Talk Back Fridays: How Important Is Design, Anyway?
Welcome to Talk Back Fridays, where you talk back and possibly win my editing services for one blog post of your choice! First, some housekeeping - this is the next to last contest Friday, so if you want to win, start commenting! Next week will be our last contest day, although Talk Back Fridays itself will continue (we just won’t be announcing any winners). I’ll probably resurrect the contest at some point in the near future - but for now, you have two more chances!
How does it work? Easy peasy: I post about a topic, you post your thoughts, I choose a winner. That winner gets my editing services for one blog post of his or her choice (subject to my usual rules about no obscenity, no defamation, etc.). That’s it! Couldn’t be simpler.
Today’s Talk Back Topic: How important is design, anyway?
It’s an age-old debate - design versus content. One serves the other. No, it’s the other way around. Design doesn’t matter. No, it’s critical. (No one will deny that content is more critical, I hope.) But I look around and I see some of these blogs the kids are starting up these days - and I think, “Mercy. Who hit you with the ugly stick, you poor blog?” I mean - really. Standard fresh out of the can templates? Boring blue and white, or green and white, or some other god-awful two-tone garbage that someone mistook for “clean and simple”?
But maybe I’m wrong. Maybe design isn’t that important, if your goal is to bring in the readers and/or the bucks. Maybe looks don’t count.
Talk back to me!
Technorati Tags: talk back fridays, blog design, blog content
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May 25th, 2007 at 10:46 am
As a (very) amateur web designer, I say that design is very important, especially on blogs. When I go to a new site, the first thing I notice is the design. While I like a nice clean, crisp design, I also want to feel a bit of the writer’s personality in the design. I want it to tell me a little about who that person is. Sites that are sloppy or have tons of flashing buttons in the sidebar, etc. don’t hold my interest. If the site is designed well, I am much more likely to read the entire page and to come back again. Fortunately, I read most blogs through a feed reader anyway so if the writing is really good but the site design is really bad, I can just subscribe to the feed and ignore the eye sore.