I read and article on Smashing Magazine a while ago and thought it was brilliant. It’s related to web-design and I thought I’d apply them to blogging.

1. Don’t make users think.

When a visitor visits your blog for the first time, what’s the experience they get? Do they know what your blog is about? Are your navigation links easy to find? While blogs are essentially a freedom of expression you’re really free to design it as you please. But if you want a blog to grow and be successful then you need to make it simple and not confuse readers.

Problogger is a good example of a logical design. When visitors get there for the first time, they don’t have to think about where things are. Page links are at the top of the page where they belong. He has a featured post directly below the header, and it’s labeled as such. Below that he has the recent posts, and to the right of the recent posts he has a weekly video post. The rest of the navigation, including sponsors are in the right hand side bar of the blog. This is a pretty standard layout and works really well. However, his blog doesn’t look cliche. He has a professional unique theme on his blog.

2. Don’t squander users patience.

SM point out that when you want a user to test a service you need to keep it simple. And it’s even more relevant on a blog. DO NOT require users to register to comment, unless you want 90% of people not to comment. I have never made a comment on lifehacker, cause I couldn’t be bothered to register.

3. Manage to focus users attention.

Many of the top bloggers make use of images in a post, simply so that they can draw the readers attention to the post. You’ll find, as I have, that posts with images get a lot more attention than posts without images.

4. Strive for feature exposure.

In the world of web-design this is the product or service your website is about. In the world of blogging, this is the popular stuff that’s out there.

Shoemoney for example has his best work listed just below his header. It’s a feature on the site, and you cannot miss it when you load the page.

5. Make use of effective writing.

In the world of blogging you need to be able to get the readers attention and keep it. When designing your blog, keep in mind that you want the title of the post to be visible so your reader can quickly see it, and read it. Keep it short, keep it punchy. Don’t write a title that requires someone to re read it to try and figure out what the post is about. Rich has a nice clear title to his posts.

6. Strive for simplicity.

There really isn’t much to say about simplicity. Just keep it clean. don’t clutter your blog with rubbish and having lots of useless pictures as part of the design just cause it’s pretty isn’t always they best thing.

Dosh Dosh have a nice design.

7. Don’t be afraid of the white space

It’s actually quite hard to get the right amount of white space into your blog design. But not enough white space in your blog design makes it painful to read and follow. Daily blog tips seem to have gotten this right nicely.

8. Communicate effectively with a “visible language”

Like SM, I’m going to quote Aaron Marcus on this one.

* Organize: provide the user with a clear and consistent conceptual structure. Consistency, screen layout, relationships and navigability are important concepts of organization. The same conventions and rules should be applied to all elements.

* Economize: do the most with the least amount of cues and visual elements. Four major points to be considered: simplicity, clarity, distinctiveness, and emphasis. Simplicity includes only the elements that are most important for communication. Clarity: all components should be designed so their meaning is not ambiguous. Distinctiveness: the important properties of the necessary elements should be distinguishable. Emphasis: the most important elements should be easily perceived.

* Communicate: match the presentation to the capabilities of the user. The user interface must keep in balance legibility, readability, typography, symbolism, multiple views, and color or texture in order to communicate successfully. Use max. 3 typefaces in a maximum of 3 point sizes — a maximum of 18 words or 50-80 characters per line of text.

9. Conventions are our friends
Your blog readers are going to expect certain things when they get to your blog. Have the side bar on the left or the right. Have your header at the top with all your pages. eXtra for every publisher does a nice job of sticking to conventions.

10. Test early, test often
Test your design with all the different aspects of your blog. Pictures, lists etc. Also make sure you know what it looks like at various resolutions. What does it look like in Firefox, and Internet Explorer. Does it look different on a Mac and a PC?
Email 10 people you know and ask then to look at the initial design and see if they can spot any faults.
Once again thanks to Smashing Magazine for a great post. I hope I didn’t destroy your post too much.