Tim Samoff // Weblog (old)

July 20, 2004

To redesign or not to redesign...

Isn’t that the question?!

This just in from Wired News:

CARDIFF, Wales — “If you want a job done properly, do it yourself,” the saying goes. Web users frustrated by poorly designed sites are increasingly applying that logic to the Net.
Many who are fed up with high-profile design mess-ups are taking it upon themselves to publicly correct conspicuous corporate faux pas, right under embarrassed proprietors’ noses.

This article comes out right at the moment that I was thinking about website design as it concerns Weblogs. Ok, this article isn’t immediately connected, but in a way, it speaks to what I was thinking about. How? Well, it shows that people are still thinking about design.

A question:

How many of you, who read this Blog (or any Blog for that matter), actually visit my website anymore?

I mean, I’ll be the first to admit it — and I am a professional graphic designer: I don’t usually read Weblogs at their actual home website these days!

What do I mean? Well, I mean that I don’t usually see design in the Blog content I read at all. My aggregator, NetNewsWire (and there are plenty more), displays text mostly, depending on how the Weblogs I read utilize their RSS feeds. Most people are supplying full-feeds now, meaning that we don’t just get excerpts of articles, but the entire thing — and we don’t even have to click the “Read More” link to read an entire article either. Most RSS feeds even show pictures now. In fact, before I redesigned this Weblog (for the third time), my RSS feed even came attached with my CSS file (meaning that viewers did get to see some design elements in their aggregator).

But, here’s the thing… The main reason that I redesinged this site (this time) was because I was changing blogging systems (not that I wouldn’t have redesigned at some point anyway). And when I did this current redesign, I did it with the sole idea that it wouldn’t be the final design (I had recently set up a Weblog for my friends Rob and Erica and designed this look for them).

So, how are you reading this right now? Through an aggregator? Still in your browser? I’d like to know, because if no one ever comes here anymore to see my [mad] design skills [yo]... Well, you get the point: I might as well just have a text-based Blog, that’s all.

Eye candy or content? Maybe that’s the question.

Posted at 08:20 am

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Oh, naw… I should have mentioned that I still do visit sites that don’t have RSS feeds — but a lot less frequently.

timsamoff () (URL) - July 20, 2004 at 4:35 pm