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10 defining factors: A Blog About Digital Photography

Posted by Ben on January 09, 2009 | Permalink | Hits: 573 

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The 10 defining factors concept is simple: I will highlight 10 things that I consider to be the defining factors of the blogs I review. Some may be good, some may be bad, some might need to be changed. Today's review is of A Blog About Digital Photography.



So, what are the 10 defining factors of A Blog About Digital Photography?

1. Identity crisis.

Although it gives you some idea of what to expect, "A Blog About Digital Photography" just isn't a memorable title. Also, the URL doesn't match the title - www.photog-blog.net.

Digital photography is a broad topic - should we expect the author's photos? Camera reviews? Software tutorials? How to take good photos? Recommended photo-sharing sites? Maybe it's some, all or none of these.

I think this blog needs a much stronger identity if the author wants to make it stand out.

2. Handy tutorials.

After browsing through some of the posts, I discovered a few Photoshop tutorials. For instance, there's one that looks at adjustment layers, and another that looks at layer masks.

However, despite being the type of post that could appeal to a lot of people, the posts are not well categorised. Adjustment layers sits in the category "Digital Photography", while layer masks lives in "Image Processing", and "Tips and Secrets". I'm not sure how many other tutorials there are on the site (I do see some others on the home page), but a category entitled "Photoshop Tutorials" would make it a lot easier to find other posts of this nature.

3. Half a theme.

I can't figure out how this happened, but the theme looks like it's only half-finished, or it was a finished theme that has had a few things removed. It looks like there should be a header image, but there's not; meanwhile, the Home / About / Link Partners links and the Search box appear to be floating in the middle of nowhere.

Furthermore, the green background for the Home link doesn't sit well with the blue tabs or the grey used for the page background. And the red Go button feels very out of place.

I think the blog would benefit greatly from some design changes. As a starting point, why not include a photo in the header?

4. Long home page.

From the home page, I had to press the Page Down key 27 times to reach the bottom of the page. This suggests there is too much scrolling. I see 10 full-length posts on the home page, with no use of the "more" tag to reduce page scrolling.

I'd suggest using 5 posts at the very most if they are to be shown in full, but as the posts are quite long, even that is pushing it. My blog shows a few ways to make the home page a lot shorter.

5. Odd choice of ads.

The site has a few ads that do not fit well with the layout. The ad in the top right corner is more attention-grabbing than the site itself. This is not a good thing, ads should not detract from the site itself, at least not quite so much.

The five sponsored ads in the sidebar don't look great - especially the "8c prints", "Kodak Gallery" and "Free ebook" ads - these look a bit blurry and out of place.

Further down the page, we have a tall Google ad with a white background, which stands out far too much, as does the MyBlogLog profile box. Honestly, I would just remove the MyBlogLog box completely, it provides next to no value for readers.

Perhaps there are a few too many ads. But the main issue here is that they are not consistent with the theme of the site. It's hard to get it perfect, it's just that these ads stand out far too much.

6. A lack of headers.

This is quite a common problem on blogs and is easily addressed. The photography club post highlights the issue - the post contains several paragraphs but no headers.

As I've seen a lot of other blogs getting this wrong, it is not a case of putting bold text between each paragraph. If you use WordPress, edit a post, then click the last button on the toolbar (the confusingly named "show/hiden kitchen sink" button - why don't they call it "more options" or something more friendly?). This will display a second toolbar. The drop down list should allow you to choose Heading 2 and apply this to your headers. This is the best option for accessibility reasons and for search engines.

7. Email address on the About page.

It's probably not a good idea to put your email address on your About page (and here's a list of 10 reasons to avoid using mailto links). I'd recommend a contact form.

8. Navigation doubling.

The post categories are listed across the top and down the side. This seems unnecessary, especially as there is the Home / About / Link Partners navigation along the top. Perhaps the upper navigation bar could replace the tabs, and the categories could stay in the sidebar. As mentioned above, a new "Photoshop Tutorials" category would be a great addition.

9. Unreadable comments (white on white).

Have a look at this comment. In Firefox I see a white box - the text of the comment is unreadable. The only way I can read it is if I highlight the text. This needs to be fixed.

10. A display error.

When viewing a post, something is totally out of whack with the layout. Again, this needs to be fixed.

Summary

I'd just like to point out that while this review has a lot of criticisms, most of them could be resolved with a few design changes. I do think there is some great content on this blog. By addressing the points I mentioned above, I think more people would read the content. A few errors and some odd design choices spoiled my experience somewhat, but if you read some of the posts, you should find some very useful and informative posts.

What do you think?

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