August 25, 2004 | View Comments (37) | Category: Design
Summary: Blog design and how we are limited to the boundaries of what blog's can offer.
I guess it had to happen some time where I weighed in on the whole “Blog Design” fiasco occurring in the community. Some people are looking for a revolution, while others are saying that things are fine the way they are. I think both sides are missing one giant component of it all and with that I have created my very first law.
The choice of layouts for you blog (website) is dependent on the amount of sections used within the blog (website).
Huh?
It's quite simple really and there are so many examples on the web that if I don't explain this well enough for you to understand then I have only myself to blame.
Say your site only has one section and that is the articles/entries portion. How many different ways can you present your content? Two. Either vertical or horizontal. Sure it would be nice to do some crazy innovation, but the web is a 2D space so we are stuck within its limits.
Now you wish to add a sidebar that only contained your blogroll. You can put that on top of the content, under the content, to the left or the right of the content. You can present the whole site vertically or horizontally as well. So with just adding one more section we have now opened up our options to the amount of layouts that we can now use.
Hopefully now you get where I am going with this. The more sections you have equals the more options you have. With blogs though we tend to only worry about the entries so the adding other sections tends to take attention away from our content.
It's fun to see others so passionate about some Russian-Mexican-SandalWearing-Alcoholic's website because either they are pleased with the result that they “talked” him into changing or feel slighted because “great designers do great things and we deserve those great things as non-paying readers.”
Anyways, Andrei's v.2 was very innovative to some because they were seeing it as a revolution of blogs. First, what Andrei was doing was taking away the blog and making more of a website/portal so really there was no revolution. Second, you can see that with new sections being added his layout options increased and therefore his design looked different than others.
With v.3 He again reduced the layout to “2 sections” and therefore decreased his layout options. Innovative? Of course not, because there isn't much innovation you can do with 2 sections (yes I know the sidebar is a collection of different sections, but they are being treated as one).
I am all about innovation and finding cool new ways to present data. However, when it comes to blogs it's not just the fact that 1 or 2 column layouts work so well, it's that blogs aren't huge websites that give us the possibility to innovate. You wish to create a new layout and stretch the boundaries of blog design? I am afraid you might have to add more sections to the website to give yourself more options and therefore take away from the actual content part of your site. It's a give and take situation.
Time to finish this off. Keith says:
Now obviously when you are designing a building or house there is a whole lot of room for interpretation, right? But in general most houses look the same. They all have a bathroom, a kitchen, etc. You�d not radically change the way a house is designed just because you want to innovate. I know it�s not really a relevant example, but a house is a house, is a house, and it�s that way for a reason.
And Matthew responds with:
And are the bathroom and kitchen in your house in the same place as they are in my house?
Now to show the audience how a smartass can also give an intelligent response ;-) Scrivs responds with:
I betcha if my house only had a bathroom and kitchen and your house had the same, I am 99% sure that they would be in the same place ;-)
And that's how I see blog design.
Trackback URL: http://9rules.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/314
Actually, there are all kinds of interesting things you can do with just to 'elements' (I like to talk about visual elements instead of sections, as sections get mixed up with categories).
It's just up to the designer to innovate the design and up to the (css) coder to find out how to implement it. Thing with Andrei is, he's a designer and his css skills just aren't as far as they need to be to implement what he can design. This however is pretty normal with blogs as it's mostly a one (wo)man show.
Now what I'd like to see is that designers actually design the page, and then open a competition for coders who can then implement it.
Coding and designing is pretty much always seen as a separate quality/task in other IT fiels, so why not in webdesign/blogdesign?
AkaXakA (http://akaxaka.gameover.com)
You can pretty much do a million things with anything, but only 1 or two of those "million things" will be practical, which is in a way what Scrivs was saying.
Although you CAN do a million things with elements on the page, only 1 or two of those variations will be practical in terms of the user being able to read it, the disabled being able to access it and the web being able to handle it.
I could eat hot apple pie with my hands, doesn't mean I have to. Tthe practical way to do it would be to eat it with a spoon, it's a standard way of doing things.
The reason why graphic design and coding aren't seperate fields in web related careers, is because if you left all the design work up to the designer, in most cases you'd end up with a revolutionary, tree buried upside down(modern) artistic piece of crap and if you left it all up to the coders then you'd have a text based/simplistic layout with amazing functionality.
Therefore, I bring you - The Web Professional (the future of the web).
