coming from an outside source like MS Word. Either that or some of the authors are not as familiar with XHTML as they think they are. This is of course an extremely minor point, but these little coding errors add up, and can cause problems down the road. I’d be most concerned with the coding errors effects on the RSS feeds which are much less forgiving than the traditional site.
Any alterations I would make to correct these issues would be designed to add to the site’s current style rather than altering it. The site’s current style is fairly good, and very appropriate for a high traffic site. Clarifying the current style by subtly, or not so subtly, altering the site’s current layout. Sacrificing the content for advertising space isn’t where to go. Without content, you have no site. Let the style and the content take their place in the forefront where they belong.
This site’s style doesn’t need to be redesigned, but redefined. One of the side effects of a redefining the style would be to increase the prominence of the Daily Kos logo and signature style. This could have beneficial effects on logo recognition and overall branding efforts. While this wouldn’t guarantee increases in merchandise sales, it sure wouldn’t hurt them.
To summarize, it is a good overall design that is structurally well executed. Stylistically, the encroaching advertising has started to take over the layout. Clarifying the design would be a good idea.
I should have started this sooner, but better late than never. Design Reviews. I’ll focus on website design primarily, but we’ll see where it goes. Since I’m rarely called humble, I thought I’d start right at the top. Starting in the next day or two I’ll be doing design reviews of some of the more popular blogs. Don’t have a popular site? Don’t think you’re safe, because I’ll be going there too. Reviews will cover these areas:
If you have a site that you want reviewed, feel free to make suggestions. If you don’t want your site reviewed… I’ll accept cash, check, and most major credit cards.
This was one of the original concepts behind this blog, but it’s something I’ve never felt ready to start. I’d like to thank Mr. Guzman for kicking me into gear with a post on this subject a few months ago. I’m not linking because his site (samguzman.com?) doesn’t currently seem to be online. If this changes, please let me know and I’ll link to you properly.
Evolvor has a short video clip on how to upload and place an image in WordPress. A nicely done and informative clip.
The following video is a short tutorial I found on You Tube about how to insert an image using Wordpress, for those of you who are just joining the WordPress army. - How to Insert an Image Using Wordpress | Evolvor
Get a lot of comments on your WordPress site? Set up an RSS feed of your comments so your commenters can keep keep up with the latest conversations. The default WordPress installation includes a comment feed, but doesn’t link it to the site. This means that while the feed exists, nobody can see it. In most cases it’s just a matter of adding a little code to your header, and your readers will be able to subscribe to your comments. The default location for the feed seems to be YourURL/wp-commentsrss2.php. In order to allow feed readers and browsers to see this feed, simply add this code to the header section of your site.
<link rel="alternate" type="text/xml" title="Comments" href="Your feed’s URL" />
Ariel Vanderhorst has an interesting post on Blogging Accessories, Tools & Hacks today.
Building a blog is a gradual process. If you’ve begun to publish posts on a consistent basis, you may start wondering how to improve your blog further - how to personalize it and make it stand out in a crowd. Of course, the best way to make your blog unique is to write good content, but there’s also a technology dimension.
He lists some interesting blogging tools and a very good list of blog directories. The only thing I see missing is Performancing for Firefox.
I always assumed that someone had written a list like this, but I hadn’t seen it before. A short list of common blogging terms commonly used in the blogosphere (including blogosphere). Quick and to the point.
h/t evolvor
I always assumed that someone had written a list like this, but I hadn’t seen it before. A short list of common blogging terms commonly used in the blogosphere (including blogosphere). Quick and to the point.
h/t evolvor