Prelude to Beth's Blog Redesign: Your Thoughts?

Photo Source: Yuba Colleage Public Space

Back in September, 2008, after reading this post by Chris Brogan about taking your blog to the next level, I was inspired.  I knew that I was outgrowing my information design as well as my blogging platform.  I started blogging here in 2003, it has become increasingly difficult to find older posts because I have too many categories and an idiosyncratic way of organizing them. 

If it is hard for me to find content, than I can't imagine how what it is like for you, the readers.   Allison Fine once joked that my blog was like entering the portal in Being John Malkovich.

I thought I could do it myself, incrementally.  Redirect blog to domain name, export content to a new platform, and use of the pre-formed themes for my design.  I started to read posts about un-cluttering your blog and design checklists:

• Whiteboard: Why Less is More in Design
• The Blog Usability Checklist
• A Beginner’s Guide to Making Your Site More Usable
• A Guide to Creating a Minimalist Website
• 50 Tips to Unclutter Your Blog
• Critique Your Design
• Usability is a Conversation

I got terrific suggestions from folks like Lorelle and even did some playing around with paper and scissors.  But I got stuck!  Like a deer in the headlights.

My Zoetica colleague, Geoff Livingston, suggested that I don't go the DIY route and work with a professional web/blog designer!  And, am thrilled to announce that I'm working with Allyson Kapin and Jared Seltzer of Rad Campaign.   They have graciously agreed to let me write about what I learn about a blog redesign process.

Our first task was to an assessment to look at the strategy as well as the design elements.  The strategy covered:

• Objectives
• Positioning
• Targeting
• Benefits
• Messaging
• Call to Action

I'd like this new blog to be a cleaner version of Beth's Blog with less clutter, but no so polished.  I  want the blog design to reflect being authentic, and generous in sharing knowledge.  I also want the blog to be a fun place to visit and more interactivity, at least in the comments.  I feel like my current platform gets in the way of building community and conversation in the comment threads.  I want something with white space, that's visual, and is not boxy corporate. 

The most important part of a redesign process - after you map out the strategic points - is to look at a lot of blogs and identify design elements you like.  This helps you develop a common vocabulary with the designer.

The next step is to start thinking about the information architecture and this, of course, flows from the objectives.

I'm also going to be working on the SEO strategy with colleagues Dennis Yu and Jonathan Coleman.  Which will come after the look and feel piece.

So stay tuned!   Have any advice for going through a redesign process?

Comments

[Sarah Durham]

I'd love to see you give some thought to your own professional positioning- what's the big idea you want to communicate about your work, Beth? Similarly, what personality do you want to communicate? The current blog is very intense, deep, and sorta undesigned. Maybe that's a good thing- if that's what you want people to think of when they think of your work.

[Allison Fine]

But I'm going to miss floor the 7 1/2 floor! :) Atta girl, keep going, can't wait to see what unfolds.

Allison

[Joitske hulsebosch]

Ha, I can always find what I want... Search works for me, and I also tag posts that are very relevant with your name...

[Tracy]

I've just always thought that such a dynamic blog deserves a more dynamic look!

[Dave Briggs]

I'm currently rehosting and looking again at the design of my blog. It has posts going back to 2004, and is in a real mess in some ways. One problem is that I have never been consistent with where I host files, like images, that I include in posts. Some are within my blogs filesystem, some on my mobileme account, some hosted on other people's sites which I hotlinked to. A lot just don't work any more!

Categories and tags are another problem area! How do you go through thousands of posts and sort all that out? Nightmare!

One thing I wouldn't spent too much time on Beth is SEO - surely the quality of the content on your blog and the huge number of inbound links you have means you don't have any worries on that score? :-)

[David Bourne]

Hi Beth,

I came to your blog looking for a "Beth's Most Popular Posts" or something that pulls out you biggest ideas (for lack of a better term).

Thanks for all your great work!