Damn this discussion, damn it to hell :P
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
Robert, I like the apple pie analogy, but I HAVE to throw in my Chris Rock quote
You can drive a car with your feet if you WANT TO, that don't make it a good fucking idea
I just love that saying :)
Bryan (http://www.juicedthoughts.com)
lmao that's an amazing quote and sums up what i was trying to say. Chris Rock kicks major ass.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
And all that Malarkey seems to be an exception to your law, Scrivs.
The first time I looked at it, I found the layout a bit confusing. Clearly it's hard to break away from what people expect to see.
Daniel Parks
Daniel: Not really, if you look at "stuff and nonsense" it incorporates quite a few different elements into the design that not a lot of bloggers have. Therefore, "Scrivs' law" still stands :P
For those that can't be bothered to scroll up:
The choice of layouts for your blog (website) is dependent on the amount of sections used within the blog (website).
If you all care about blogs so much, I suggest you all take up some English classes and do a Dunstan by working on the details.
To quote myself:
Not a pinnacle (of design), but a comfort zone. This is the way blogs will remain till another layout is proved to be more efficient than the current one, which is the way everything works.For the moment people are working on detail in code and detail in content while this �comfort zone� is there. In the end I believe that this produces a better web, because it allowes each individual element within a blog to evolve and grow before the next layout change hits it.
Everything needs time to grow, now content and details are getting their chance to catch up. Let this natural process take its course and i�m sure at some point you will see a change in the layout of blogs.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
Well Robert beat me to the punch, but let me extend it further. If you look at my homepage for Whitespace you could say that I am breaking my own laws, but I am not. I treated each of those elements as individual sections and therefore I gave myself more options.
However, look at his subpages and like mine you are back to 2 columns. 2 sections, 2 columns. Follows the law perfectly.
Matthew: Within each section you can have subsections as you have shown. Andrei has made the comments a section of their own and so they can become their own layout. I like to see comments as a part of the entry and therefore they follow it.
Scrivs (http://businesslogs.com)
I could eat hot apple pie with my hands, doesn't mean I have to. Tthe practical way to do it would be to eat it with a spoon, it's a standard way of doing things.
Mebbe fer y'all furriners, but here in the good ole US of A, we'uns use forks, not spoons.
::grin::
And yes, the chris rock quote sums it up nicely. But it all depends on how high a level you want to look at it from. There are plenty of usable, readable ways to do a 2 column layout that don't all look the same... but there are far, far more ways that would be difficult to read or use
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
I think that is what most people looking for a revolution are missing. Sure anyone can push the envelope when it comes to design, but does that design make things easier for the user or is it just something cool for the designer?
It's not that everyone is content with doing 2-cols all the time, it's just that a better hasn't been found. It's like trying to redefine the book format. Been working for quite some time now and I don't see any reason to change the way we read.
Scrivs (http://businesslogs.com)
It's not that everyone is content with doing 2-cols all the time, it's just that a better hasn't been found.
And for that reason we should stop looking?
I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but I'll say it again - we shouldn't resign ourselves to one standard layout "because it works"; other layouts will work too, we just haven't found them yet.
Matthew Pennell (http://www.thewatchmakerproject.com/)
Damn, thanks for quote me with a horrible grammatical mess :-)
I don't think we should resign ourselves at all, but again if the purpose of the blog is for people to read an entry (just 1 section) then is there any reason to even think about a new way to present it. I am afraid that the harder you try the more you take away from the main content.
Scrivs (http://businesslogs.com)
I wasn't going to comment, because design isn't really my forte. But on your last comment Scrivs: "It's like trying to redefine the book format. Been working for quite some time now and I don't see any reason to change the way we read."
Actually the way we read *is* changing, if you look at eBooks. One of my hobby horses right now is 'digital literacy' and I've written a number of articles recently arguing that it is changing the way we read.
But I've gotten off the track of this thread, so I'll leave you guys to it again...
Richard MacManus (http://www.readwriteweb.com)
we shouldn't resign ourselves to one standard layout "because it works"
So you're saying that we should stop using a layout that works, to put research and development time into layouts that might not work? Only to probably come back to the original layout?
If you look at the top of every/most browsers you will see the same things, the same menu, url bar etc. If you look at most books you will notice that they look the same. Do the people who make those things want to develop new layouts that might not work, when they already have ones that do?
The whole point of a "standard layout" is so that the people who use said layout will have enough brains, creativity and personality that they'll make it into their own creation.
I'd like to honestly see people complain that a t-shirt looks too much like a t-shirt, it's been around for too long and just because it works maybe "we" should think about revolutionising it.
