So Jem puts up a new layout and what do we all do? Offer constructive criticism. She didn’t ask for it but we always do it regardless. Most people consider Jem to be pretty damn good at what she does and yet we still offer our opinion on her layouts, sometimes scathing, sometimes annoyingly nice. I’m not saying this annoys Jem (I have no idea how she feels about it), nor does it annoy me (heck, I do it), but sometimes I wonder what it is about commenting on blogs that makes us feel so free to offer constructive criticism when we so often shy away from it in ‘real life’. Is it the confidence of anonymity? The fact that we don’t know these people; where normally we’d worry about offending someone, on the internet, everyone’s fair game and if they get upset about it, well, then we’ll have some new drama to giggle about and argue over.
And why do people (like me) who have no real design credentials for people like Jem to base the value of our opinions on, feel we have the right to criticise (constructively) a designer that we admire?
ETA: Jem’s just an example incidentally, feel free to mentally replace her name with any designer you admire who you’ve shared opinions with on their layout.
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Jem may not have directly asked for it, but I inferred as much. She made a small post about the new layout and comments were open…
I don’t feel anonymous on the Internet anymore; I feel that my blog is basically a link to who I am. And I may not have the right “credentials”, but it doesn’t stop me from finding something attractive.
I think Jem can handle my criticism
It would be somewhat hypocritical of me to criticise others and then cry about my readers criticising me, but luckily it’s a non-issue because if I am pleased with my layout I just ignore the comments
It’s funny actually, because it’s only more recently that people have had the balls to say anything to me if they didn’t like certain things about my layout. If you go back through my archives and look at some of the older ‘new layout’ posts, 99% of the comments are all “wow, this is great” and nothing else. I wonder if - in my case - people feel they’re allowed to offer their real opinions now because they’re more familiar with me? Who knows..
So someone puts up a new layout, blogs about it, and enables comments. Doesn’t that translate to “I want to hear your opinions on it”? Sure it’s debatable whether the person actually wants constructive criticism or not, or just praise but that’s a totally different matter.
As for you not having credentials compared to Jem: you’re a visitor. And Jem is of the opinion that if one wants a successful website, one should cater to the visitors’ needs.
But taking things to a more general level, I don’t see this the same as with going up to a stranger on the street and telling him your opinion. With websites you put one up to make yourself known. You don’t go out for the single purpose of getting yourself noticed. You have work, school, some shopping, as well as a large number of other things you need to do, that have nothing to do with getting people’s attention.
When you put a site online (rather than just keep it offline), you basically want people to notice you. As for what kind of people DO end up noticing you… well that’s a different story. In the end you could start a stand up comedy show because you believe people would like your sense of humor. But then, when a few guys throw tomatoes at you, you cry to them “what gives you the right??”.
Ah, but Vera.. one could argue that catering to the visitors needs is not the same as giving them a visually pleasing layout to look at.
^ it depends on your site’s primary target visitors.
I’ve had a lot of 12-year-olds tell me that my site would be so much better if it had “games”. Did I put those shoddy js scripts? No. Why because, those people are not my site’s primary target.
The comments of visitors (on a layout, content, whatever) are very important, in my opinion. They’re the ones that will ultimately be deciding what the ‘value’ of your site is. If there’s a part of your site that irritates enough people, it may lose a significant amount of visitors.
It’s definitely helpful to know what people from all design backgrounds think of your layout. If huge design geeks (yay, design geeks! :D) like it, but the average visitor loathes it, that’s probably a sign *something* is wrong.
I feel the need to add that I really love this layout. Mostly I love the dark brown. It’s one of my favourite colours used in site designs. I also like the large font size because I’m getting increasingly blind, I think, because I can’t read anything under 14px lately.
And here’s my bit of constructive criticism: I think the links on the sidebar look a *little* too on the red side and would look better if they were more similar to the colours surrounding the content area. Of course, just my opinion and hardly even a medium-sized issue.
(Also: Hi, it’s Donna! Except I’m going as V on my newish blog now because, well, some people offline happen to call me that and I decided I rather like it. It’s also quite short to type. ;))
I figured it was you. This is a template I’m using, and I too love the brown but the sidebar as a whole could use some work. Hopefully I’ll find enough time to make my own (or finish one of the 20 million on my hard drive).