Okeu's Blog, 14 January 2008
Did you have a blog? If yes, you can choose a right web template now.
Hightlight about Web Tamplate
A web template is a tool used to seperate content from presentation in web design, and for mass-production of web document. It is a basic component of a web template system. Web templates can be used to set up any type of website. In its simplest sense, a web template operates similarly to a form letter for use in setting up a website.
How to Choose Right Template
The following items will guide you to choose right template
Know your purpose.
You need to know what your optimizing for. This shapes all the rest of your decisions, so if you know this, it helps. for example, you create a blog to share your personal knowledge to the other blogger, it is means that you can put put a premium on organizing, browsing, searching and sharing post. .
Start with a two column theme.
If you don't know where to start, start with a two-column template for your blog. Why? Due to three column templates have more moving parts and are trickier to create a clean reading experience.
Your content drives your theme choice.
In choosing right template you should consider whether you Will use images, How long is your content going to be? What types of posts will you have? Will they vary? Test the variations because this can have a big impact in the look and feel in your theme. Your posts are the wood behind the arrow. While your theme is the initial impact, your posts should be very readable and scannable. Test the readability of your posts for different scenarios (skimming, in depth, long, short ... etc.)
Test how you'll use images.
Some of the themes will changed simply by adding images in the banner or in the posts. The two main patterns are whether to use pictures in your banner or pictures in your posts. The benefit of the picture per post approach is that your feed readers will get them. If you use pictures in both your banner and your posts, it's tougher to help your users know where to focus. Using a good picture at the front of your post, helps draw your reader in, particularly if they are scanning and sick of text.
Test key scenarios.
This includes users reading your feed, commenting, scanning your posts, reading your posts in detail, searching your blog, and browsing your blog (using your tags and categories.)
Choose simplicity over complexity.
You can evaluate the complexity by walking your key scenarios. Do your eyes know where to focus when you first pull up your blog? How tough is it to find a particular post? ... etc.
Trust your gut.
If something doesn't feel right, it probably isn't. You just might not be able to put your finger on it, so ask others who might know. Sometimes intuitively recognizing a problem is more effective than trying to logic your way through it.
If it's not working, change it. As tough as it is to let things go, it's important to cut the deadwood or change things that don't work. Experimenting opens new doors. Some days after a long customization session it was really tough to drop the theme entirely, but I stayed focused on making my focus group happy. That helped me keep going and continuously throw out what didn't work and carry forward lessons learned.
Ask your users.
While I had built up my own internal references of what good looks like, using a personal sounding board was invaluable. I really enjoyed the surprises the most. They forced me to challenge my thinking and test new ideas.
Know you can't make everybody happy.
This was really tough in the beginning. I couldn't believe how I couldn't get any critical mass down any particular path. What changed was I found the common denominators and patterns. Once I chose themes that shared these patterns, then it was easier to spiral down on agreement.
Beware if you have to modify a template too much.
If you have to modify a template too much, something might be off. While you can dramatically reshape a template to your liking, I think the base theme is a reflection of the designer's style and expertise. If you find that your changing a lot of the theme, at some point you might be adjusting the theme too much and working against the theme. In some themes, it starts to become obvious whether the designer knows SEO very well or knows how to bullet-proof their layouts or is good with overall look and feel, including typography. That's why I paid a lot of attention to live examples and user comments to see what sorts of changes people were making, and whether they were just personal style or represented real structural or significant changes. Spotting the patterns saved me lots of time, once I knew what I was looking for.
