Because I am happy with it, doesn’t mean it looks even close to perfect to me. There are many flaws that mostly involve consistency.

Realign, Refresh, Reuse and Recycle

I don’t know if the “Three Rs” were hammered into your head to help save the environment (or something like that) while your were young, but in essence the ideas were a pretty solid foundation to web design.

Once the design is done, in the sense that you are happy, I like the start thinking of different approaches right away. With this site it is hard, because not much really sees a canvas in Photoshop. Most is just created live, while everything is running.

• Familiarity. With designs that stay reasonably consistent in theme and colour, it keeps readers happy to see something similar, but different at the same time.
• Simplicity. I like to make things easier to get to and overall simpler every time I revise the design. This never has to mean less images or flashy elements, just improved usability. In fact, if you don’t improve on usability with a new version, that’s never very good, is it?
• Less boring. Having the same design for years at a time is alright if it has changed the web (for the better), but otherwise it’s best to keep readers awake with a little change every now and then.

Refresh Frequency

Depending on how often you post, the amount of traffic you get and how good your design is, there are numerous factors factoring into when you should change it up.

Every couple of months might be a little much for anyone, but every 6 months something new is always nice. I’m going to clean this design up next month, and though it hasn’t been long, this would be a sort of a beginning to a more regular schedule.

A Chance to Improve

A design can only get better, so there is no use in being timid about changing things. If you have a shot at it and you decide the attempt has failed, you can always revert quickly or try again. The key is not to waste your time with coding something you don’t fully believe in.

Not only on the screen can you improve, but also in the XHTML and CSS you use. Use the best structure, validate code and format it. All those things you were putting off till next time, it’s time to get those going.

Who knows? Maybe after a couple good refreshing realigns to your site it actually will be perfect.

Overall, there we a few new followers, but not much. I still liked the ideas. Plus, this way I can fill my lonely ad space. I’ve been thinking about scrapping it for a while, and this will give me an excuse to keep it for at least another month.

The Winners

To tickle my brain, I wrote a script to put out two random numbers between 1 and 83 (amount of followers) that were different. From there I just counted down on the page that lists all those people to find the two winners.

Coincidentally, one winner had just entered this morning, and the other had already been following my Twitter updates when this mini contest began. Because I know you’ve already skipped past this part, I’ll get right to it.

The winners are Alex (@epicalex) and Malin (@infektia).

Alex was actually the last entry, I believe. The Twitter page I used in conjuction with my random numbers (17 and 15, in case you were wondering) doesn’t order by date, though.

Claim Your Prize

Just email the advertisment (125 by 125) to me (hit the contact page for my email), preferably from the email you’ve commented with before. I’ll give you a week or so before I start proding you for one. If you want to pass the prize on for some reason, I can always draw another number.

Real content starts again this weekend, hopefully. It’s be a busy two days, that’s for sure.

How to Enter

Entering this contest is simple. If you follow me on Twitter, you are eligible to win. That simple!

If you don’t currently use Twitter, it is a great service that after a while can become very useful and fun. Give it a try if you’re mildly interested, and follow me to enter!

The Prize

Two (2) winners will be selected, for one 125*125 ad spot in my sidebar. Value is $50 for one month, and the ad will run for one month. Contest ends Friday April 4th, 5PM EST. Winners will be selected at random.

Fine Print

Can’t say there is any catch here. I’m not requesting anything from you except for following me on Twitter to enter. If you want to link to this post I’ll give you an extra entry, but it is not a recquirment.

Also, this is not an April Fool’s day joke. On that note I haven’t seen a good one yet. Maybe next year.

Cliché? Yep. However, will I do these things? Eventually, yes, I hope to implement all these ideas.

1. Improve Comments

This is a multifaceted feature of every blog that always has a ton of room for improvement. First, here’s what I’m already doing:

• Separate trackbacks and comments. I show comments first, then the form to reply, and if there are any trackbacks, they are shown below.
• Gravatars. Every comment has the respective avatar showing, if they’ve signed up for Gravatar.
• Highlight author comments and alternate colours. This is so my comments stand out and there’s an aesthetic order with the alternating colours.
• AJAX editing. I just added this today. Try it out and tell me how it goes, because I can’t test it as a regular user (or at least I’m too lazy).

I’ve spent quite a bit of time tweaking my CSS and comment.php file, but especially in this part of any site there is a vast space to improve reader experience and encourage mroe comments. Here are some things I’d like to implement:

• Threaded comments. By default, these are ugly. But if I could fully integrate them into my own stylings, then I’d love to have two levels of comments. Any more gets a little out of hand, especially at the width I have for content.
• Add more incentive. There are many plugins that allow to show the latest headline for their blog, add their link to your sidebar, etc… But I’m tired of adding plugins by now. I’d want to write something my self to cut down on my already heavy server load.
• Change styling. I like the structure I have my comments in right now, but I’m always thinking it would look much better with a few major tweaks. I could even inject some colour to get rid of the grey.

