Jakob Nielsen's Top Ten Blog Design Mistakes

Noted usability maven Jakob Nielsen, long a subject of conversation and critique by bloggers, finally returns the favor with a top ten list of design suggestions for bloggers. Titled "Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes", the latest Alertbox offers a number of simple and useful specific items to review. For most Professional Network members, a lot of this is a review of practices we're already familiar with, but it's worth taking a closer look at some of the suggestions. * No author biography and no author photo: When we launched TypePad two years ago, one of the first items we added was support for an "About" page and an author photo. If you're making a public blog where identity is important (for example, you're not blogging on a company intranet) these seem like important but often-overlooked basics. * Nondescript posting titles: Though Nielsen makes a strong case here for clarity in titles, and nobody can argue that content should be obscure or obtuse, this is an area where it pays to know your audience. In some situations, if you know you have a close relationship with your readers, or that you can assume a common frame of reference, it might be okay to go for a pun or a clever title on your post. What's more, if you know a lot of your readers are checking in on your site through its web feeds, you might want to make sure your title is attention-grabbing enough to prompt them to click through. * Discovering older entries: It's important to note that calendars aren't always a helpful way to navigate posts, and that "greatest hits" posts can sometimes be buried in your archives. Functionality like TypePad's Links TypeList and the category support built into Movable Type and TypePad can help make older content much more discoverable. * A regular posting schedule: Both Movable Type and TypePad support scheduled posting, or posting to the future. Using these features, you can parcel out your writing over time, helping to keep a more regular relationship with your readers. * Having your own domain name: We encourage all bloggers to have their own domain name, and it's a pretty straightforward process regardless of which platform you choose. All of our Movable Type Hosting Partners offer domain registration as an optional part of their services, and TypePad's domain mapping lets your TypePad-hosted site appear at whatever address you'd like. In all, Nielsen's guidelines are a great place to start improving the usability of your blogs, and Alertbox is always good for prompting these useful discussions.