Before I discuss the document design issues for websites (blogs in particular) against traditional print media, first this question must be asked: what are the fundamental differences between a website and a blog?
Dictionary.com (2007) defines a website as ‘a connected group of pages on the World Wide Web regarded as a single entity, usually maintained by one person or organization and devoted to a single topic or several closely related topics’.
While this is merely a generalised description, Walsh (2006, p. 106) further defines a website as a multimodal text, with ‘the potential to combine words and images in complex structures with logos, menu bars, hyperlinks, hot spots, video clips, animation, graphics, music, sound effects, voice-over or write-over… users… are able to take the cues from a home page to navigate to multiple sites with non-linear pathways’.
Therefore when we compare blogs to websites, Walsh’s description for a website certainly applies to how a blog may be designed; so what exactly sets a blog apart from a website? Gregg Hall (2006) offers that traditional websites are generally ’static creations’ (Taylor 2006); updates on websites usually results in an entire page being altered with the old information is gone forever, thus being rendered inaccessible by the reader.
This is one of the core differences between blogs and websites, as blogs are typified by frequent updates in reverse-chronological order, date-and-time stamping and every update (or “post”, as widely known) having their own permalink. This means the information contained in each post is always easily accessible by readers and resides permanently on the blog.
Robert Scoble (2006) states that a ‘real’ blog would possess the following features:
1) Ease of publishing.
2) Discoverability. (Pings weblogs.com or technorati or another ping server)
3) Conversationality. (Trackbacks or as-they-happen referer logs, or now being part of Technorati and other blog search engines)
4) Linkability. (All posts should have permalinks)
5) Syndicatability. (All content should be available in RSS feeds)
All these features imply that a blog’s most prominent feature is communication. Blogging tools like Blogger and WordPress allows people without the technical know-how to create a traditional website to setup their own blogs easily; there is almost no ‘barrier of entry’ (Taylor 2006).
As Hall (2006) states, ‘A website’s primary function is to provide some sort of information to a reader. While there may be a place to leave a comment or an email address for writing that is not why that site was created. Blogs are used for communication.’
Likewise, Dave Taylor (2006) affirms Hall’s statement: ‘The real value of blogging… [is] the ability for each and every page on the site, each and every article, to invite and display feedback from readers — comments, as they’re called in the blogging world. This is a dramatic difference because it changes a monologue, a [traditional website] into a dialogue with readers’.
When designing for websites as compared to designing print documents, there are several readibility issues that cause potential design problems to consider first even though the fundamentals of design for print documents that govern its ‘readability and success’ still apply for websites (Parker 2003, p. 270).
Parker (2003, pp. 270-273) highlights a couple of potential problem areas document designers face:
- Online reading is harder than reading on paper
- Partial page view
Reading off the screen requires more effort due to the way our eyes encounter the message, as it involves projected light – thus creating more foreground/background contrast. Compared to reading a printed document, there is considerably less contrast and hence less eye fatigue.
Partial page views on websites also present a problem because unlike a print document, which displays in its entirety, online readers are limited to a horizontal view that displays only a portion of each page.
Parker suggests a play-it-safe method of approach: to ‘always design for the worst possible circumstances’, so that the website can be read even in the most inconvenient of reading conditions. (Parker 2003, pp. 270-271)
While these considerations are limited to the physical representation of a website, Schriver (1997, p. 362) advocates that document designers must shift their focus on ‘how readers interact with documents… on how people create meaning from the visual and verbal content’. Indeed, as Schriver continues: ‘Better technology doesn’t equal better communication’.
This means that designers must understand how people interpret or derive meaning from texts (e.g a blog). As Schriver (1997, p. 367) states, people do so by using a ‘complex knowledge-driven and text-driven process’; in order to maximise the effectiveness of a blog in regard information and visual representation, the author must also take into consideration how the ‘reader’s knowledge, attitudes, values and culture [are used as] potent resources for interpretation’. (Schriver 1997, p. 368)
(Schriver 1997, p. 387)
This diagram charts a review of random hardcopy manuals and online help topics for computing problems by readers. It is clear that the online help topics received a majority of poor reviews compared to hardcopy manuals which had generally good and fair reviews. Online help topics received largely poor reviews despite being the readers’ top choice for searching for information to resolve their computing problems, as documented by Schriver (1997, p. 386).
Therefore, good document design does not only entail taking into consideration the visual representation of the document, but also how the reader makes meaning from the verbal and visual information contained within the document; as Schriver (1997, p. 386) writes, ‘It appears that the most important issue is not paper or screen, but how the communication is designed – that is, whether it has been written and visualized ina clear and engaging way for the particular audiences who want to use a given medium for accomplishing specific tasks’.
