10 Things: Rarst.net
15. Dec, 2009 
9 Comments
This review would be so different if I’d have done it a few months ago—It appears that our friend Rarst has updated his blog theme. I am finding myself conflicted with the current look. Conflicted because I really don’t care much for it, but I’m going to be hard-pressed to put to paper 10 specific things I hate. So, let’s see what thoughts I can formulate. Rarst.net, here are 10 4 things I hate about your site.
- Wow, there is A LOT going on here. So much to see—and I haven’t even clicked anywhere yet.
- One word: boxy.
- Black and white—good for prison stripes, I Love Lucy reruns, and poignant family photos.
- Don’t tease me with part of an image, I can handle the whole thing.
Details
- Wow, there is A LOT going on here. So much content, so much to see—and I haven’t even clicked anywhere yet. If this blog were sound, it would almost be a cacophony. While there is really nothing discordant nor meaningless1 about Rarst.net, it’s content is almost overwhelming. I say almost because even though there is so much stuff, it’s organized incredibly well.
What does this mean? Unfortunately for me, it may not mean much. There is a lot of content, but from what I’ve read it’s good content. After several days of visiting, I think what bothers me most about Rarst.net is the color scheme (or lack thereof). Check out #3. - One word: boxy. “Volvo. They’re boxy, but they’re good.”2 While this may be true of the Volvo, it’s not really a compliment. This is, however, exactly what pops into my head when I visit your site.
What does this mean? Unfortunately for me again, maybe nothing. The layout is clean, crisp, and very well organized. All things I like. So why do I have issues here? Check out #3. - Black and white—good for prison stripes, I Love Lucy reruns, and poignant family photos. I know there will be some readers out there who completely disagree with me and you are welcome to comment and tell me so, but I’m not a huge fan of black and white as a color scheme. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against black and white. But a little color can definitely add some visual interest.
What does this mean? Three strikes and I’m out. Rarst.net is so well organized and laid out, even the bland choice of mostly black and white doesn’t detract, nor seem bland. Damn you Rarst! - Don’t tease me with part of an image, I can handle the whole thing. I am really bothered by the images in your posts, and the fact they are cut off in odd ways:
I’m not sure if this odd cropping is intentional or not, but it is the only thing I’ve found on this blog that isn’t neat as a pin.
What does this mean? This odd cropping does detract a bit from the actual content of the post. I would recommend using more conventional image cropping, or inserting a thumbnail with a link to the full-size image. Take my treatment of the image above as an example.
In Conclusion
Rarst.net is a good blog. It has good content and is very well laid out and organized. The four3 things I hate about the site aren’t huge issues. They’re really just things that nag at me—not really annoying, but pesky.
- Thank you Dictionary.com! [↩]
- Yep, obscure movie reference! Who can tell me what movie it’s from? [↩]
- Can you believe there are only four things?! [↩]
I think, perhaps, the thing that gets to you about 1 to 3 is that there is nothing that draws the eye. Because I have dyslexia I notice things like that. I load a page and expect my eye to be draw to SOMETHING but when I look at rarst.net my eyes don’t know where to look. They’re trying to look at everything at once. There is no visual focal point to draw the eye and tell use where to begin.
1. Lots of content is great, your review of WRA had the opposite, not enough content on the first page. But I think the trouble here is that the content all looks the same.
2. I LOVE clean lines and boxy does that. So the boxiness is not a bad thing. It gives balance and the boxes are well measured for width and aspect.
3. Black and white is again, clean, and corporate. For the subject it works. This 10 Things site is very dark whites and grays, it works. It doesn’t really need color so much as some visual element that says, “look at me!”
At least, that’s what I find when I view it. My eyes get sore and strained trying to see everything at once and I wouldn’t hang around for the headache it’s going to give me. Perhaps the white is too white, perhaps the lines are all too clean, perhaps there are just too many of them. But the biggest challenge for me was that everything looked the same so my vision couldn’t decide where to look first.
Rebecca Laffar-Smith – Web Designer´s last blog ..Does Our Underwear Determine Our Success?
