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AppleMan

"Basic" Versions of Design-Focused Blogs

Posted by AppleMan • 9/30/07 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic

I have a design-focused blog that seems to be a trouble for people over 30 to read. It uses the infamous white text on black instead of black text on white. Though I do not know why it is harder to read, I understand that it is a problem for some people. So, for the over 30 crowd, I've created a sister blog to The Apple Report ( apple-report.blogspot.com ) called The Apple Report Basic ( apple-report-basic.blogspot.com ). I put the exact same content on the basic version, but it uses a boring, safe Minima template, and has no sidebar except for a list of recent posts. I provide a conspicuous link at the top of my blog advertising this simplified form of my blog.

I wanted to know what you think about doing this, if you already do it, or if you have seen other people do it.

-Appleman apple-report.blogspot.com

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User Comments

  1. crkian
    9/30/07
    crkian
    Im offer 30 with perfect vision, but light grey on black could be hard for anyone to read
    [reply]
  2. clioandme
    9/30/07
    clioandme
    You might think about this issue from an Apple user's point of view. What kind of user interfaces do well on the Mac? Gray on black could be a problem from an aesthetic point of view.

    Also, and more importantly, I think you might be shooting yourself in the foot with duplicate content. Google doesn't like that. If you want to offer an alternative layout, you're going to need to do it by offering a button that causes your original site to use a different style sheet.
    [reply]
  3. techfun
    9/30/07
    techfun
    I don't think its an age thing. YEARS of web design experience has allowed people to experiment and find what works best for the largest number of people. Natural selection in terms of web design has shown that dark text on white back grounds is the best for wide consumption. This is why Google looks the way it does, as does eBay, PayPal, Slashdot, Yahoo, Live.com etc...

    That isn't to say you shouldn't design your blog to suit your tastes. You should, but only with your eyes wide open. Just don't make assumptions about age being a factor.

    I'll tell you the same thing I tell any new web designers my company hires:

    Take a few hours and read the stuff on webpagesthatsucks.com (or buy the book) in particular, you should check out the checklist at www.webpagesthatsuck.com/does-my-web-site-suck/does-my-web-site-suck-checkl...
    [reply]
    1. DaneMorgan
      9/30/07
      DaneMorgan
      I would venture a theory that age plays some small role in that younger people are more likely to go ahead and read anyways. It's just a theory though.
    2. techfun
      9/30/07
      techfun
      That is probably true. I think, in general, excellent content can often overcome many design flaws. I've put up with designs that were so awful I found my self copying and pasting the text into gedit to read it because it contained info I really wanted to read.
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