The issue of what to do with blog archives, or any archives really, reminds me of what to do with leftovers in the refrigerator. Do I want to relive Tuesday’s dinner, or make something new? Do I want to go back and read other stuff a blogger wrote, or just visit when their feed sends word they’ve posted something new?

Dave Childs is wrestling with archives. In Usable Archives - A Pipe Dream? he writes,

One thing you’ll notice reading almost any blog (or site running blog-like software) is that articles and posts vanish quickly. For some sites, it is a matter of days - for others months. The end result is the same - after a period of time, good posts vanish into the ubiquitous “site archive” - where posts go to die, often never to be read again.

What do you do with your old posts?

Awhile back, I wondered about the “nightmare” of archives in a comment at Performancing.com, in a discussion called The Real Blogosphere. This was picked up by Markus Merz, where he expanded on the archives usability issue with his Intuitive Navigation with Tag Clouds. He liked the clouds idea. I think other people do too. I had tried the tag cloud option on my old Blogger blog and decided I didn’t like it. It took up a lot of space. However, people did use it.

Since switching to WordPress, I’ve found my archives are read and found easily due to the categories. I don’t expect anyone to read what I wrote 3 years ago. I think many bloggers know they have to keep blogging to stay fresh because folks don’t go rummaging around for old leftovers.

That would just be scary.

(Reprint of entry from old blog, March 2006.)

Every once in awhile a blogger will suddenly veer off-course from their usual post routine, pull up a chair, and really talk with you.

A blog is like an American order of french fries.

With fries, you usually get them delivered to you plain, with nothing on them. You can blob catsup all over them, so your fingers get messed up every time you grab a fry. Or, you can glob catsup in a corner and dab a fry in there with a fork, one by one, stabbing carefully and praying you don’t drip catsup on your shirt.

With blogs and fries, you get used to the same delivered order. You get familiar with the blog cook. You come to expect the plain fries blog, where you scroll down and grab the news in bits and pieces, hoping it’s not a re-run you just read at another blog. Sometimes you get a catsup splattered blog, which has embedded links, pictures, quotes, categories, tag clouds, and comments. You get your fingers wet because there’s lots of places to stick them.

You like that sharing…the whole “blog community” thang.

Sometimes the blog delivers a post or a style that is not like french fries. Their readers get a different kind of trip, where they will dip just the ends of their brain into the topic because, by golly, the blog writer has gone off and written something real.

This is where you get the intimate post, a good story, political commentary or something meaty to think about.

The Big Question

I’ve been quieter in this blog because I’ve been reading other blogs. There’s several things happening in Blog-Land, and I’ve been breathing it all in. I do this reflecting thing often.

Somewhere in my travels I found someone who was trying to nail down a definition for blogs. He came up with two definitions. Another post I found wrote that blogs come in 3 basic themes. Still other blog sites have a club-like atmosphere where your blog has to be like everybody else’s or your blog simply isn’t. A. blog.

Everytime I think about posting in this one I face the big question. Do I post news, information or write from the heart?

I wrestle with it, beat myself up, challenge myself to be unique and end up not doing anything because I can’t make up my mind about why I have a blog. This is dangerous territory, when Kimmy asks questions.

What is a blog?

Have you noticed that some people will tell you what they are, and are more than happy to also tell you that your blog isn’t really a blog? And when you push them for what makes a blog a blog, they tell you it needs comments, can’t have archives, must make money and must be updated every day.

Have you ever watched kids eating french fries?

They fight over how to do it. Their fingers are everywhere at once. Someone is forcing catsup all over the fries, while somebody else is screaming for them to “Stop!” because they don’t want their hands to get dirty. Others will feed each other, one fry at a time, and somebody else will complain there’s not enough salt.

The whole time, they’re giggling. They’re talking to each other. Making eye contact. Passing out napkins. Or going to find some.

What’s brought them together, is that they know, from previous experience, that french fries taste good. They can be trusted to always taste good. There’s never enough of them to go around. Kids know that if someone has fries, others will come over and ask for some.

This is what a really good blog is all about, for me. It’s not in the official delivery of the product as much as how I react to it, what I come to expect from it, and whether I’m looking forward to the next post.

There isn’t any one proper standard way of creating this experience for me, which is a bit of a relief to discover. Maybe for a little while longer, blogs will be allowed to be fun finger food.

In years past, when I spoke out against comments in blogs, or ads in blogs, I was stuck in a certain belief pattern. I hate being stuck because there’s no movement and no room to grow. Certainly, there’s no permitting new ideas, when you settle on a “My way is the right way and everyone else is dead wrong” affirmation. So, when I saw a blogger post about what else not to do with blog design, I felt relief to learn I didn’t agree with him.

In Ten Things to Avoid When Designing Your Blog, I can understand why the author recommends things like:

1. Feedreader buttons - as in, putting all 20 buttons or so in your sidebar

2. Tag clouds = visual nuisance

3. Long blogrolls - as in, the never-ending list on the blog homepage

4. Social bookmarking buttons - as in, clutter.

5. Ads = ugly eye candy

If you’re looking at blogs from a “usability is simple design” perspective, yes. Adding all those blog toys to your blog is like leaving your clothes all over your bedroom. You know where everything is and it’s nearby if someone else needs it. It looks like a mess to everybody else, but its Your Room. That’s the hidden bonus of blog ownership.