There are always more things you can do to improve this area, but I’ve found you are more successful when taking a few things at once.

2. Display More Information

The DOMtab JavaScript is nice, but it can be a pain to setup while maintaining a certain structure, like that of my sidebar. I found a jQuery plugin equivilent that offers more flexibility and options (plus it’s on jQuery, so that’s even more possibilties). It also allows for multiple instances on once page with ease.

I just think that there are some things in my sidebar that don’t need to be displayed at all times. Here’s a rough draft on what could go in (bolded would be default shown if tabbed):

1. About text. Sort of necessary at the top.
2. Sponsors/Search/Stats. Two things that need to be near the top but don’t get a lot of love. Combine them! Plus that neat little stats plugin at the bottom right now.
3. Top  Commentators/Categories/Blogroll. This way the commenters get their links front and center as usual. The tabs might even draw more users th their sites.
4. Twitter/Flickr/Other Stuff lik that. Twitter is updated the most, and I could grab another feed, like Digg or something if I thought it would work well.
5. Recent posts/Popular posts. Something I really need but am lacking.

One problem here is that there would be all those tabs, which may annoy some people. I think it would be a great opportunity for me to get more useful things into my sidebar without making it run longer than all my posts.

3. Write More

When I’m busy I tend to put certain things ahead of others. This site is something that can always fall to the bottom because it’s just me. I’ve always got client’s sites that need designing and coding, and even other writing ventures.

Considerring I don’t make a single cent from this site, posting a couple times a week is pretty good in my books. Once summer comes around I’ll probably be back to once a day, maybe more. The summer schedule allows for a lot more time for me to write, which explain the awesome quantity of posts from last summer.

This is the instant way to improve your site when all else seems to be going nowhere.

I wonder what would be a better usage of time then: numbers 1 and 2, or 3?

Those who add something, and those who do not.

How do you know?

You may think your comments provide an extra insight or a quick thought, but in reality it likely doesn’t. I read every comment I get, and a trend I’m starting to notice is a slight pickup in relatively worthless comments.

Don’t get me wrong, if a (real) person takes time away from something better they could be doing and spends it on my site, I’m more than grateful, but this is about you. How your comments can benefit you.

What will happen if I delete your comment?

Will anything change? If the answer is no (or you are unsure), then you have left a worthless comment. Not lacking of any value to the author, necessarily, but lacking of value to you and the other commenters.

Every time I get a comment I imagine the thread without that comment. Every time I read a comment on another blog I imagine the same thing.

Imaging you have a friend that during a conversation (of multiple people) chimes in with something everyone either ignores, or it’s just what someone else said. I know people that do this, and I know everyone else does too.

Don’t be that person.

Comment Marketing

I’m aware of people that only comment for links, traffic and stuff like that. It’s a good method of building a name in your niche. Unfortunately, these people are usually the culprits of such comments. You’ll also find that the more popular a post, the more of these comments you’ll get.

This is something I should probably do more of, but if I read a post there are a few things I think about before leaving a comment.

1. After reading the comments, there is something I can add. Contributing to the discussion is important. Spammy comments get deleted in the way of a real discussion.
2. I disagree. I disagree with a lot of things, but if I read something and passionately oppose it, I’ll leave a comment.

Otherwise, I just don’t feel I’d be doing their comment section justice. Because of this, my comments aren’t deletable (it’s a word- I looked it up ).

You want people to read your comment. Let that be a reflection on you and your brand every time you leave a comment. You are representing a brand that will make a first impression on whoever reads it.

In the end, do yourself justice, and give the writer the respect you believe they deserve. That will provide you with more traffic from comments than 10 times the amount of worthless spam.

Some of these posts were written quite a while ago (one over a year ago) and could probably use a rewriting. It would be nice to refresh things with an extra year of experience and development of my personal style, plus all the nice formatting options at my fingertips now.

Considering Readability when Designing

Written over 370 days ago, this web typography article goes into detail about fonts and their uses on the web, and how you should consider them while in mockup stages in Photoshop (or app of your choice).

I’d love to do a “part 2″ of this article, maybe going more in depth and making it more concise. Either way, I like the article still, a year and a week later. It sucks when a post like that goes without comments for 11 months, too

Things to Include in Every Post

Going back to October 2007, this article is about stylings to include in your blog. It is more aimed at the content design than elements to include in your visual presentation. I would argue that content design can be just as important as “the rest of it”. On a site like this, I spend more time on content and let everything fall into place around it.

