Design Matters.

Since I covered design issues yesterday, it seems the right time to address the issue of this blog's "design" which occassionally receives mildly derogatory comments. Having just extolled the marketing impact of design, it would be hypocritical if I didn't address them.

My original template choice was a faux parchment style that appealed to my ironic sensibility though ultimately had to go because of its overly sombre colours. The current embodiment is brighter but frankly if my html skills were superior, I'd be tempted to replace the bubbles/dots (that some see as overly lightweight) with a muted single background colour.

The key though is that very few templates meet the usability requirements to which I have alluded before. My perspective is that people graciously consent to read my ramblings and so I want as simple as presentation as possible. The single usability proviso is that there is a left hand column for links and the right hand column remains blank so as to avoid F effects and have nothing distracting at the right-hand end of each line.

But I'm not a geek and this is a basic sub-optimal template, so I would welcome your coding tips and general design comments for or against the status quo. In the old days this would be called a plea for help but I think it's now called co-creation.


ADDENDUM: This has probably been asked before but I wonder if websites and blogs written in languages that read from right to left have adwords in the left hand column and and whether the F effect is reversed? And how ironic is it that Blogger's spellcheck doesn't recognise the word "blog"?