There are a lot of things I want to do with this site over the next few days. Bring skins back, fix CSS issues, and add the subscribe to comments plugin. However, before I do all of that, I want to tackle a few design issues.
Right now, I have dates separating my posts. I’ve always done it that way, so I have never questioned it. Now I want to incorporate my Cookie Crumbs much like Matt has done his asides. Right in the main column of the blog. I have the code to do it – just one problem. My “Date bars” get in the way.
I think I’m going to move the dates for all non-crumb posts to just below the title. Either there, or down on the bottom with my name. But when you’re reading a blog, does the date or the time really matter? They matter for personal archive purposes of knowing just exactly when you had that thought, but otherwise, who needs the date?
Time stamps matters as far as sorting out posts, but really – do you care if I wrote something at 12:43 in the afternoon? Does it really matter? Maybe if I am posting about the sandwich I just ate for lunch, but lately I eat lunch at pretty random times. The other day after my Sleeping Beauty thing, I considered eating lunch at 5:00 in the afternoon. Again, the timestamps don’t really matter. They are in my database if I need them, but do you care to read them? Do you even look?
I left the “Filed Under” text in the bar yesterday because I wanted to remember the structure of how it was set up. Now that I know where to find a copy of the default WP template, I don’t need to worry about that.
Last but not least, I’m not going to mess with compatibility for older browsers. An ironic statement, considering I was using IE 5 just a few days ago. I am not a CSS guru. For some reason, my site displays just fine in Firefox 0.9, but not as well under the 0.8 version. I don’t have that version, so I can’t tweak for it. I will open up IE to verify that things look ok, but I won’t fret if they don’t look quite the same. Maybe someday, but not right now.
What are your thoughts? What is truly handy for you when you read blogs? What is just extra fluff that you don’t really care about?
7 replies on “Blog Design Considerations…”
I’ve been thinking about that too. My hope is that I can find a way to make the time and date of the post appear in a title tool-tip if my name is scrolled over. That way if anyone really wants to know they can scroll over what’s already a permalink and get the time and date of my post. The title is the thing, in my opinion.
I’m seriously considering wordpress when I switch to paid hosting Soon. Want to email me and talk me into it? LOL!
The date is not the main thing to me. I like to read it just to check how long ago something was written, but to be honest, its not the focus. Title, title, title. But, in case you wanted an opinion, the pink you are using for the comments etc links shows up really hard to read on my computer (an iBook), but that could be just me.
“For some reason, my site displays just fine in Firefox 0.9, but not as well under the 0.8 version.”
Over on the EE boards we have come to the conclusion something broke in FF .9 as now some CSS doesn’t seem to display right. I hope they fix it.
As to the date, I too used to do the date as a separator, but came to pretty much the same conclusions as you, except that I figured date was important for people who like to know if the site has been updated recently.
At any rate, when I changed my Style over a month or so ago, I put the date and my byline under the title in a much smaller text, making the Article title the most important feature of the header and the delineator. Date is a secondary concern and more of a “nice to know” rather than the spacer between posts/dates.
I know I just rambled on an probably made no sense… 😉
Matt’s blog has a lot of links on each line in posts, is that cookie crumbs?
I like seeing when you had that thought. Helps me keep track of time. 🙂
Okay, now I know why I need you to post times – so I can tell if you’re up or not! 😀
shut up! me too! you know what they say about great minds! Doc uses a lot of acronyms. I can’t keep up.
Thank you for providing this site and guest book.