December 08, 2003 | View Comments (16) | Category: Our Thoughts
Summary: Why I bookmark a site and how I wish there were better design blogs out there.
Everyone has a lists of bookmarks that they keep. The new trend seems to be maintaining a blogroll lists that shows the sites you like to frequent. There are some sites where almost everyone has bookmarked, and there are others that should be bookmarked by everyone, but are not.
If the content is not worth reading then I will not bookmark or return to the site. Good design rarely keeps me coming back if the content isn't good, but horrible design can keep me away even if the content is good.
I love reading about web design, but finding good sites the consistently provide quality content is surprisingly far and few between. I guess that is why I post so much. If I can't count on others for reading, then hopefully I can post something that gets me reading comments.
There is so much about design that I feel I know nothing about and I can see all the talented designer out there. The problem is the majority of them either don't have the time or just do not feel like sharing their secrets of design. I have no secrets worth keeping so I get to post all the time.
So I am curious into what makes you bookmark a site? What continues to draw you back to a site and how important is the design in that pull?
Trackback URL: http://9rules.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/69
I usually bookmark sites that have amazing design (CSS or table-based), because I think I can learn from them. They are pleasing to view, to share with friends, and beyond my capabilities.
Content sites, I do not bookmark, because I visit them everyday by typing the URL in. Most of them are blogs and are cross-linked anyway (I also use blo.gs now).
Some sites may have good content, but also an unattractive design. It is hard for me to get to it. I do judge the site by its design. But if those sites were unstyled (vanilla), I would probably read them if the content gets my attention. But if the first contact is done, I will eventually see pass the design.
I do not bookmark often, because it is not accessible for me from anywhere. I do not leave my PC on all day, so that rules out VNC and similar programs.
It might be useful if I had my own website and keep all bookmarks there, but then again, I do not have a personal website. >_<
Design is important, but it must also be usable. I am lazy. ^_^ I will be bothered if a site asks me to click, click, click, click, click, click, and click.
Zelnox
Design? Do you mean just visual design? I always get extremely wary when people put on the 'design vs. content' hat.
It's not as if design is a sort of visual paprika you can sprinkle, to taste, on the deviled eggs of 'content.'
If a website is a plant, maybe visual design is the pot (or vase, if the design is ornate or elegant). Maybe content is the dirt and slime and water. But where the hell is the plant?
For me, the most important thing is not visual design or some commodified notion of "content." My favorite personal websites pay attention to the lead-in, and the "money quote," and are either consistent or clever (or, in happiest cases, both) when it comes to writing style and presentation.
Sometimes these sites are "well-designed" in the freaky web-sense of the term (Zeldman); sometimes they aren't (Scripting News). I'm naming big-name blogs so there's a frame of reference, but the same distinction could be made between the websites for The Economist and Harper's, or the BBC and CNN.
I don't know if I've made the distinctions clear between (1) "content" or subject matter, body text, etc., (2) "design" as visual, linear, and interactive look and experience, and (3) intent, editorial attitude, good (or at least careful) writing. But the distinctions are clear to me, at least. If a site, be it a blog, news site, corporate site, charity site, whatever, gets 2 of 3 right, I'm hooked. 3 of 3 and I'm reading it every morning before I brush my teeth.
Lest I come off as an elitist, please don't take it to mean that I think the third item means that you need to be a genius, or hire a genius to write for you. I mean that the way a visual designer pays attention to other people's rollovers, people like me pay attention to other folks' writing *as distinct from* content. Writing, like design, is a craft. You get better by paying attention. I bookmark the people who look like they're paying attention.
Brian (http://joechip.net/brian/)
I bookmark way too much stuff... sure, I've been known to bookmark a site just for visual design (recently only CSS/XHTML sites), but I'll usually bookmark sites/pages with content I want to read again, or return to -- the whitespace blog being a classic example.
I *love* Safari's bookmarks bar, which allows you to have menu as sub menus of bookmarks right where you want them. Command-click my 'Design Blogs' menu, and my 15 most read design blog bookmarks (Stop Design, Mezo Blue, Zeldman, Whitepsace, etc) will pop open in 15 tabs.
Justin French
Personally, I use RSS feeds as much as possible. But even then, when I'm reading, the site needs to look good. I often find myself getting bored with sites like Dive Into Mark that may have good content, but I just don't have the attention span to look at it.
