There are hundreds of articles detailing aspects of great blog design. From designing a remarkable logo through to making your footer section more functional, and even entire blogs dedicated to establishing the methods of designing blog layouts.
But there is one single consideration for blog design which encompasses all aspects of a template and makes the difference between a mediocre layout and something amazing: make it easy!
No matter how beautiful your blog logo may be, or how well you have adhered to mark-up standards, a blog design is let down when the end-user finds it difficult to use. Making it easy to accomplish certain tasks, to remember something or find a useful post from your layout are aspects of great blog design and ensure it is easy (if not instinctive) for the user to actually do these things.
Make it easy for readers to use your blog
Each aspect of a blog design has a particular function, and these functions should be easy for your readers to use or understand. For example:
- The header section tells the visitor the name (and perhaps information about the brand) of the blog.
- The posts section is used to deliver content to visitors
- The sidebar contains other information about the site, possibly links to other articles, which will be useful for blog visitors when navigating or learning more about your site.
These design functions should be obvious to the end user: they should be easy to see; their function should require no explanation. In essence, you should make it easy for visitors to make use of these functions which in turn makes your blog design work for you.
Example #1: Your blog logo
When designing a logo for your blog it’s likely that you want your logo to be memorable: to entice new visitors to remember your blog and return in the future. To ensure your logo is memorable, you should make it easy to remember:
- Use a readable font
- Ensure your logo is not overpowered by it’s surrounding elements
- Find a memorable tagline and include this in the logo
- If your domain name is not a dot.com, include the extension in the logo to help readers remember your URL more easily
The Blogging Tips logo is an excellent example of this principle. Although it uses only typeface and no decorative design elements, it’s function is easy for visitors to digest:
- It includes the blog name in bold letters which are easily readable and understood
- An informative tagline appears below the logo to inform us what this site can do for us as readers
- The logo is not overshadowed by other elements in the header
- The style of the logo complements other aspects of the blog design, which builds on the Blogging Tips brand and helps us to remember this blog.
Example #2: Feed Subscriptions
Encouraging visitors to subscribe to your blog is an important consideration for any blog owner. It is a principle method of “getting your content out there”, encouraging people to read what you post, and often is considered a measure of a blog’s success.
If you want to attract more subscribers to your blog, you should make it easy for visitors to subscribe!
- Ensure subscription links are easily visible and recognizable by including a standard RSS icon in the design.
- Placement is important: the top of the sidebar is a recognized place for subscription links to appear, though you may also consider including a subscription section beneath each post.
- Encourage those unfamiliar with RSS readers to subscribe by offering email subscriptions, preferably by including a form within your subscription area so readers can simply type their email and subscribe in just one click!
Chris Garrett’s subscription section is an excellent example of how design should “make it easy” for new readers to subscribe:
While visually this may not be the most beautiful subscription section, the function of the design makes it incredibly easy (and enticing!) for readers to subscribe:
- The link to the RSS feed is easily distinguished in a different color from the main text
- The subscription form encourages visitors to enter their email address to subscribe with ease
- By including a (color coordinated) subscriber count, Chris Garret demonstrates that his blog already has many happy subscribers, an added incentive for new subscribers to join the growing list
- Including a brief explanation of “why” you should subscribe makes it simple for those unfamiliar with RSS to understand the benefits of subscription
Even without the incentive of a free eBook, Chris Garrett’s choices in designing this subscription section in the sidebar makes it easy for new visitors to subscribe in whichever format they choose. Not only is this of benefit to his blog readers, it benefits the popularity of this authority blog.
Another (often overlooked) aspect of great blog design is making sure it is easy for you (the blog author) to use!
Organizing your style sheets, for example, will make it easy for you to refer to at a later time to make edits, find color codes or simply replicate the CSS you have used for a different project.
Label divisions according to their function within the layout so they are easy to reference in the template code and also in your CSS files. Similarly, add comments within your template code to explain what each division is used for, and which division is closed with each </div> tag.
While it may be easy for you to remember that your header section is called “topmost” soon after completing your design, a few months down the line this reference may well have slipped your mind. Save time in the long run by making it easy on yourself from the start 
Designing for others
“Making it easy” takes on a new level of importance when you design templates for other people, particularly when you offer free/premium templates for download.
Consider that those who download your blog template will have no idea of the process you use to design a template, how you reference divisions or organize your CSS files. Although you may write a comprehensive help file to accompany your template, you should comment your files as much as possible to make it easy for users to understand each and every aspect of the template.
Comments can easily be deleted from these template files, but without them, users of your blog designs may find them difficult to use. In turn this leads also to extra work for you in the form of template support.
A few minutes of extra time spent commenting your template files makes it easier for everyone in the long run!
Useful resources to help you “make it easy” when designing a blog template
Here are some useful websites and articles for further reading about creating usable and intuitive blog designs:
- Pro Blog Design
- Blog Design Blog
- Write a well structured CSS file (by Woork)
- Intuitive site design
- Design choices can cripple a website (A List Apart)
What do you think?
What tips would you offer to ensure a blog design makes it easy for the end-user to meet their needs? Please feel free to share your views by leaving your comments below.
I am keeping things as light and clean as I can on my blog… To the point of people complaining that it's too plain.
It's tricky balance.
Something too easy and common borders generic.
Something flashy and original borders unusable.
My educated guess is that as long as common experience is provided (in case of blog – user can easily find logo, content, navigation and sidebar in respective places and looking like themselves) rest is open for experiments.
For me, keeping ads in proper alignment rather than thrown all over the screen as if from a shotgun – advertise, but make it look nice, otherwise I'm leaving.
Hmmm I think 3 column blogs looks neater but I'm staying with 2 now because of my lack of content. Hows the spiffy ajax categories sidebar working for you?
Please take down the link to Pro Blog Design. That is the WORST designed site I have ever been to. Usability took a vacation on that blog, and it scares me this guy calls himself a designer.
I like Daniel's DBT's and ViperChill's blog design very much. They are very simple, clean and easy to navigate.
@Desk Coder
Personally I think ProBlogDesign one is pretty cool in a wacky way.
And I don't see much usability trouble there.
I see that your blog is minimalistic (so is mine) but our tastes doesn't make flashy unruly designs bad.
@Rarst – The first thing most people do when they come to a site is go, "Ok, now what do I do?" With PBD, you have no idea. There is no navigation, except on the bottom, you can't tell most of the links are links, and after you read an article … now what?
My biggest thing is that his blog is about helping people design, but his design is lacking in so many areas. His design used to be great, and I visited the site all the time. But since the redesign, I only go back to show people what NOT to do.
And for the record, I am currently in the process of designing my blog, but keep in mind, I don't say I am professional blog designer, nor is my blog about blog design.
Sorry for the rants, but usability is one of my passions, and it drives me crazy when professional designers teach others about bad usability.
@Desk Coder
>The first thing most people do when they come to a site is go, “Ok, now what do I do?” With PBD, you have no idea.
Huh?
Theme succesfully shows five-nine (depending on resolution) headlines above the fold on home page. That times more than you can usually see. I'd say that is plenty of things to do.
No top navigation is bit strange. Maybe to focus on selling services, maybe not.
I'd say if someone can afford to have weird navigation it's designers.
I certainly agree that having a blog that is easy to navigate is very important. It really is important to have an attractive identity for a blog as well as visitors will be put off by an unprofessional presentation so having an attractive, easy to navigate site should do the trick.
This post is really make more easier with complete link. I already use pro blog. Thanks