The web is about c-o-n-t-e-n-t. It's what we use to find i-n-f-o-r-m-a-t-i-o-n about various subjects and it's pretty damn good at supplying uswith that information. The web has only recently turned into a graphic designers hangout, where content isn't valued as much as design.
However, Matthew, I look forward to seeing you "self-righteously walking the walk" on your blog and can't wait to see the outcome.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
Actually the way we read *is* changing, if you look at eBooks. One of my hobby horses right now is 'digital literacy' and I've written a number of articles recently arguing that it is changing the way we read.
Yes, it changes the way we read, much in the same way that the web does. It doesn't however change the format of a book.
Besides, i'd much rather read a good ol' classic copy of Wuthering Heights while tucked up inbed. The only time I read e-books is when it's about technology of if it'd cost me too much to print the thing out ;)
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
How exactly are ebooks changing the way we read? Maybe they are changing the medium that we read on, but I still think they provide single column, left-to-right words. Same as books.
Scrivs (http://businesslogs.com)
I don't know if this suits your intent with this post or not, but the last couple of comments (starting w/Richard's) seem to me to be edging into confusing "read" with "understand."
The way we read books has not changed, however, the way we layout books - contextually and graphically - based on our consideration and knowledge of people's understanding or behavior styles has.
It really gets back to knowing your audience and their expectations.
Again, sorry if this is off-subject. Just clarifying the difference between read and understand.
Mark (http://www.lightpierce.com/ltshdw)
Scrivs is right about a 2-column layout being the best for weblogs - at the moment. We just haven't found a better layout *yet*.
Thing is, with Scrivs rule taking the definition of what qualifies as an element loosly, Scrivs law will always stand. If you see the page as having 2 elements they'll be next to each other one way or another, thus creating a 2-collumn or 2-row layout. When you split those collums, you automaticly (according to Scrivs) create more elements.
Not to say Scrivs is wrong (this post was actually quite insightfull), but the law is rather self-fulfilling.
Note that this leads to a new insight: If you want to innovate on layouts, you'll have to create more (seperate) page elements. Thus thinking up better (/more) ways to explore your weblog (or site) willl give you a chance to push the fold on the design front too.
AkaXakA (http://akaxaka.gameover.com)
Do you think we've exhausted all the possible blog layouts? I mean, you're completely right Scrivs. It's a basic fact that there's only a certain amount of possible layouts for two sections. We always want to step away from the standard and look as unique as possible. But, again, like you said, how many ways can you rearange two sections?
You broke up one of yours. You broke a section into multiple parts that resulted in a new and fairly unique layout. I know this has been mentioned already, but it just illustrates how the envelope can be pushed.
It's all about pushing the envelope. If you want your readers to really focus on your content, I'ld just stick with a little more common layout. But if my main goal is to show off my designing skills, I'm gonna want to push the envelope.
Designers should be fearless. I've seen some pretty crazy designer clothing before. But hey, it's just clothing man.
Jason Marble (http://www.afriendapart.com)
Maybe they are changing the medium that we read on
Just to clarify that that is was what I meant when I said this:
Yes, it changes the way we read, much in the same way that the web does. It doesn't however change the format of a book.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
Stupid thing messed up, I must have missed out a closing blockquote.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
Scrivs said: "How exactly are ebooks changing the way we read? Maybe they are changing the medium that we read on, but I still think they provide single column, left-to-right words. Same as books."
Richard replies: well one could argue that "left-to-right" reading is morphing as well - with hypertext providing means to jump around texts. And with eBooks you can copy & paste - or 'rip, mix n' burn' as the hot terminology is now. Reading now is much more interactive, "read/write", two-way (to use all my fave keywords).
So yes the medium is changing - but at the same time it's changing how we read (and 'understand' too, to ref Mark).
Now to try and relate this to your web design thread here, I'd argue that people who go outside the 'blog norm' in designs are expanding our concepts of what a web design can achieve - they don't "depend" on anything and so your law is dubious (I mean that in a nice way). Sure the bog-standard 2-column design is optimal for most blogs, but I'd question whether web design can be so neatly pinned down by your law:
"The choice of layouts for you blog (website) is dependent on the amount of sections used within the blog (website)."
To me, this quote is a good *guideline* when designing a blog and most people will follow it. But it's a guideline only, not a law. You can achieve unexpected and wonderful results by experimenting with layouts - no matter how few or many "sections" you have. There are no dependencies.
Richard MacManus (http://www.readwriteweb.com)
Okay then Richard. Say you have just an entry (no links, comments, blogroll, etc) and navigation how many different layouts can you achieve. I think there is a dependence.
