Personal tastes differ. We all know this. The internet is no exception – everyone has personal preferences when it comes to web design and the content therein.
My web skillz0rs are by no means amazing. I’m not a professional at what I do, nor have I spent years (and money) in formal web design education and training. But like everyone, there is one thing I am entitled to that requires no formal education or training, and in this entry, I plan to voice it: my opinion.
I have seen a lot of websites that are hideous, both in the markup and in their aesthetic outward appearance. Much like people who can’t properly dress themselves, or like those who leave their house looking like they crawled out of a garbage can, I must ask the question everyone wonders on some level: Can they not see how ugly it looks?
The truth is, everyone starts somewhere. Hopefully they get a good start (i.e. not learning web design in this day and age by starting with iframes and tables) but even if they don’t, there’ll always been some smartass know-it-all who will be there to let them know when they’ve done wrong. Today that smartass know-it-all is me.
Offense #1: Large black serif font on a white background
There is a tasteful way to pull off black and whites together. This is not that way:
See this? This is hideous. Note the border. That is hideous too. Please don’t automatically assume that lots of contrast = good. There is a difference between making your font an appropriate size & color for all to read and going way overboard. Some people have yet to learn this.
(The specifics used for example 1: font: 15px georgia; color: #000; border: 1px solid #000; background: #fff; padding: 10px;)
Since this entry is all about my personal preferences, I’ll start this off with a head’s up: I like depth in a website. Flat designs can be awfully boring if you don’t know what you’re doing. Elements like shadows and color shading can make all the difference in a site. The difference between example 1 and example 1a is good proof of this. While example 1 looks flat and standard, example 1a and 1b provide more flair to the same block of text.
See this? Now this is much better. You can still read the text clearly and I haven’t changed the font size, but I’ve given it a “softer” look. It’s easier on the eyes.
(The specifics used for example 1a: font: 15px georgia; color: #333; border: 1px solid #ddd; background: #eee; padding: 10px;)
Even if you wish to keep your white background, there are still ways to soften and refine the look. In this example I’m still using the same font size and color as the above example, but I’ve made the background white. It is still easy to read, but unlike the original example, it is easy on the eyes.
(The specifics used for example 1b: font: 15px georgia; color: #333; border: 1px solid #ccc; background: #fff; padding: 10px;)
Offense #2: Clashing colors
Coming from the woman who once wore a red spandex shirt and a green terry zip hoodie together in the middle of July, when *I* of all people tell you something clashes, it clashes. Have no doubt. Purely for the sake of proving my point, I will provide you with some visual examples of colors that should never been within the same vicinity of each other:
Do your eyes hurt yet? If you’re even somewhat normal you should be seeing spots and feeling a slight inclination of a killer headache. It should come to as no surprise to any decent webdesigner then that if your design colors cause your viewers to experience pain, they will not return. End of story.
Offense #3: When your significant other hijacks your website
This is more of a huge pet peeve than anything else really, but it still deserves mentioning. I hate it when people go on and on about their boyfriend/girlfriend on their about pages – your about page is about YOU. Obviously your significant other may deserve mentioning in there, but he/she does not need a whole five paragraphs.
I understand you’re proud/happy/whatever and you wish to tell the world about your special relationship. This is fine. Creating a separate page for him or her is even okay by me. However, when you go on an on, making it appear as if you have no life outside your boyfriend, you make me want to empty my stomach contents in the nearest waste bin. Please stop. I realize I am not forced at gun point to read all of this and that it is your webspace and you may do with it what you wish, yadda yadda blah blah, but realize that by publishing it on the internet, you are expecting people to find it and read it. Unless you appropriately warn your readers ahead of time (”WARNING: MUSHYGUSHY SPILL AHEAD! PROCEED WITH CAUTION”), they are probably not going to see it coming.
This is my opinion: It’s tacky. I’m all for love and happiness, but like most things on an about page, I think your feelings for your loved one can be nicely summarized into one unmushy work-safe paragraph. At the very least you can mention him/her in your about page and link his/her name to a separate page where you may unleash your icky gushiness in full force – Just warn us poor unsuspecting readers beforehand.