I look at blogs as bedrooms that we invite everyone into. This is because, unlike traditional web sites, blogs are more intimate. Blog authors, (The real ones anyway. Not sploggers.) are more likely to write from their hearts. They share more of themselves. They may want to create a community, and a blog is one way of doing that. It’s easier than fiddling with launching a forum. Blogs started out as something separate from other websites and continue to look and function differently. Their usability requirements are therefore, different.

If you were to remove the blogrolls and feedreader buttons, you are removing the first visual clues that the page belongs to a blog.

Advertisements are crossovers. They exist on business websites, personal sites and now, blogs. Blogs are evolving as more people contribute to their gene pool. This is where I’ve begun to personally get unstuck.

I know that some of my friends at Performancing.com were throwing darts at my picture whenever I’d voice frustration at ads or building blogs for anything other than online journals. I smoothed my ruffled feathers when I saw how Nick Wilson was sailing their ship over there. They’ve created more opportunities for bloggers than anyone else (other then blog software makers). It meant changing the blog birth code. They challenged it to adapt and be productive in an ever changing blogosphere.

In doing so, blogs, in their pure original state, are no longer online journals of one-sided conversations. I cherish that energy myself, but I know it’s a rare blog that can take its reader on a journey. I love to be told a story. I love being invited into other worlds that are different than my own.

The article above points to another one called Top 10 Ways to Uglify Your Blog. Again, the rule of thumb seems to be this. “Don’t link to other sites.” This has always been a blog trait because they are social sites. It’s understood that blog usability means making it easy to find related blogs and related posts. For many blogs, this equates to buttons and text links. Since blogs often have a requirement that says, “Provide link bait at every opportunity”, we will find SEO’s inside blog code, fluffing up the pillows.

There are ways to simplify the arrangement of blog functions. This is the challenge for usability designers.

I don’t agree that every human is stupid and we must design for stupid people. I know that many web designers think this way. I can’t. The way I see it, people enjoy the Internet because it expands their personal world and they’re willing to try new things. Blog design is intended to take readers by the hand and guide them around the socks lying on the TV set, to all the things we can know about you.

If I like your room, I’ll be back to visit and I could care less if you have button clutter or 324 friends.

Blog usability is not that popular. It’s been my impression, based on what I see in my blogging travels, that many bloggers aren’t in it for their readers. Those who are, are unique.

Blog usability is as important as web site usability if you expect your blog to be anything other than it being search engine fodder.

When I visit a blog for the first time, I look for information about the blogger. This is found in a statement on the blog homepage, or an About page, or both. If the blog owner cares about you, they’ll let you know. If they care about the AdSense money more than you, they’ll let you know that too. You won’t find hide nor hair of them on their blog, but you’ll see lots and lots of Google Ads.

How do you know if a blog has integrity?

The blog that has reposted your posts, in full, whenever you write one is a copycat. Granted, they say that being copied is a form of acknowledgement that you’re doing something right. But, to get my vote for having a brain, I would prefer an overview, and a link back to my blog, instead. Just because we’re on the Internet doesn’t suddenly mean nobody needs manners anymore.

A blog that does recaps, with humor and additional thoughts on topics, is not only considerate, but adding to the lively conversation.

Blog usability consists of the same things that web site usability does. The parts that require user centered design include everything from the plug-ins, to navigation, to desirability, credibility and requirements gathering. That is, if you want your blog to stand out in the 50 million blogs crowd.

The more you think about what your blog readers want, the more you may find that blog usability is important for long term success.

Related: Usability Isn’t Expensive. It’s Practical. Usability is Useful

Related: SES San Jose: Blog Optimization by Lee Odden

One of the nagging thoughts that’s been on my mind, especially as a result of beginning to perform blog usability reviews and comments on Blog Usability Interview with Kim Krause Berg is that I wonder how many bloggers even WANT their blogs to be usable?

By that, I mean, do they want their blogs to be user (reader) centered? Do they want it to be read every day, or visited once in awhile? Do they want to write to their readers, or speak at them?

It relates to incentives. Goals. What’s curious to me is that so many blogs aren’t genuine blogs. They are, as Michael Martinez has been calling them, “Mushblogs” or “Frogblogs”. I see these in my feeds quite often and have started to figure out which are not worth clicking on. They are titles with a gobblety gook of words and/or description of words that are tossed into a heap and make no sense. These are blogs that aren’t for people and so, usability isn’t considered.

I was wondering. For you that are blog owners. How much do you really, honestly care about the usability side? By this I’m referring to meeting your visitors needs, conveying your posts with clarity and thought, and related things like communicating brand or creating community. Or, is the sole priority to rank in engines and/or generate ad revenue and nothing else matters?

Discussion and Poll: Do You Want Your Blog to Be User Centered?