Top 10 blog design mistakes

Via Guardian Newsblog, a guy called Jakob Nielsen has laid out a list of the Top Ten Design Mistakes commonly found on blogs. I guess mine falls foul of quite a few of them: no author bio (the one that was there has gone, as I deleted the WordPress blog because it was getting heavily spammed), no picture (again, was there, now gone), headlines are not always the most descriptive, "classic" articles buried in the archives (again, I did have an "important posts" list at one stage, and got rid of it), and mixed topics (tech and religion … although they do overlap sometimes).

I don't think that all of the points are entirely valid ones, though. Yes, I sometimes put links in the "here" and "here" fashion, but that's usually because I want the sentence to flow and not to jar. The problem of indiscriptive headlines, titled like a book, might be solved by blogware authors including a space for a subtitle, so that the "Victims abandoned" example can be extended to something more meaningful on a structured basis, like "Victims Abandoned: how the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board leaves rape survivors high and dry". Or something like that. (Although you could use the "Extract" field for that purpose.)

On top of this, he numbers having a weblog hosting service's domain name, and he includes TypePad among these. TypePad isn't like Blogger – it's a service which costs nearly as much as paying for your own hosting, and unlike Blogger it offers well-structured blog presentation with organised link lists and even a photo album service. Some of the most respected blogs use TypePad and don't hide the fact. While it's possible that they might foist banner adverts onto their paying customers, it would defeat the whole object of having a paid-for service, which is that you pay for the service rather than an advertiser. I'd actually recommend the service to someone who wants rid of Blogger's annoyances and isn't confident enough to get hosting and install software like Movable Type or WordPress themselves. I think an uncustomised stock theme says much more about a blogger's commitment than a TypePad location – especially since you can nearly always identify a MT or WordPress blog even if they don't advertise the fact.

(Also, b. at Underwater Light has her very succinct say on the matter.