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Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes

Source : Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, October 17, 2005

Summary:
Weblogs are often too internally focused and ignore key usability issues, making it hard for new readers to understand the site and trust the author.

Weblogs are a form of website. The thousands of normal website usability guidelines therefore apply to them, as do this year's top ten design mistakes. But weblogs are also a special genre of website; they have unique characteristics and thus distinct usability problems.

One of a weblog's great benefits is that it essentially frees you from "Web design." You write a paragraph, click a button, and it's posted on the Internet. No need for visual design, page design, interaction design, information architecture, or any programming or server maintenance.

Weblogs make having a simple website much easier, and as a result, the number of people who write for the Web has exploded. This is a striking confirmation of the importance of ease of use.

Weblogs' second benefit is that they're a Web-native content genre: they rely on links, and short postings prevail. You don't have to write a full article or conduct original research or reporting. You can simply find something interesting on another site and link to it, possibly with commentary or additional examples. Obviously, this is much easier than running a conventional site, and again indicates the benefits of lowering the barriers to computer use.

As a third benefit, weblogs are part of an ecosystem (sometimes annoyingly referred to as the Blogosphere). This means that whatever good postings exist are promoted through links from other sites. More reader/writers see this good stuff, and the very best then get linked to even more. As a result, link frequency follows a Zipf distribution, with disproportionally more links to the best postings.

Some weblogs are really just private diaries intended only for a handful of family members and close friends. Usability guidelines generally don't apply to such sites, because the readers' prior knowledge and motivation are incomparably greater than those of third-party users. When you want to reach new readers who aren't your mother, however, usability becomes important.

Also, while readers of your intranet weblog might know you, usability is important because your readers are on company time.

Usability Issues
To reach new readers and respect your existing readers' time constraints, test your weblog against the following usability problems.

Continue reading "Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes"

Posted at 7:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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How do we tell non-bloggers about blogging?

Sex Education and a 6 year old - How do we tell non-bloggers about blogging?

How do you describe blogging to someone who has never blogged? I was trying to find a metaphor and this one bumped into my mind.

When my son James was about six, he was shown a copy of The Joy of Sex by my niece - thanks Astrid - James was so disgusted by the pictures that he claimed that he would never get married. After all if you describe the sex act to a six year old, it doesn't sound like something that any sane person would want to do - let alone become fixated by!

So when I describe the act of blogging to a corporate person, all they see is that I have asked them to spend even more time every day doing a form of email. They only see the act of typing and reading without the context of having a voice and finding a community. Just as a 6 year old only sees the physical act of penetration and sharing spit and misses the joy of passion and of intimacy.

How do we explain blogging so that non bloggers can get it?

Update (thanks to Difa!) - Source: Robert Paterson's Weblog

Posted at 11:17 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

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Fitur CMS itu harus ?

Fitur CMS (Content Management System) itu minimal mempunyai sebagai berikut :

* The ability to publish in the future. For example, adding content and setting the publish date hours, days, or weeks in advance.

* A feature that allows content to be displayed for a certain time span and then moved into an archive section or removed from the site.

* Easy to use. This probably doesn't need saying but I've been asking myself what "easy to use" means in this context. For one thing I think it means that training required is minimal, and that in a lot of ways adding content is much like creating a new Word document. I think it's a lot like using Movable Type for blogging. The interface is pretty intuitive and after a short training session most people can use it without much trouble.

* It should be fairly easy to add files, images, and related content. For example, if we want to add audio files, a .PDF document, or other type of file associated with content on the site then uploading and adding that should be easy to do.

* There should be a preview function and the preview should provide a display of exactly what the content on the page is going to look like. Believe it or not I've seen CMS software that doesn't do this.

* The CMS has to produce code that meets standards.

Posted at 1:46 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

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