Usability, Writing, and Design Issues on blogs

Simplicity

This post was prompted by Dave Bonta, who has posted the latest in his “blogs and blogging” series. It is about readability. I find his double sidebar too much, too. I have a 17" laptop in order to put as much on the screen in one go as possible! Too much, like embedded music, turns me off, as it increases load time, and distracts me. I choose my own music, and really do not want to listen to yours!

I like to let my photos speak for themselves, but use graphics to organize, e.g., pushpin gifs to show a list.

Add-ons:backgrounds, slide shows, music
I find chaotic, flowery background GIFs too much, too. Keep it simple, fresh, clean and purposeful. Many of my young students (I taught web design to all of my elementary students!) were keen on max motion. It distracts the reader and confuses the purpose. Flashing images, slideshows, and crazy stuff. I like to use casual graphics, as well as photos. I am not a professional, and do not purport to be. I have fun on my non-profit blogs, I do not ask for nor make money off of my blogs, and I do not seek advertising, nor do I want bore readers with Google ads!

Wise Use of Fonts
It is important to differentiate between different fonts, whether you are aiming for a professional look, or a fun look, a more casual font will make you stand out. The big difference is between fonts is whether it is serif (with 'feet' —e.g., Times) or sans serif (e.g., Arial, or Helvetica).
Whether you repeat a design, or not, gives the reader a sense of familiarity. I hesitate to change headers, but love to show photos of various favourite animal, vegetable and minerals!

Wise Use of Colour
  One must keep in mind colour blind and colour deficient readers, as well as the disabled, with voice readers for useability issues. All images should be given alternate text, to encourage ease of use.

My generation developed technology and learned how to integrate it into our work and play. As it evolves, we have adapted well.
This is how I set up my classroom web page. Notice the casual 'classroom' font!

Content, Style and Language: Purdue OWL

For more extensive resources

In dailyblogs.com there are 10 tips for blogging.

Adding Emphasis in Writing - This handout provides information on visual and textual devices for adding emphasis to student writing including textual formatting, punctuation, sentence structure, and the arrangement of words.
Conciseness - This resource explains the concept of concise writing and provides examples of how to ensure clear prose.
Paramedic Method: A Lesson in Writing Concisely - This handout provides steps and exercises to eliminate wordiness at the sentence level.
Sentence Variety - This resource presents methods for adding sentence variety and complexity to writing that may sound repetitive or boring. Sections are divided into general tips for varying structure, a discussion of sentence types, and specific parts of speech which can aid in sentence variety.
Using Appropriate Language - This section covers some of the major issues with appropriate language use: levels of language formality, deceitful language and Euphemisms, slang and idiomatic expressions; using group-specific jargon; and biased/stereotypical language.
Punctuation - This resource will help clarify when and how to use various marks of punctuation. When speaking, we can pause or change the tone of our voices to indicate emphasis. When writing, we must use punctuation to indicate these places of emphasis.
Proofreading Your Writing - This section provides information on proofreading, finding and fixing common errors.
Commas - This resource offers a number of pages about comma use.