The New Era of Blog Design
Aug 15th, 07 | 15 remarksBlog design has donned a new cap, and it’s called the portal. More and more bloggers are turning to flexible overview, or magazine style layouts for their home pages, rather than the widely recognized “latest post + sidebar links” format.
Boagworld has used a portal style index for quite some time. Devlounge incorporates more of the concept with each revision they roll out. Now sporting a new portal-ish design (and more than likely the blog which will mark the beginning of a noticeable trend), is ProBlogger.
These blogs et al, are pushing the envelope of blog design as we currently know it, and it’s a good thing. Good for bloggers, good for users. I for one, couldn’t look through ProBlogger’s recent refresh without asking, how can I restructure my own site’s layout in a more functional and friendly way? Especially after reading this.
If you’re not thinking in terms of content organization and presentation for your own blog, perhaps revisiting your goals will help. Content may be king as we’ve all heard too many times, but readership is truly queen of the board. Without it, you’re really just journaling. If you care about readership, your blog is a service.
From a user’s standpoint, some good questions to ask yourself about layout might include:
- Am I featuring my content effectively?
- Can returning visitors quickly find the material they’re looking for?
- Are new visitors easily finding their way around?
From a business perspective:
- Am I funneling readers in as well as I could be, and to the right pages?
- Is my layout generating or hindering income?
- Is there another tack that would get a better CTR, PPC, etc?
Questions like these are difficult to answer but dangerous to avoid in the pro realm. While I don’t consider myself a pro by any means, I know one thing is for sure - it’s time to rethink my own layout.
I totally agree. I personally got bored of seeing almost all blogs having the same layout. I am sure in another year everyone will be following this trend.
Aug 15, 07 | 10:36 pmYou’re right. Before you know it, this will probably be the norm. I saw just yesterday that Brian Gardner has a new theme called Revolution, that is in this style.
Aug 16, 07 | 1:03 amGreat post and thanks for the linking to some great “blog portals”. I don’t think it’ll be long before an optional home.php file is included with every serious WordPress template. I know I’ve been wanting one since first seeing a clever idea for one on one of Upstart Blogger’s former templates a few months ago. Problogger.net’s redesign isn’t just clever, though, it’s like a call to action.
Aug 16, 07 | 7:40 amAgreed, Ian, and I think the call will be resonating and repeating throughout the net for a lot of bloggers. :)
I first discovered use of the home.php file by looking through the October Special theme on 5thirtyone. I learned a lot just from picking that apart.
@Anthony - thanks for pointing out Brian’s new theme. I’m a fan of his work, and I think he’s another one setting trends as he goes along.
Aug 16, 07 | 8:20 amHi Charity,
I hope you’re well. My question is this – how will a home.php page differ from an index.php, that already comes as standard?
Aug 16, 07 | 12:03 pmHi David. Good question! In previous versions of WP, as I understood it, home.php offered the flexibility to display both static and dynamic content, without having to touch index.php, since it was the basis for custom templates, and was also required in the theme folder structure for custom pages to work.
This made home.php a great hack for someone who wanted to use WP as a CMS, but didn’t want to bother with a plugin, or mess with core files. However since the release of 2.1, home.php is actually not required because you can set any static page from within the control panel. Some theme developers may still use home.php out of habit, or because they want a specific structure for their URL. This page on the Codex (about halfway down, starting with Worpdress as CMS) explains things in much greater detail than I could. :)
Aug 16, 07 | 1:01 pmI had the same thought Charity- wondering if I should implement something like that on my site. I think it might be an especially good choice for designers, as some of our work could be featured front and center, as well as recent posts, etc.
Aug 16, 07 | 1:53 pmGood post. I agree there is value in providing more context when you first arrive to a blog. There is also the trend of putting in “you found us via Google using x term, you might be interested in these other posts too.” That isn’t so much a stand alone design issue but does show a move to looking at providing more context to users.
Aug 16, 07 | 5:38 pmGood point Randa. Designers, artists, writers, even musicians who may have a portfolio or creative work of some sort could really benefit.
I’m not sure exactly how to tackle such a layout in terms of writing the right queries and functions, but I think it’ll be a great learning experience.
Aug 16, 07 | 5:40 pm[...] anyone else considering putting a front page portal on their site? Charity is- check out her article for links to some other good portal examples. Do you think there are drawbacks [...]
Aug 17, 07 | 8:58 amCharity,
Long time no see!
I think this is a great development, but as I mentioned at Randa’s blog, the infrequent bloggers might be better off without it. Unless the front page is completely refreshed, which means three+ posts, it could end up looking more static than a regular blog with only one new entry. On the other hand it’s a great opportunity for web designers!
Aug 20, 07 | 2:44 pmSorry, for the incorrect info about the “home” file, Charity. I was reading some older tutorials I guess. I just set this up on my local test site with a feature post (using a loop from Rhymed Code) and introduction on the main page and a new page called “blog” showing my posts. It’s very easy. I’ll amend my comment to say “it won’t be long before every theme comes with optional ‘home’ page templates”
Asgeir is right, this will be a great opportunity for web designers.
Aug 20, 07 | 3:24 pm@ Asgier - hello and good to hear from you again! :) I think you’re right that (possibly complicated) portal style home pages may not benefit bloggers who operate at an easier pace. The magazine layout could never be a one-size-fits-all solution, as the classic 2column layout has been.
@ Ian - no problem and thanks for the link. I was reading through the Codex this morning about the flexibility of
, but I can’t get anything to work. Could be the theme I’m testing with, since I have another custom query in the Loop… or it could just be that I’m a bit lost on the whole concept.
Aug 20, 07 | 4:32 pm[...] noticed the surge of a trend in blog theming - magazine style layouts (or portals). I actually made a little prediction about this, but what I didn’t anticipate was how vanilla the designs coming out of this trend would [...]
Sep 20, 07 | 11:57 am[...] noticed the surge of a trend in blog theming - magazine style layouts (or portals). I actually made a little prediction about this, but what I didn’t anticipate was how vanilla the designs coming out of this trend would [...]
Sep 20, 07 | 11:57 am