Critiquing Blogs
Blog #1 “Communication
Today”
Blog URL: http://lilgunny.blogspot.com/
For the purpose of communicating about the study of
communication, the posts are very easy to read and easy to locate. Simply
scrolling down the page to see previous posts or locate a specific post through
the blog archive is very easy to understand and follow. I think the purpose is
well stated and it’s met through posts about each week’s topic.
The design of the blog is very personalized, it seems. This blog
design and layout combined with images and posts can make readers feel as if
they “know” the author just a little bit. It’s not drab or monotonous as some
blogs can become. It’s very “happy.” The content goes along with the course
material (of course) and excellent points about the different aspects of
communication are made.
In my opinion, the intended audience shines through with a
good level of knowledge about the topics discussed and what the audience would
like to read. However, if someone just “stumbled” upon this blog, they would be
able to pick up easily on the topics and follow along with what we are
discovering and discussing in our coursework.
The comment link was hard to find, so providing feedback
could be difficult if it’s not easy to locate. Another suggestion for this blog
would be individual pages that showcase the author’s writing outside of
coursework. Adding individual pages adds an organized, professional look to the
blog (Lupetti, 2008). The blog could also benefit from allowing users to
subscribe to an RSS feed, so they could be notified quickly when content is
updated. RSS feeds make a blog more social, in a sense, in that they provide
near-instant access to new content, allowing for quicker feedback.
Blog # 2 “The
Expert Witness Communicator”
Blog URL: http://the-expert-witness.blogspot.com/
In this blog, the content is very clear and easy to find.
There are extra articles and additional thoughts, opinions and insights about
not only the course material but also its real world applications. The purpose
is clear and leaves little room for anyone to have any doubt as to what it may
be about. It seems as if there is a clear idea of who the intended audience is
and what they will want to read about! The design of the blog is very neat and
organized and the layout is very nice, in my opinion. I love the background
image. It really matches the topic quite well.
It’s the blog’s design as well as the content that separates
an amateur blog from a professional one (Bikram, 2011). The design of the blog
could have a banner across the top of the page for the page header. As it is,
the blog title and description fades into the background of the page. Giving a
strong header would separate the title and make it more noticeable and
eye-catching. The top banner is what gets the readers’ attention first (Bikram,
2011).
Blog # 3 “Communication:
A Two Way Street”
The content of this blog is very neat and orderly. I enjoyed
scrolling through the pages and reading the posts again in the blog format. The
content is very easy to read and easy to understand. The purpose is clear in the
blog summary and inspiration page. The project description wasn’t required in
the classwork, but this gives the reader a clear understanding of why the blog
was started. However, in the reading of the posts, the reader loses the sense
that it’s “just” a class project.
The layout of the blog is very organized layout and makes
everything easy to find. Having an organized layout is very important to having
a professional-looking blog and creating a visual appeal. If the layout is
disorganized, the reader will have a hard time following the intended message
of the blog as a whole.
It is clear who the audience is intended to be: classmates,
instructor, etc. However, the writing is very easy to understand and
interesting to read, so the “passerby” reader may subscribe to keep up with posts
on this subject. In reading this blog, the topic is interesting to read about
and the writing style is organized and easy to follow.
The layout and design offers a good use of “white space” or
the negative areas that give the design an organized look and feel (Bikram,
2011). The design of the blog could be customized just a little bit more to
suit the author. Color should be appropriate to the content (Bikram, 2011).
Even though the background image is quite beautiful, it does not seem to relate
to the topic and because it is a blurred image by default it is a little
distracting.
References
Bikram (2011). 5 designing tips for a professional blog.
Retrieved June 11, 2012 from: http://www.gossimer.com/blog/5-designing-tips-for-a-professional-blog/.
Lupetti, A. (2008). 7 tips to design professional blog layout
using blogger. Retrieved June 11, 2012 from: http://woork.blogspot.com/2008/09/7-tips-to-design-professional-blog.html.
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