Blog Usability

I have been running a web site at this domain since 1999, and started blogging in 2004.
Overall, I am pleased with my blogging experience, and feel that I should
have started this sooner. Blogs make it easier to write often, and take
care of a lot of details of publishing, such as styles/formatting,
uploading files, providing links, and finally, making it easy for others
to reach my blog entries. While setting up a blog is fairly easy, making
it usable takes some effort. Here is my list of blog usability issues.

Default Blog Templates

I find that site templates that software like Movable Type provide are
suitable only if you
are running a news blog, where the date/time of the entry is more relevant
than the content itself. For example, a typical Movable Type blog entry
would look like

This format is not the best if the blog is about, let’s say, some tech
topic. In fact, the default Movable Type index page template uses h2 for the date but h3 for the title of the entry, in effect overemphasizing the date of the
entry. Most of the blogs I read are tech related, and the above format does
not fit such blogs. A better style would be

This style emphasizes the title and the content. The fact that it was
published on a given date is just one of the details of the entry.

Other stylistic issues that fall into the same category include (a)
calendar of posts, and (b) date wide archives. Both are unnecessary unless
the posts are trying to present a historic view of the entries. Default blog templates are partly to blame
for these stylistic issues, and it is just a matter of customizing the
templates to change the emphasis.

No Ability to Comment

Since not all bloggers are well-known, letting visitors post comments will help establish/increase the
credibility of the blog. Whenever I come across a post that I agree with, or disagree with, or find
thought-provoking, I would like to post a comment on the same blog. But a large number of blogs are not set up to take comments from visitors, and I avoid visiting such blogs. I just don’t find
them credible. Such bloggers should probably run a magazine instead of a blog.

Announcements

Whenever something important is advertised somewhere, I usually come across a
large of number of posts all pointing to that source. For example, recent
announcement by Google about the Reader API generated a lot of posts in my
Google Reader account. Given that most people use some kind of blog reader
software or a site like del.icio.us to keep up with blogs, I find these kind of posts quite unnecessary. IMO,
they generate a lot of useless chatter. Unless a blogger wants to say something more specific,
I don’t find any point in posting such posts. So, instead of posting about "Google announced blah blah", it would be more useful to post about, say, "My review of Google’s blah blah".

Blogrolling

I can’t believe people still maintain these. With so many blogs coming up
every day, it is pointless to maintain blog rolls. Sites like del.icio.us and blog readers like Bloglines and
Google Reader are much better for discovering interesting posts.

Navigating to Past Entries

Jakob Nielsen recently listed this among his Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes. Most blogs don’t allow visitors to find interesting and relevant entries. Partly, blogging
software like Movable Type and Blogger are to be blamed for this. These
tools don’t provide an easy way to point users to most popular entries, or
entries relevant to the current entry. It is not that it is impossible to
setup these on blogs, but it takes some effort. So far, my experiments with
Movable Type are somewhat successful. I managed to provide links to all entries, and also relevant entries from
every post on my blog. So, when you are reading this particular entry, you
will find links to relevant entries I posted previously on the same page. I would like to provide more features like
this, and expect blogging software to catch up.