Other design specific articles from the past include:

• Simple Elements to Great Blog Design. Written only a few weeks ago, I think you should check it out.
• News Papers and Web Design. Great inspiration can come from newspapers. Locally, the National Post has great print design (can’t say the same for their site, so I won’t link it).
• CSS Snippets Every Style Sheet Needs. Some small bits of code I use in my everyday coding, even today.
• Best Fonts for Academic Papers. Typography for print on your everyday letter size papers, with the intent purpose of handing it in to be marked. Who needs Times anyway?

Also, the post “UBD Takes over the Make Money Online Niche” had a great discussion in the comments. Though it was more of a quick rant than anything design related (or useful, for that matter).

Instead of going into the archives for something like SEO or copywriting posts, I’ll post that refresh of the first article linked, Considering Readability when Designing.

Odds are you haven’t seen these posts, unless you’ve been reading for a while now. Normally I wouldn’t do this, but I’ve considerred quite a few things.

• First, not many people hit the archives like we would like them to. I have some stuff buried in there and the only way a new reader will find this content is if I point.
• It’s good content. There was a span in the summer when I was posting nearly everyday, if  not twice. It was quite an inspired time.
• I won’t just link off and leave you hanging. I’ll throw in some writer commentary free of charge and give you something to read, even if you don’t like archive diving.

So without further explanation, here is today’s batch. Today will focus on blog improvement.

101 Ways to Improve Your Blog

In this post I went through 101 (really 100 with one repeated) ways to improve your blog. Admittedly, I am no linkbait expert having limited social media exposure in my time, and though this failed in that regard, I think it was still a good post.

Even after looking back, there are some things in there I should start doing. You would think you could pop off 100 ways to do something different with relative ease, but that post took a while to write. You should try and see how it turns out. Who knows, you might get the big exposure I never got with that article.

12 Things to do to Your Brand New Blog

This was a post stemming from an email I received from a new blogger (didn’t last very long). I decided it made for a good post on how to get going in the right direction.

This is another article where I go and read back what I had written months ago and not only continue to agree, but make a personal note to put some of these things to action some day. Sometimes the solutions to your problems can be right under your nose.

Better Your Blog in a Week: #6

This was the next to last part in a 7 day series chronicling 7 ways you can improve your blog. The post, detailing tweaking your site’s design was the most popular of the series. Every now and then StumbleUpon throws some traffic my way, and this post still gets hits from SU today.

I’m considering doing another series of that nature, or at least another series of some sort. Whether it be a weekly thing with posts in between or a daily thing as in the past, it’s a place I’d like to revisit.

On Wednesday (I’m trying to lock into a Mon/Wed/Fri posting schedule, even though it is late Monday now) I’m going to venture design related things. These posts were never hugely popular but are useful and still get some nice Google attention.

In the past I would never have doubted my personal style on my personal blog, but in the end I don’t want to confuse anyone by mixing analogies trying to get my idea across. The act of comparing one thing to an everyday, simple thing will never stop for me, but I want to find the limit.

What Happens with no Restraint

In an article a couple days ago, I wrote what I thought was a great piece of work. Titled, “Simple Elements to Great Blog Design” the article as a whole was overlooked. A couple days later a new commenter, Matt, started the comments by saying this (it was a nice long comment, and I’m only looking for the one piece):

…although you mixed in a lot of metaphors in one post which was a bit annoying.

- Matt (March 8th, 2008)

To be fair, there over seven or eight different comparisons in that article, excluding winding adjectives.

Most of them really help to push my point across the border into the country that is your brain. Some of them were shots at humour, but still function as point-pushers. So, now as someone that reads or cares, should I tone down the metaphors?

I’m not saying I’ll change anything regarding the way I write, but I’ll reconsider letting about ten of them loose in one article next time.

So Movable Type decided yesterday to give an upgrade guide for WordPress 2.5. How nice of them. Although, instead of WordPress’ two step install system, they offer one: upgrade to Movable Type. One of the main points in the article is how pretty their administration area is. Next, they’ll be saying WordPress can only do spreadsheets.

Reversed Roles

In the metaphorical sense, WordPress would have to be a PC, and Movable Type a Mac. This seems kinda backwards because, first of all I’m a Mac user, and Movable Type is taking a not so subtle shot at WordPress.

But, the idea is that Movable Type is the smaller brand trying to move in on some space in the market. The only difference is that the Mac/PC commercials are funny, and work. They work because the Mac guy never actually says anything. He kinda just watches the self-deprecating PC go on about his short comings.

