Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)
I have been a fan of Nielsen's lists since I first saw them in the 90's. My own philosophy is similar to his, and I use his work to justify my own advice on a regular basis. I like the way he sums up a key benefit of weblogs:
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.
As I reviewed the list I found AdvisorBits to be in violation of a few rules. 1 and 2 (author bio and photo) can be remedied fairly easily. I am aware of rule 3 although not all my titles are as "correct" as this post's.
I have always agreed with rule 6, I just don't understand the significance of a "calendar" representation on a blog. What do I care what you were thinking about on July 9th? (Admittedly there are infrequent cases where such a view might be useful, but I think they are few.)
And even though I have been guilty of posting with irregular frequency (rule 7), I have been helping other people develop their blogs, so in that way I am regularly contributing to the weblog ecosystem. (You can call it what you want, I like Nielsen's description of this space.)
What do you think of this and Nielsen's other top 10 lists?
Thought they were all very good reminders, with the "Not changing the color of visited links" being my greatest sin.
I have to say though I disagree with his veneration of the liquid layout. Just because I own 5 acres of land doesn't mean I'm going to build a 5 acre house. And my experience with people who have excessively large screens is that they usually don't maximize a browser window. That and liquid layout SEVERELY hampers creative designs...
Good post.