Offense #4: Having “affiliates” – A word most teenybopper “designers” know not the meaning of, but use anyway.
I don’t like the concept of having affiliates. When I think of the term “affiliates”, I generally think of businesses and corporations – in other words, not your Britney Spears copyright infraction of layout.
This is how I see it: Affiliates on a personal website is tacky way of saying you’re “hits hungry”. It’s just not cool. If you want a popular site, having 57 affiliates is not the way to reach that goal. Read up on search engine optimization and lookup traffic boosting tips. Comment on popular blogs, link the ones you enjoy (you never know – they might return the favor), and join a forum or two and become a valued contributor to it. But whatever you do, don’t affiliate.
Offense #5: Pay Per Post-ing, badly-placed advertisements, and other obnoxious means of getting paid on your site
I truly, madly, deeply hate PPPs. They’re fake, obnoxious, and make me cringe. There is no sincerity in them. They break the flow of a personal blog. They’re horrible, and in my opinion, should have no place in a quality personal blog.
Working in the marketing industry only increases my strong dislike for PPPs. Ask anyone in the industry, and they will tell you that the one of the vital ingredients needed to effectively “sell” a product is passion. When you’re not passionate about what you do or what you sell, people can see it. Pay Per Post entries desperately lack the true passion, sincerity and enthusiasm that is needed to effectively get your message across. Of course, PPP bloggers don’t care about this, because after all, they’re just paid to babble about how great (more often than not) something is.
Other means of advertisement are almost as bad, but not quite. Google ads, when strategically placed on the sidebar and made to match the colors found on the site, are not completely horrible; they usually won’t hinder my overall reading experience, even though they’re not very visually appealing.
Text (or graphic) ads placed between blog entries or in the midst of content, however, is a major no-no in my books. They break up the flow of text and ideas rather harshly and really irritate me, sometimes to the point of forcing me to close the window and never return. Why must you do this? Are you obnoxious ads really not happy enough staying on the sidebar?
A personal website is, well, personal for a reason. Personally, I don’t think it shouldn’t be your place and source of income. Ads and PPPs just look ridiculous next to personal entries about your life adventures. It’s cheap and screams “I NEED MONEY SO BADLY I’M WHORING OUT MY SITE JUST TO GET SOME” – definitely a faux pas of the personal website scene.
It’s good to know I’m normal for seeing spots in those clashing colours :P
Except for the first offense, those things all bother me to no end.
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September 19th, 2007 at 2:56 pmIt’s a nice entry. I don’t like the colours you picked in particular but I actually do like “subtly” clashing colours if you get what I mean.
You mentioned “Pay Per Post-ing, badly-placed advertisements, and other obnoxious means of getting paid on your site” yet you really only talked about PPP. What do you think would be “nicely-placed advertisements”?
Reply: Eek, Wordpress mustn’t have saved that last bit about other types of advertisements. I had to retype it. :( Thanks for pointing that out thought! It’s added now.
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September 19th, 2007 at 2:57 pmPoint one is a good one, but it would be more useful if you actually mentioned what you did. I assume that the text in 1B is actually slightly grey instead of black, but you didn’t specify so I’m not sure.
Reply: Good point! I’ve added the specifics of each example below it.
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September 19th, 2007 at 3:06 pmSee now, I don’t quite know what to think of text-ads specific to the content, and at the bottom of a non-personal article. For example, right at the bottom of this page. What would you think?
Reply: I’m still not crazy about it, although that example is by far one of the better ways to implement Google Ads. However, even though it’s relevant to the content, I still feel it still gives off this “cheapened” feeling. That’s the thing about ads.
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September 19th, 2007 at 4:14 pmI definitely agree about the ads! I mean, I remember in 1999, when everyone had Geocities or Angelfire, and your dream was to go ad-less. Whatever happened to that? Also, I know personally, I never click ads on any website that I visit. Who does? I care about what I’m reading on your site, not something I’m not even going to buy on another site!