Scrivs (http://businesslogs.com)
an entry without links? - not very web-like ;-)
but to answer your question with a couple of examples... say a 500-word article, I could spread all the words on one line... I could make it a 3 column article (a la newspaper)... I could put blocks of text into each 4 corners... I could create a star pattern... etc
I'm being a little silly, but the point is there aren't as many limitations as you think.
Richard MacManus (http://www.readwriteweb.com)
I see your point now Richard, but I guess my point went along with just "usable" solutions. For block all over the place huh?
But even then if you are splitting up the text like that you are no longer treating it as one section, but as 3 or 4 sections. So I have magically worked it around so that my law works again. Brilliant! ;-)
Scrivs (http://businesslogs.com)
I'm being a little silly, but the point is there aren't as many limitations as you think.
Yes, you are. I could equally say that i'm going to replace my car tires with melons. Creative yes? Usable, no.
Going back to my quote and Chris Rock's quote at the start:
I could eat hot apple pie with my hands, doesn't mean I have to. Tthe practical way to do it would be to eat it with a spoon, it's a standard way of doing things.
You can drive a car with your feet if you WANT TO, that don't make it a good fucking idea
If you're going to mention things, it has to at least be usable and practical.
Yes, "Scrivs' law" does apply to the designs you mentioned as well.
Damn i'm tired.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
Alright your law passes if it's meant to describe usable designs :-) I was just kidding around, trying to poke and prod it...like a tire, or is that a melon?
I guess it doesn't matter too much in the end, as there will always be folks who push the boundaries in web design laws - just as in any other science. Which is a good thing IMHO.
Richard MacManus (http://www.readwriteweb.com)
I agree with the guy who's initials are mine....who the hell eats pie with a spoon? Do you eat cereal with a fork? Cut your steak with a butter knife? ;)
Anyway, I have a really cool idea for a two column layout, however CSS isn't advanced enough to pull it off. Too often we neglect the fact that certain standards or browsers aren't yet capable of delivering every aspect we're looking for (without going to flash). In CSS I can't make text appear in any fashion other than horizontally, which I'd need to do the design I think of without many images. I was also thinking of doing a very worn book with coffee stains et cetera. The only problem being that I don't want to make it without the outer glow patina I applied to the text in photoshop.
As it stands, I think you're pretty close on your "law" but I believe it's far too vague to be a real law as there is no limit to what a section is. Upon first reading the teaser to this article I thought you were going to talk about something completely different — something I shall propose a theory on.
One reason that we are left with plain 2-column layouts is not just because it's a good format for presenting blog content, but because our designs are influenced by the designs of others. We, as designers, read the blogs of other designers, and until people develop something completely on their own, while forgetting every other design they've seen, we won't have the diversity of design that we seek. I'd love to break out but it's hard to transcend the designs of others because they're always in your head; you read other design blogs while you're redesigning. I just finished my latest redesign a few weeks ago but I might begin work on my third version (tentatively named 180 m.p.h. straight into a brick wall, though I'll probably create a new theme to stimulate my creativity while striving towards that theme) now and hopefully break out somehow. Until we will ourselves to such an end the two column variants will continue to stagnate, sorry.
Joe Clay (http://www.gra-phix.com/)
I completely forgot the point I wanted to make before. What about the CSS Zen Garden? If there can be a variation of layouts it's exhibited there. Techinically, the structural underlayment is only one content area according to Scrivs' Law. :)
Joe Clay (http://www.gra-phix.com/)
I agree with the guy who's initials are mine....who the hell eats pie with a spoon? Do you eat cereal with a fork? Cut your steak with a butter knife? ;)
Pie in england/ireland is dessert :P Therefore, eating it with a dessert spoon and not a fork would be the correct thing to do in my culture :P It's not my fault you Americans bastardised the english language :P
I've seen American pie, I know exactly what you guys do with pie :P
Back on topic:
completely forgot the point I wanted to make before. What about the CSS Zen Garden? If there can be a variation of layouts it's exhibited there.
Yeah, but only a few are usable and they're the ones that stick to the standard format. I wouldn't dare present 95% of them to clients. The zen garden shows you what you CAN do with CSS, if you were to totally disregard anyone who uses the internet.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
Mmmh. The whole discussion, although very interesting, misses the point on something that comes as a reinforcement of Scrivs's point of view. I know I'm going to be over-simplistic, maybe, but sometimes words fail me in english. Sorry about that in advance.
