Oct 17 2006
blog quality guidelines (part 1)
Which really means:
8 reasons why Wendy didn’t read a blog
together, these reasons have prevented me reading blogs that may have outstanding content… …but I’ll never know:
- poor publicity: I don’t know that the blog exists, its contents never show up in any of my internet searches, there are no links to it in other stuff that I read, none of my friends told me about it.
- foriegn language: I know it exists but I can’t read it because the language is too foriegn. For example, German, Instant Message or phone-text message style abbreviations like “u shud cuz u r kewl“.
- personally irrelevant: I know it exists, I can read the language, but the blog content does not provide anything clearly relevant to my life. For example, a blog on standard poodles.
- offensive message: I know it exists, I can read the language, the content is relevant to my life but the message is fundamentally offensive.
- squinting required: either the text is so small that I have to squint to read, there is a low contrast between the text and the background, the spacing between the text lines is so small it’s difficult to visually follow one line. I can’t read it without changing my preferred browser text-size that works for most other web pages.
- witless: If a blog lacks wit, I stop reading it. I like to learn something or laugh, ideally both at the same time. Double whammy!
- lacking illustrative pictures: Too much text can make my head spin, then I fall over. Breaking the stream of text, regularly, with pictures that illustrate the message helps prevent me falling over. It’s not essential, but it helps.
- scrolling required*: I’m too attentionally challenged to regularly read blog posts that are long enough to require scrolling the window, especially if they don’t include pictures. Again, not essential, but it helps keep my reading regular..
Apart from including an illustrative picture, what have I missed that is important to you?
* I write scrollable blog posts. My excuse is that I’m endearingly waffly rather than perfectly precise.
1 inspirational thought about blog quality guidelines (part 1)
