A Little Catching Up

December 20, 2003 | 1 Comments

My vacation is almost over and I’m down at the pool trying to catch up on somethings I’ve missed. Yeah, they have wireless down here and I’ve had it up in my condo the whole time. I’ve just not had much of a chance (or desire) to be online.

Quite a bit has happened since I left. This may be kind of a ramble, but it’ll be quicker than a whole bunch of separate comments or posts. Where needed I’m sure I’ll expand once I get back to the mainland.

#1 — Redesigns

What is up with all the redesigns? Is it because people are getting bored? Is it to combat stagnation? Maybe it’s just because we don’t get enough chance to express our creativity for paying clients. I know that is what makes me want to redesign.

Maybe it’s born out of a true desire to make sites better for the user. Maybe not. Either way there is a whole lot of redesigning going on. I’ve got to keep reminding myself that what I’ve got is fine and even though I know I can improve on it with a complete redesign, it might not be the best thing for my readers at this point.

Personally I’m not to fond of the public redesign. I know I’ve been guilty of this myself, but now that I’ve seen it in action quite a bit I find that it really can be disconcerting to the user.

Where I really find it hard to swallow is when a sites homepage is vastly different from the rest of the pages (Zeldman) or when there are constant big changes. I’m not trying to say don’t do it and I realize that many folks find these public redesigns interesting and very informative — just don’t ever do this for a site that isn’t your own. It’s hard on the user.

However, if you’re going to experiment with something a personal site or blog is the perfect place to do it.

Which brings me to another point I’ve been thinking about today.

#2 — Blog Design

We’ve seen some pretty interesting things going on recently in the way blogs are designed. Some have gotten farther away from traditional Web design and some have gotten closer. There have been interesting approaches in the way entries are presented and how navigation is handled. I’ve done quite a bit of progressive enhancement myself — trying out things to find what works and what makes my readers squeal.

In doing so I’ve done quite a bit of thinking on how blogs are used, how they differ from other informational Web sites and I’ve come to feel that a “blog” or stand alone journal-type-thing warrants a bit of a different design than most traditional Web sites. Whether we like it or not there has been a bit of a “boilerplate” convention established for blogs and it seems to be working.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t go change it at all, however, as much as I love when folks come up with new ways to navigate Web sites and content, user testing usually seems to indicate that the accepted conventions are (good or bad) the best way to go.

I’m not sure if a blog, on it’s own, needs consistent persistent navigation for example. In fact I think it might be better to try and cater to the user depending on where they enter the site. But then again I’m not sure what the best way to go is.

I’d be very interested to see an extensive user study on how people use blogs as opposed to other types of sites.

#3 — Fixed vs. Liquid

We’ve discussed this before and it seems to come down to personal preference. I personally prefer fixed for sites I’m going to be reading online. At least for the content area — outside of that I’ve got no real preference. For example, Dan Cederholm’s SimpleBits was one of my favorite liquid designed sites, and I like it even more now that it’s fixed and centered.

I did quite a bit of tinkering with my own site before I settled on a fixed layout. I just found it easier to read in the end. To be honest I don’t really find too much wrong with liquid layouts either, when they’re done well, which isn’t all that often now that I think about it.

If I were working on a complicated task-based Web site I’d be more inclined to take a serious look at a liquid design. I think for most informational sites little navigation or a single sidebar (read blogs) fixed is better. But again — that’s just my preference.

#4 — Scrolling

Last week I was a bit worried about my sidebar getting to long. I still feel I might want to do something different with it at some point but I recently read a (rather old) study that backs up something I’ve thought all along.

Paging vs. Scrolling from Usability News contains significant data to back this up. All I can add is that I’ve yet to see a user complain about a long scroll.

#4 — New stuff

My friend and coworker Christian Watson has a new blog! He’s got no real design yet, but I imagine he’s working on it. It’s good to see he’s finally jumped on the bandwagon.

The Xhtml Friends Network (XFN) sounds very interesting. I might have to look into reworking my very static blogroll with something like this.

Todd Dominey brings us lists and lots of them. I love this stuff so look for some of my own coming soon.

Christina Wodtke’s Widgetopia is a great spot to check into all sorts of UI widgets. Enjoy with care and don’t be seduced by the coolness of some of these things. Make sure and read Christina’s very insightful comments and remember — just because you can doesn’t mean you should.

Digital Web published yet another great article while I was away. This last week, in Think Beyond — Technology, Alan K’necht gave a great overview of the various types of IT professionals, how we work and how to get us to see the big picture. Very funny, very true and very worth reading.

Over at SuperflousBanter, Didier Hilhorst joins the fun and shows off a really nifty new CSS navigation experiment. Nice work.

That’s about it for now. I’ll be back at it in a few days. Until then — hang loose.

Filed under: Web General