Good Competition

It is true, one major flaw in WordPress is the administration design. But, hey, life is good when that’s the problem. No one but yourself really sees it, so you’re not really losing anything is the process.

There’s no shortage of community made mockups for a new idea. While I think the new 2.5 interface doesn’t quite solve much, it shows that they’re finally willing to change. With Movable Type pushing now, I think this would be a good time for Automattic to blow them out of the water. Let’s look at Anil Dash’s main points, and what Mr. Mullenweg and the boys can do:

“Get Better Tech First” - […WordPress users have had to wait months or even years to get capabilities that Movable Type has pioneered.]

First, before I move on, I have to say that this guy just seems mad that things MT did first have been caught up with. Who cares if you do it first? Isn’t more about who does it better? If you can have the latter argument on your side, then you can go for it.

The solution for WordPress: Well, add support out the box. Sure, I could go download a plugin for OpenID on comments, but including the option by default would make Anil mad.Not only that, but it’s encouraging users the use these new technologies.

“Takes a Digging, Keeps on Ticking.” - [Question: How should you greet the onrush of visitors to your site when you get onto the homepage of Digg or Reddit? Answer: Not with a Database Connection Error.]

By now, the “WordPress can’t take traffic” is like calling someone fat. Sure, on the outside, to everyone without understanding it’s true. But if that kid was smart he would make an effort to ched the pounds. Likewise, WordPress can display static pages. But who wants another plugin, right? This one’s included by default. It’s WP-Cache.

Set your cache time really high under the pressure of a digg. Email your host telling them it’s coming. It’s not hard.

The solution for WordPress: Everyone knows about Akismet, so make sure everyone knows how to use WP-Cache, or make a new caching system that varies cache times depending on server load.

“A Dashboard That Measures Success” - [So MT4’s completely customizable dashboard has a powerful set of visual representations of your blog’s behavior, from charts of the number of entries your authors have created to sliders that let you zoom in and understand why you got more comments on certain days.]

I love how our new friend Anil doesn’t say anything about the hundreds of statistical plugins for WordPress. Or anything about plugins this time. Why? He references MT’s own plugins. Now isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black? I guess I’ll go further into the whole plugin thing when I get to that point.

As for the actual point- I’m more of a third party stats guy, so it’s hard for me to really make a point, but if anything, I like this feature. WordPress should adopt it, and make it better.

“Design Matters” - [Movable Type was the first blogging platform to use completely CSS-styled, standards-based templates by default, and since then we’ve worked like crazy to give smarter, prettier tools to everybody for customizing design.]

Another part of WordPress I don’t use: The Theme Editor. It’s not because there’s no built in options for doing things (I don’t see why that matters anyway), but more I use Coda for a faster paced environment with multiple files. Also, I don’t need premade tools to help me design a comment display (or whatever they do).

Solution for WordPress: I wouldn’t even worry about it, to be honest. I think he wanted to talk about the admin design some more, but didn’t want to beat a dead horse.

“Plugins Are Good. Not Needing Plugins Is Better.” - [As the platform that first popularized blogging plugins, Movable Type has tons of them. But even better, there are a huge number of features that would require either the installation and configuration of a plugin, or moving to a completely different platform like WP-MU if you were using WordPress.]

I actually half disagree here. I would rather have the lighter, less featured WordPress and then build it around what I want. It’s also really good for MT that they popularized plugins. I’d pat you on the back if I ever saw you.

These features that are so highly regarded as what MT has over WP are in the end personal preferrence. I don’t want OpenID, multiple blogs in one install, or even tags for that matter.

Solution for WordPress: They got you on the WYSIWYG editor. TinyMCE kinda sucks. I’d either do something original, or find something that doesn’t mess with HTML code when I enter it.

“Get Support Right From The Source” - […paid users can simply file a help ticket and get access to the best support team in the business. ]

Emphasis mine. How can you argue that you have better support when you’re looking at hundreds of dollars for licensing and updating, just for support? The WordPress community is aptly equiped and problems get solved.

Solution for WordPress: No harm done! I don’t know what this guy was thinking when he included that point. Want the best support? Come over to Movable Type. We’ll welcome you with open arms if you come with an open wallet!

The Real Way to Win

Just do things better. Simple as that. If you came out fixing everything this guy says is bad, what left can he say? All of his points pretty much fail with epic bad anyway. Also, getting back to the original point - the Macs can never win. Just saying

Also, sorry for the long rambling post. I’m not a huge fan of propaganda especially when it’s attacking something I use everyday personally and for clients.