The way we read on the web, and/or understand, is faster, 'sharper' if you want, than what we do otherwise. For instance when I read a book I don't need to understand the structure at first glance: there are a lot of paragraphs, period. I take my time and read them one at a time.
The web asks us to be faster, usually (notwithstanding the very good points Derek Powazek made about the false notion that people don't read on the web, in Killing the biggest myth of web design). Most of the time, you come on a site to find something (actually we don't browse per se, we fetch, rather), so the usability aspects must be easily recognisable. Thus even though one will be able to try several layouts, in the end they will fail at what "Scrivs' Law"-like layouts are good at. It's what Andrei experienced on DxF, and something not to be forgotten.
There's a difference between doing a fantastic CSS zen garden job (demonstrating what CSS can do), and a usable and easily understandable design, methinks.
s t e f (http://www.nota-bene.org/)
The problem Andrei had isn't that the design didn't work, it's just that designing in a purely elastic manner (only using em's) turned out to be unworkable (especially in an IE world). People shouldn't forget that DxF v2 actually was a good design and did work, but he should have gone with liquid probably.
And why are we discussing whether or not innovation is possible? We can't just decide here and now that we're at the end of the line and innovation is dead.
People have been saying for centuries that all major breakthroughs have been made in science. And just look how that turned out....
AkaXakA (http://akaxaka.gameover.com)
First of all Americans didn't bastardize English. I know of no place in the world where you can ask a woman to "knock you up in the morning and bring by a rubber" and not get slapped, except England. Besides, I've studied Latin from both a british text and american text and I must say that England has bastardized english (and apparently utensil usability too!), whereas American English is very close to the latin. :)
Of course I'm just messing with you, Robert. I did not realize that it's uncouth in your culture to use a fork in such a manner. To me, not from a cultural viewpoint mind you, I take the instrument that best serves the situation — therefore I use a fork. Restaurants here serve a spoon with most pies, however, as I stated, I find that much less efficient than a fork since it's straight and has less surface to pass through the pie.
This somehow ties my rambling with another point made here. Users don't always read all of the content and so it's important for them to be able to find it via other means. In a way this is what RSS is for. However, it's still important to have proper content organization to facilitate this process. Good comment stef!
Joe Clay (http://www.gra-phix.com/)
First of all Americans didn't bastardize English
It was a joke. I'm fluent in several languages: Turkish, Latin, Gaelic, English and Russian - therefore I know my grammar and linguistics.
English is just as bad as America these days for changing and ruining the English language. Barely anyone knows how to speak it properly. American is just a "dialect" of the English language, much like Geordie and Scouser is, therefore I wouldn't expect them to spell/say everything exactly the way it should be said/spelt.
I don't fancy getting into a "what is the correct utensil to eat a pie with" debate, as it varies from culture to culture and it has absolutely nothing to do with the subject lol.
Also, pie has a different meaning in both countries, the same way chips does.
"knock you up in the morning and bring by a rubber"
I have never ever heard that expression before lol.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
ask a woman to "knock you up in the morning and bring by a rubber"
In that context it would mean you're asking a woman to get you pregnant lol.
Robert Lofthouse (http://www.ghxdesign.com)
heh. I thought "knock me up in the morning" meant "give me a wakeup call"... I remember some friends who went to england laughing about it.
rubbers... are those erasers in england? or galoshes? rubber bands?
I don't think I've heard anyone call a condom a rubber since the 80s.
When I was in college, I always enjoyed talking to my canadian friends so we could compare the two languages. Rolls are buns, chicken sandwiches are chicken burgers, white out is liquid paper (national brand preference, I suppose)... I don't remember them all, but we had great fun.
topic? who's off topic?
Sorry Paul. :-)
JC (http://thelionsweb.com/weblog)
Everyone says "it's all been done" when they've run out of ideas themselves.
Nothing worse than justification of lack of creativity.
Jack Shedd
Keep track of comments to all entries with the Comments Feed
©2003-06 9rules, Inc. | Thoughts Feed | Notes Feed
Amazon Stores: Powertools | Jewelry | Books | Health | Landscaping | Kitchen | Movies
#1
That's a rather simplistic view of website layout:
LayoutOptions = Sections^2
Okay, so maybe I've only got one articles/entries section - but within that limited arena there are comments, trackbacks, pull-quotes, excerpts, citations - more than enough different elements to make a nonsense of the "it's either vertical or horizontal" excuse for avoiding design.
Is this before or after Hurricane Charley? ;-)
Matthew Pennell (http://www.thewatchmakerproject.com/)