As it has been evident from the past couple of posts, I have been trying to figure out what kind of blog layout to use.
For the longest time, the sidebar has been a standard feature of blogs. With me, I try to figure out which placement is best? Left sidebar? Right sidebar? Bottom bar? Top bar? Show/hide bar? The gold standard in blog layout is known by the name Kubrick, which was then replaced by K2, the brain-child of Michael Heilemann.
Then, there was the proliferation of the idea that the footer is much too neglected. So, there was a time when everyone abandoned the sidebar and focused on the footer, adding “bottom bars” that practically replaced the sidebar.
Some other designers have gone beyond the mold and placed sidebar contents on top, and even made javascripts to show and hide these information.
But what really is the best layout? How do we even approach this question?
I was thinking, maybe we could approach it by determining the reading habits of our visitors. But before we can do that, we have to determine what our reading habits are.
One key is to evaluate our eye movements. All of you bloggers, you all know what a blogroll is. Go ahead and open about 10 links or all of them in separate tabs. Being aware of your goal, go through each tab and try to determine how your eyes move along each website.
Do you move your eyes from left to right then down or right to left then down? What if there were three columns? How do your eyes behave?
I found out that I read from left then down, then to right then down. And whenever I encounter a three-column layout, I would still read from left to right. However, if the left column contains ads, I immediately focus my eyes at the center, scan through the contents, click a post if it catches my interest, then scroll back to the top and check out the right sidebar.
The advantage of having a single column layout is that the visitor is forced to read the very latest post, scroll down and check the site for more stuff. I find it interesting that an increasing number of sites have developed their footer bars so well, putting all sorts of information that a visitor might like. If you’re trying to make money out of ads, it would be wise to put these ads right by the footer, preferably on top of the additional information you have there.
Another key is to determine patterns amongst the sites on your blogroll. Do you see any patterns among the sites on your blogroll? Do they have left sidebars or right sidebars, three columns or something else? This information will also give you a clue on how you read.
And to be able to check what your visitor’s reading habits are, put up a poll on your site that will ask 1) the reading direction and 2) preferred number of columns (2 or 3). You can be resourceful on how you present this poll.
Once you get a substantial number of responses, you can then sit down and be able to conceptualize a more effective layout that will give you the results that you want.
Now, get Googling and find yourself a good poll plugin for your blog. For WordPress users, you might want to check out Democracy AJAX Poll by Andrew Sutherland. You can also check out the WordPress Plugin Database.
Have fun!!!