The most asked question I get regards the way I style my own comments. It’s another one of those things that through some simple tweaks to your WordPress theme can make a huge difference in reader experience and overall style. I will show you how I do it with WordPress, and your readers will never look you over again!

Playing With Fire

Unlike my Gravatar guide, this time you could potentially mess your theme up if you’re not comfortable with using simple PHP. This is the official warning that you’re going to be editing comments.php by adding simple PHP code inside your comments loop. You’ve been warned. I just don’t want to be personally responsible for any problems.

Speaking of the comments loop…

WordPress is based on “loops”. To the everyday user this may not mean anything, but this simple aspect of programming drives the dynamic web. The two loops you see are for posts and for comments. We’ll be dealing with the latter, and you’ll know it by searching for this:

<?php if ($comments) : ?>
<?php foreach ($comments as $comment) : ?>

That’s what you’re generally looking for. Those lines may not always be together or have the exact some variables, but the foreach statement is the main aspect you want your code under.

Edit the List Item

The basics of what we’re doing is this: change the CSS class depending on who it is. This can get more complex depending on who you’re looking for, but in the end you only really want three things:

• Alternate. Whether you style alternating comments differently or not, it’s always good to have this in place.
• Author. This can either be the author of the article or a specific email.
• Nothing. This unlucky commenter is neither the author or an alternate comment.
• Both? I don’t like to have alternating author comments, but I’ll explain this at the end if you really want it.

Now, for the inexperienced WordPress user, this is the tricky part. In best practice, your theme uses a list to show comments. Ordered or not, it doesn’t matter that much, but you’re not using a list, you have to find the container surrounding the comment display.

If you see <ul id="comments"> or <ol id="comments"> you’re good to go.

Find the HTML tag <li>. To do this, you should be able to search the document for “<li“. Your theme may already have the alternate comments set up, in fact it’s likely to be there. Here’s what you want your <li> to look like:

<li class="<?php if ($comment->comment_author_email == get_the_author_email()) { echo 'author_comment'; } ?> <?php echo $alt; ?>" id="comment-<?php comment_ID() ?>">

That will have the author’s email checked against the commenter’s, and if it’s a match then it will print “author_comment” in the class. With the alternating comments, if you want that to work, below your comment, add this code:

<?php $alt = ($alt == 'alt') ? "" : "alt"; ?>

Simply put, if the variable $alt read “alt”, then we have to switch it so it alternates, and vise versa. If your server doesn’t like PHP shorthand you can always revert to a full on if/else statement.

Keep in mind when doing this that every theme you work with will have its differences. Unfortunately there is no widely accepted framework for things like this (including other more complex comment tricks). Just keep in mind that this is a general guide. It won’t match every theme (it doesn’t even come close to mine), so a little brain power is involved.

Styling with Consistency

Consistency is something I strive for in my styling. I aim to have all my comments the same underneath some special features. I’ve been laying off the metaphors, but imagine every comment is a sibling. Same upbringing, different individuals. That’s what we want. Some example CSS code for your comments:

ul.comments li { padding:10px; background:#fff; float:left; width:400px; } /* general things */
    ul.comments li.alt { background:#f9f9f9; }
    ul.comments li.author_comment { background:url(images/author_comment.png) no-repeat top right; }

Just generalize and then single out styles for the separate situations. In my comments section the alternating comments just go back between white and light gray, and the author comments have a blue background. I’ve done some other things to it to make it stand out more, though. Other things you can do:

• Put an icon next to the author’s name and their other info (or post meta).
• Add a background image over the solid colour. The top right corner is a good place.
• Add the comment’s number with rotating colors. I did this at Blogtrepreneur by request (that design will soon be gone, though).
• Give the authors special privileges, such as using a plugin to display their blog’s last post.

The possibilities are endless, just be creative in trying to add something different to your comments.

What Else can you do?

Now that you have integrated Gravatars and styled specific comments differently, what is there left to do? Here are some ideas I have:

• Separate trackbacks from comments. I do this here and it’s something that takes a bit more know-how and confidence in your skills. My favourite way is how Ben from BinaryMoon teaches.
• Integrate plugins. There are many ways to boost (or the opposite- be careful) the commenter’s experience. Threaded comments, AJAX posting, paged comments, OpenID login, comment trackers such as CoComent, etc…
• Whatever you want. WordPress’ kicker is that it’s infinitely extensible. If you can think it, you can find a way to do it. This is brought to fruition for most by plugins, but a little bit of PHP know how and the ins-and-outs of the software will have you well on your way.

Just try not to do too much. Wouldn’t want the readers to get discouraged and not leave a comment