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September 19th, 2007 at 8:34 pmI don’t mind black on white serif fonts, they just then kinda look like the essays I have to write (and print) for Uni. I do prefer that over white text on black backgrounds though.
As for affiliation, I guess I’m used to from being around webgraphics communities since around… 2000? Affiliation is incredibly common in such circles, it’s just an unspoken way to get more traffic from sites that you’re happy to also give more traffic to. I guess it does seem a little out of place in a personal site context though.
And I so agree with ads being places INSIDE articles, e.g. between paragraphs of text. It’s so easy for me to lose my place, especially if there are text ads in the middle. No it’s not going to make me click on your links if you did that, I would make me leave your site though.
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September 19th, 2007 at 8:58 pmI kept looking at the back bordered text and didn’t see what was wrong with it :P … granted your ways of changing it did definitely improve it, but I didn’t find it “ugly” at all. Oh well me and art don’t really have much in common -.-
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September 20th, 2007 at 1:55 amHahahaha, my entire site has committed Offense #3 on purpose.
PPPs are completely yuck. I think it’s okay for a blog which is getting a lot of traffic to have ads on the side, but I honestly don’t know who wants to read a blog that is constantly spouting forth mindless froth about how awesome X is. Suckups are bad enough…PAID suckups are, like…bad squared.
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September 20th, 2007 at 3:11 pmNice article :) I really wish people would listen to this – I hope some do! It’s a great piece of advice.
I totally hate PPP’s and I don’t mind affiliates too much, unless there are too many or they’re meaningless.
I really enjoyed scrolling through your site, [however you want me to say that] and will definitely come back to read/view some more!
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September 21st, 2007 at 4:20 amAmen to number 3! I just can’t stand reading day in day out blogs about the same thing–namely, the “other.” Even some of my friends do it, and I’m nice and don’t say anything, just cringe in silence.
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September 22nd, 2007 at 11:57 amI have to admit, I was sporting a rather tacky georgia font when I first put up my theme. Thank God for my blogger friends knocking some sense into me. I love this post, I agree with all of it; I especially agree with the clashing colours part as well as the “affiliates” part. I hate when I see “affiliates” on a website. Bloggers aren’t multi-millionaire corporate buddies. “Friends” is a fine enough word, ahaha. By the way, thanks for the thoughtful response to my vegetarian post. That really means a lot! :D
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September 22nd, 2007 at 12:08 pmAh, you just made my day. I couldn’t have put it better myself :P Especially the significant other thing – because I’m bitter and cynical and I don’t appreciate it when people make me feel jealous and insecure by going on about how much they wuvv someone. Honestly. These people need to respect my feelings. :P
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September 22nd, 2007 at 3:55 pmOffline I think my design instincts are fairly good but online I have no idea: I haven’t any knowledge on what does and doesn’t look good (help me!) and the legibility of my font is simply so I can read it (hello sensitive eyes).
The one thing that’ll mean I’ll never return is the ads. I cannot stand them. If the PPP posts aren’t within the personal site category and even have a separate feed (like over at Sewwy) then I can handle them. But when confronted with an add I run quicker than Severus Snape confronted with shampoo. It just doesn’t happen.
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September 23rd, 2007 at 4:13 amAhahaha I agree with everything!!! Especially OFFENSES 3 & 5. I have to admit, you have me checking my site for these things. take care sweety ♥.
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September 23rd, 2007 at 8:23 pmHave you ever used Google Analytics for this site? How do you track and categorize your traffic?
Reply: I use Google Analytics and another hit counter to track and categorize traffic. :)
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October 5th, 2007 at 2:07 amI’m about three months late on this, but I just wanted to say I love you for this :)
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November 27th, 2007 at 12:04 pm:))
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August 11th, 2008 at 6:57 amforum business up small business forum
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January 3rd, 2009 at 7:46 pmI agree with you for the color part:))))
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May 29th, 2009 at 2:40 amAwesome post!
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October 5th, 2009 at 5:27 pm