Reading the morning paper, I noticed yet another ad that said something to the effect of “Company X now has a Blog!”. While it’s certainly no news that blogging has made a mainstream breakthrough these last few years, I found myself wondering: why is this exciting? Why is it worth ad-space?
Well the answer is as simple as this: Blogs work well and people know how to use them.
fundamentally, we’re all really lazy
Following that train of thought, it’s actually about usability. Blogs having been around for a while now, the inner workings of such websites have now become second-nature. When people visit a blog, they expect the following:
- Reverse chronologically posted news items (newest stuff near the top)
- Ability to comment
- A “personal” tone
What’s so usable about this? Well, since this is the formula for most blogs—certainly most good blogs—this predictable formula acts as a positive reinforcer. When we visit a new blog we know exactly how it works: we’ve surfed blogs countless times before.
This is different from a plain-jane news section of a website because those come in as many shapes and sizes as snowflakes do. That means a lot. With no predictability we have to learn these websites anew, and fundamentally, we’re all really lazy.
I love the way you quote yourself!
Haha, yeah, I think it works really well.
[...] 1 03 2007 Interesting reflection from Noscope on the appeal of a blog. When people visit a blog, they expect the [...]
That consistancy is useful, but beyond viewing a blog regularly, they’re not that usable at all.
If you arrive on a blog you’ve never been to before, it’s hard to gauge it properly, and very difficult to find other good content. Articles that are gold are often hidden between articles about someone’s cat, and articles with multiple parts are often not linked together. You can arrive at part 2 from a search and there’s no link back to part 1.
I guess fundamentally, most blogs are automated and authors don’t try an excercise any kind of overall editorial control over them or try to integrate things in a ways you might see on more static sites.
Your blog looks really really cool and smooth, by the way!
Do you do design jobs any longer? I’d be interested if you do. You’d have free rein, since all your work seems to fit perfectly with what I like in websites.
Great job! Will be back to read more later.
Thanks a lot, I appreciate that!
Well, I probably will, eventually. For the past year, though, and probably for a while to come still, I’m all booked up at work.
Glad you approve
Hej! I’ve chosen your design for my blog, it’s beautiful. And then I was curious to check who was the author. So just to say that I love it.
Hilsen
Thanks a lot, I appreciate that
Woooo Joen has groupies!
Hey! Be nice!
Excuse me, I mean, All Hail Joen! For he as groupies!
But seriously, by releasing Fauna you’ve increased the usability for many, many readers of many, many journals. That’s a very good thing.
Well deserving of groupies
Thanks, I appreciate that.