Blog
Design - How to Keep It Clutter Free and User-friendly
Introduction
With
over 120,000 blogs being created on a daily basis, it becomes hard for a
blogger to be noticed and to rise from the rest of the crowd. There are various
factors that distinguish a great blog earning it thousands of followers. The
trick does not only have great content. In fact, some blogs merely rise to have
a mere follower despite having good design and great and unique content. The
idea is to give the users what they want in a friendly way and avoiding any
clutter. In this article, we provide the different ways on how to keep a blog
clutter free and user-friendly.
Design
Quality
and unique content are essential for the growth and popularity of your blog.
However, it is not what will keep users on your blog. According to Forbes
magazine, the first impression matter especially when it comes to business
matters. It all boils doing to the first seven seconds of what a user sees.
Utilizing this time carefully will make a good impression and capture the
attention of the visitor. Therefore, the theme of your blog should not be a
joke but should appear to be professional. The design also ensures that
information will be properly organized in a chronological manner given users an
easy time to get the answers of what they are looking. If this is not the case,
you can be least assured that they will close the tab to your blog in an
instant. Once you realize that the design of your blog matters, you can utilize
the flowing techniques to enhance user experience.
Maximizing
white space
The area
surrounding text, images, and any graphics is what is termed as the white
space. Whitespace is vital in the organization of information as it helps in
the content breakdown and drives the attention of the reader downwards. The
trick is to balance the white space and the content in your blog to ensure that
information is not scattered nor congested. Doing this will ensure that the
blog will appear clean and professional eliminating the effect of overcrowded text
and too many graphics.
Chunking
is also achieved through the proper use of whitespace. Chunking plays a
separation role in showing readers those texts that are related and those that
are different. Using this a reader can easily locate the information they are
searching.
Text
formatting
More
readers do not have the time to read your context word by word irrespective of
how interesting it might be. Many people scan a page for the information they
are interested in finding, and if your information is not well formatted to
cater for their reading habits, they will leave without a goodbye. A proper
combination of white space and text formatting makes scanning and skimming very
easy for readers. Text formatting can be done in different forms such as;
1. Keeping paragraphs short and precise
2. Aligning key ideas using subheadings
3. Keeping contrast colors to a minimum
4. Using list to break down related content
5. Bolding important ideas in the text
sparingly.
Have a
clear sidebar
Overcrowding
your sidebar with widgets that you barely need only adds confusion to your
readers. This is because it will clutter the necessary information and make it
less appealing to the eyes. However, there are some essentials you might
consider including in your blog’s sidebar to enhance the experience of the
user. Among them include; a search bar, social media links, a subscription
form, links to the different categories and contact information.
Well
organized navigation tabs
Strategic
organization of your navigation tabs is essential in enhancing the experience
of the users. They will be able to locate what they are searching for quickly.
You can achieve this by choosing the important pages to display at the top of
the navigation panel. Related pages may be set as sub-pages appearing in a
drop-down menu. Also only include the top level pages as not all pages in the
website should be accessible through the top level navigation tabs.
Responsive
theme
If you
need to tap into the ever growing market of mobile users, it is advisable to
utilize a responsive theme. Using this theme will ensure that the blog is smart
in that it will detect the device that the user is using and adjust accordingly
to give them the best display and increase their experience.
Using
the above tips is a good way to kick start your blog in an engaging manner to
your readers, visitors and followers.
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