David Bourne

[Maddie Grant]

We went though a similar process when we aggregated our two individual blogs into our website at socialfish.org. One thing that was very helpful, since Lindy and I are techy and geeky and love our shiny toys, was to confirm that simplicity of design and brand personality were high priority for us, and to achieve those we would need to break down our list of stuff we wanted into "need to have", "nice to have" and "later" - all with our readers/audience in mind. I think this has worked great, given not only the compliments we've received about our site, but also many things in the "nice to have" or "later" piles ended up not being relevant or necessary. We're currently in phase 2, ready to bring the site to the next level after a year of the new design, and this time we're concentrating more ob whether different elements or pages of the site work for the audience we're trying to reach. We'll be adding some calls to action, beefing up our blog home page, and adjusting our main home page a little based on analytics and heat map data, for example. The whole process has been really instructive and taking it slow with always the audience in mind has worked great for us so far.

[Allyson]

And we at Rad Campaign are thrilled to be working with you on the blog redesign. It's going to be awesome!

[Craig V.]

I can't speak to the issues of blog redesign or data transfer but the links you posted help me narrow in on where I would go for my blog (just starting out). Ended up going with standard.theme (standardtheme.com) as is built on the similar best practices as recommendations here. It also is used by some of my other favorite bloggers churchcrunch.com, and michaelhyatt.com

[Deborah Mourey]

Hi Beth, I often recommend your blog for its life, love, spirit and content. I also describe it like an beautiful painting (think impressionist)- it's so beautiful that it doesn't need a fancy frame.

So I encourage you to keep as simple as you do now. I simple photo so we can see you which I like since I had the opportunity to meet you in NYC last year and could recognize you!

My last comment has to do with your process. One thing I have done in my 13+ years of helping organizations get closer to customers (I'm a marketing person not a graphic designer) is to list their visitors. who will visit your website and what are they likely to need (or how can they 'see' themselves quickly.

in my work, going through this has changed home page design. Many people forget, for instance, that the media can be an important visitor or someone who is visiting the blog for the first time.

No matter what you do, it will be wonderful. thanks beth for your inspiration and leadership. I feel like I am traveling with you wherever you go and that we're learning together. Deb

[Jill Frank]

For the past several months I have been writing my thesis (it's about nonprofits and social media, what else), and I, too, can always find what I need via the beth.typepad.com Google search element on the left side of the home page. I have not found another blog that is as relevantly searchable. So I know that you will! you must! please keep this element when you re-design. And YES- Thank you for your authenticity and generous sharing of knowledge.
Others dare to try, but none succeed so well as you. ;-) Jill Frank

[Jason Inman]

This is funny because I was just thinking "shoot, for being such a pro (and you are) Beth should upgrade her blog and website," then I scrolled down and saw this post.

The best of luck to you!

@jasoninman

[John Haydon]

Beth,

Let me recommend that you read a few posts on http://remarkablogger.com (Michael Martine - @remarkablogger). Your last strategy point for your blog is "call to action" which Michael is very good at. He's helped me focus my blog on an over-arching call to action using IA and content (who I am writing posts for and why).

One more tip: Switch over to WordPress.Org.

John

[Will Hull - United Cerebral Palsy eCommunications/eDevelopment Specialist]

Great ideas, Beth. I designed my personal blog from scratch. I integrated Wordpress into it and I think it works perfectly. It also has an import function to import blog posts from Typepad and Blogger. I kept to the minimalist, yet functional, perspective as well. I think you need to go bigger than just a blog and make it an entire Web site with an "About" and "Contact" area so that people can contact you regarding any feedback (i.e. professional opportunities) and a place for a guest post submission (could be handled by an embedded form rather than using google docs).

I used jQuery to get my banner to work the way that it does. It uses only javascript to make it work and it's easy to integrate. I use ipower.com for my hosting (around $10/month) and it comes with an easy Wordpress integration, form builder, CMS (i.e. Joomla, etc.), Wiki, forums, etc. You can even use a storefront feature and integrate it with paypal (may be unneeded for you). All are easy to establish and use. You can also find similar hosting services with 1and1.com.

Just some ideas.

If you want to see my blog you can go to: http://willhull.com/blog to see how it looks and works.

Thanks