Sometimes I find myself staring at a blog design for long periods of time, but I still can’t figure out how to make it better. This use to frustrate me to no end, because I believe that a design is never finished and you can always make it better.
Now it doesn’t really bother me anymore. My new problem is I can’t stop thinking about how I can make a design better even though I just made changes to it a little while before. What I did was I applied a technique I picked up a while ago, but never thought of using it in web design. The technique is very simple in itself, but what it does is it takes the problem and changes how you look at it. Just this simple change can make ideas on how you can improve your blog design pour out of your head.
So what is the technique? It’s simple. Just ask yourself this question “How can I make this worst?” This question is much easier to ask then “How can I make it better?” because chances are you have already exhausted all the options that came to your head already asking that. Here is an example of it in practice:
How can I make my sidebar worst?
I could make it harder to scan. I could make it harder to find things. I could bunch all the sections together. I could use a color scheme that doesn’t emphasize the important parts.
If you take all this and work backwards you will get the things you can focus on in order to make your sidebar better. For example, you could make it easier to scan, make it easier to find things, split the sections up better, and use a color scheme that emphasizes the important parts of the sidebar.
Just take this question and apply it to areas you want to improve in your blog design in order to get ideas going. If you have any good tips to think of ways to improve a blog design, feel free to write a comment.
36 comments
You’ve probably got the least cluttered sidebar of any blog I read…even less than Copyblogger, and yet it’s very effective. I really like this tip, I have been trying to teach myself about web design (it’s the one part of building a website that I can’t do yet), and it’s easy to lose sight of functionality. Looking at the mistakes you haven’t made puts everything in perspective :).
spacing is everything.
Never thought that working backwards would actually do wonders! Now I just have to check and apply it on my http://i.ph blog (drag-and-drop interface = win).
This is the same way I torture myself every time I work on something. Althought my blog is still breaking apart since it is in alfa version, I’ll try this technique
Oh… I know this similar problem. My own blog should start this summer, hope so
This is great. Thanks for sharing
At first I thought that was daft but now I’m thinking about it would really work. Cheers!
Brilliant! It reminds me of when I started web design.. I order to really understand something you have to break it and then try fix it. Approaching your problem from both sides so to speak.. In order to build we must destroy
@Troy: I’m glad you like the sidebar. It is on the seventh version right now, heh. A change of perspective always helps.
@Ade: I need more control over my designs so I never liked WYSIWYG Editors. Good luck!
@Janko: Hope it helps, tell me how it goes.
@Ralph: Why not start now?
@Mariyan: Your welcome, and thanks for stopping by.
@Jack: It helps at times.
@Jason: My design breaks all the time so I suppose it works, heh.
This is a very useful post. I can’t wait to use this on my blog! Thanks a lot!
The opposite of “better” is “worse” — not “worst”.
Thanks Mna
http://www.arslan178.info
Interesting process you have here. Starting with the worst possible design and convert that into something that is considered best.
Good tips though.
Good tips!! Thanks for sharing with the design community.
Great article !! it’s like sth i have just learned from school in Artificial intelligent subject. If we want to prove it correct, first we try to pretend that it’s wrong. There’ll be a contrary => we get the answer
J gives a good example here; there often is strange grammar in your writing.
Sometimes I have to read things a few times to understand what you mean and most people have less patience with that…
Maybe next time you could look a bit into writing, if you want to redesign
I love it - “how can I make this worse?”
I’ve been designing for 10 years now and I’ve never thought to ask myself that question. I too am plagued with the same problem, it seems like I just finished a design 3 months ago and already I want to change it.
This is the second article I’ve read of yours Vinh and I’m loving it. I’ve del.icio.us(ed) (is there a verb for using delicious???), and will be back.
Cheers
Mike
Very informative topic
After reading your blogs about designing any one can make professional designs. Thanks a lot for sharing valuable thoughts.
Great post.I will definitely use these tips to design my blog.
Great idea It’s all about we need to do something that may improve the quality of blog.
thanks for sharing this ideas and suggestions for blog design… keep writing
this blog really helped me in designing my own designs
Awesome posting,very informative as well. thanks for sharing…
As a fresh of blog design, I really learn a lot from the blog.
Thanks for sharing ideas for blog design. after reading this it became easy to design.
Wordpress Designg are so good.
very useful for me, thanks for share your article with me……
very useful for me, thanks for share your article with me……
Great advice, I will give it a try!
Interesting tip and your blog is certainly very well designed.
Nice post!
I’m also confronting with this problem, but eventually I found a solution how to make it better! And you are write, if you are asking yourself how can you make it worst really helps me!
That would be helpful to think you will and quick to pick your blog design that you want.
Drew
And you are write, if you are asking yourself how can you make it worst really helps me!
Well, it sounds convincing. I never do this but I think it’s time to try something new! Thanks a lot, useful information!
Its just a little but it is really helpful.
Sean
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