If I do bookmark a site, it's usually some sort of reference page/site that doesn't have an RSS feed, like W3 Schools for example ( http://www.w3schools.com ).
Ryan Parman (http://www.skyzyx.com)
The worst part about bookmarks is cleaning up the stale ones in a collection that spans the lifetime of your web.presence.
I recently did this with my personal bookmark collection.
As far as what makes me bookmark something, I have the following criteria:
1) If it's transient, it goes on the bookmark bar until it's not needed anymore.
2) If it's too unwieldy to type, or was the result of a difficult search, and it is long-term, it gets filed in a category.
3) If I can type it faster than using mouse-nav, and I think I visit it enought to remember it, it stays in meat-memory.
4) Purging the store happens when boredom sets in. It's like sorting a sock drawer.
Tom Ierna (http://www.ierna.com/)
To Mark:
For a list of cool web sites (mostly Flash and table-based stuff), check out http://www.linkdup.com
Enjoy.
Zelnox
Mark: Daily visits include
asterisk: http://www.7days.com/asterisk/
textbased: http://www.textbased.com/
dionidium: http://www.dionidium.com/
simon: http://simon.incutio.com/
andy: http://www.andybudd.com/blog/
Pretty much everything else comes from looking at other people's blogrolls. There is definitely a shortage of quality design sites on the web. It seems all the designers wish to talk about other things besides design.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
I think content is king in terms of what I bookmark. I have quite a few folders, though - so if I find a nice looking site, I'll bookmark it under 'Nice Design', or whatever. And if I find an interesting article on forms, or something, I'll save it under 'Programming'.
Anyone know of a good online bookmark storage site? There used to be a few of them, but I think most are gone. I made my own, but it's fairly basic - and I can't be bothered to improve it. I keep it online, so I can view it in my Mozilla sidebar, from home and from work.
kyle (http://allergic2love.com)
http://weblog.delacour.net/archives/2003/12/ill_link_to_whoever_hes_linking_to.php
Explains a lot of what I have been thinking about lately and why people link to so many other sites that are not necessarily top quality, but just because everyone else links to them.
Scrivs (http://www.9rules.com/whitespace/)
I bookmark lots of stuff on my pc... probably have 500-1000 bookmarks, mostly uncategorized. On the ibook, I have asmaller number of well categorized pages, because I use it for surfing the web and email and not much else... tab for all my webmail things, a tab for web comics, a tab for server administration, a tab for blogs... and assorted other things that aren't in menus and are usually short-term.
daily sites of interest here... not many. mostly this one and boingboing.net, inmyexperience.com not always daily since dan doesnt post much anymore, 7nights.com/asterisk once in a while. I almost never read the "A list" blogs unless someone in a blog I read links to them. I just don't find that much value in them, I guess.
JC (http://www.thelionsweb.com/weblog)
has anyone tried http://del.icio.us/
it's a social bookmarks manager. I haven't played with it too much yet, but one thing I like is that it seems like you can use it to store bookmarks remotely. It categories them, makes a feed, etc.
I bookmark as crude form of knowledge management -- be it technical or design related, or both. I
ve done my best to categorize them for easier access, since I bookmark extensively. One issue I've had is synching my bookmarks at home with those on my computer at work. del.icio.us might be an answer to that.
tim
I bookmark potentially interesting site on a wide range of subjects in a "check out later" folder to keep an eye on for a couple of days. If the bookmarked still interests me after a week or so it will move to a) the links page on my site or b) to the rss reader if this is available. All others are deleted. Both content and visual design must be good, if one of those is missing i tend to move along quickly. So, i hardly use bookmarked items in a browser, and the few i keep around are simply forgotten most of the time.
wchulseiee (http://www.wchulseiee.net)
Scrivs: Are you sure it's http://www.7days.com/asterisk/ and not http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/ ? (referring to your comment on daily visits)
tek (http://teknision.modblog.com/)
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#1
To me content is more important than design. A beautiful site with uninteresting content is nothing I'll return to unless I'm looking for inspiration for a design, but I have yet to see a site that both has excellent content and is ugly enough to keep me from coming back.
Of course, the best sites have both interesting content and good design.
Roger (http://www.456bereastreet.com)