Blog post

De-cluttering this blog

July 19, 2010 · by Jan Schultink
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The reading experience on the iPad has influenced the design of this blog. I cut the share buttons, retweet counters, time stamps, etc. What’s left is a clean sheet of paper with some ideas to make you a better presentation designer. Now it’s purely up to the quality of the content whether ideas here will spread or not. What do you think?

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14 comments

Jan Schultink2010-07-20 18:46:21
@vivek sorry what the google spell checker did to your name
Jan Schultink2010-07-19 09:10:52
Yes Manu, that's right
Ellen Daehnick2010-07-22 05:19:38
I like the new look (with keeping the time/date stamps). I admit it: all the share options and other stuff made me feel a little confused. I felt like I should be using them, but I wasn't.
Vivek Singh2010-07-20 04:27:35
Hi Jan

The blogs looks awesome now. But I have a concern with the retweet button.

You have to help people spread the word and this action button make it easier for the readers.

So you might have to bring back a few action buttons on popular appeal :)
Vivek Singh2010-07-22 08:26:08
Looks good now. These are better than the bigger brethren.

Your iPad experiment is making me think about changing the way my blog looks.

It is contagious :-)
August Mohr2010-07-19 09:03:50
Hi Jan,

I think I would read more of your postings if the email had the subject in the Subject. As it is, each email has the exact same subject line and there is nothing to influence me to open any in particular.

The Sender already says "Sticky Slides" so you can leave that out of the Subject with no loss of info. The "ideas to change ... at a time" is a catchy line -- the first two or five times. But when that is the only thing I see in my email, it is easy to skim over.

It's the equivalent of a slide presentation where the company logo is the most obvious thing on every slide. I think you would recommend against that.

I hope this helps,
August
JMO2010-07-19 02:34:56
While I agree the timestamps can sometimes clutter a design, they hold vital info about the context of each blog post. It's important to tell whether a post about a powerpoint feature or a slide design trend is from 2008 or 2010.

Aside from that, I love the focus on the content and the ideas in each post.
Ed2010-07-19 10:22:11
While I am all for decluttering, and I really like the new look btw, I have 2 thoughts.

1. I wonder what % read articles through goolge reader etc? I know I do, and it tells me 788 others also subscribe to your feed, so, your site layout matters now.

2. Is optimising for the iPad really that important, what % of your traffic will come through that?

Not trying to be nasty here, just some thoughts. Love the blog and keep up the great work!
Jan Schultink2010-07-20 18:45:02
@vivid OK a scary reset to blogger defaults enabled me to put these buttons back in. Not pretty, but better than the huge green ones.
Jan Schultink2010-07-19 04:39:05
OK, switched the date back on, not pretty, but functional
Jan Schultink2010-07-19 09:09:37
Great suggestion, I coded some incomprehensible HTML tags into feedburner, let's see if it works tomorrow.
Jan Schultink2010-07-20 05:21:12
@Ed: I like the minimalist iPad reading experience, I am not actively trying to get more iPad readers
manu2010-07-19 05:29:44
Jan, your comment reminded me of the rule someone was using for deciding whether to buy something or not in the house: useful or beautiful.

I guess one could apply this rule to any design, not just interior decorating.
Jan Schultink2010-07-20 05:22:00
@vivek, I am trying to find a more subtle solutions than these huge green buttons. The new blogger template is not helping