DAMN! As a designer, I should have been able to pinpoint this as a main problem! You are absolutely right about the eye not being able to land anywhere. That was one of my biggest problems every time I would visit–my eyes wander all over the page and never find a place to stop, exactly as you’ve pointed out.
This is the main reason why the all black and white color scheme doesn’t work–there is no contrast between different types of sections to stop your focus on one place and let you decide where to look next.
I like boxes too but I personally think they are overdone on Rarst.net. As I stated in my review, however, since the blog is so well organized and laid out, they work.
Thanks for the insightful comments Rebecca!
First thank you very much for spending your time on this review and your insight.
As I mentioned I am working on new theme and it is no small feat to keep all good parts intact and correctly spot what will be worth a cut.
Last major design changes where in January (and I had never changed theme completely) so you are bit off with time frame.
1) I never felt that amount of content is excessive. Partly I am probably immune and partly tech blogs are often extremely content-heavy. Mine is moderate in comparison.
Still I tried hard to minimize confusion some tightly-packed (and magazine especially) themes create. Most feedback on layout is positive so it more or less works for my readers.
2) I love boxes, this theme was chosen for boxes alone, boxes are awesome… Ahem.
Seriously I do like style very much. It is sharp and precise and that is important for me to easily manage things. It is easy to add or remove box, unlike complex layered themes where design can fall apart from smallest tweak.
3) I know it is somewhat bland. I gave up thinking up how to introduce colors into this theme, frankly it wasn’t make to be colorful.
I will keep monochrome style in new theme, but typography will be more bright plus background patterns and some non-box elements. I hope it will be more vivid without sacrificing too much of sharpness.
4) I picked this screenshot style deliberately. 1:1 pixel makes screenshots of software (which is bulk of content) look real and sharp.
It doesn’t work that good with site screenshots (as you picked for example) because they use more of screen space and in less standardized way. I decided there is more merit in consistent style throughout all posts, rather than trying to work out several different styles and possibly confuse readers.
Specific size also works well with slideshow in header. For now – that thing is very outdated and I will need to redo or replace it in new theme.
And I like that it looks odd. Many bloggers rely on default options of their tools and blogging engines to get screenshots up. Common result is generic and poor looking. It is best to differ from that.
@Rebecca Laffar-Smith
Hm, I thought that main headlines are emphasized enough. I did heat mapping for some time http://www.rarst.net/web/clickheat/ and it didn’t show any significant issues with navigation and browsing through main content.
And as above – new theme will be more visual and main content will be more emphazied in layout, so I hope I got your concerns covered.
Thank you for review and maybe in another year new theme will settle in and be ready for some dedicated hate.
PS only 4? phew, endless crazy tweaking pays off
Rarst´s last blog ..How do you drag notebook around?
Way to call me out on my timeline Rarst!
I have not been a good blogger lately, but I’m trying to change my ways.
Your review was difficult for me because of the four things I listed, none of them are breaking any “rules” nor causing any problems. I knew I’d get a lot of comments on the boxes, and I was certainly right. I swear I’m not a box hater, but you have SO MANY of them. And while you do have a lot of content, I agree that it’s not too much (did I say it was too much *running up to check*). Whew, I didn’t say it was too much.
My main point was that with so much content and all of the boxes looking pretty much the same, it’s hard to stop at one particular thing. I found myself overwhelmed.
I like monochromatic color schemes and don’t know that you really need to add TOO much color, but I do strongly believe that something could be done to differentiate between your content on the left and your sidebar on the right. Of course this is personal preference since as I’ve stated, your content is good, your layout is intuitive, and your site is clean and well organized.
With regards to your images, I agree that it is important to be consistent. You could, however, implement a consistent style for site screenshots and a second 1:1 pixel style for the software images. Your software images do look good, but the site screenshot (like in my example) looks unprofessional.
I look forward to visiting your blog more often, and am interested to see what changes you implement.
Hi there,
Just thought I’d leave my comments on your four points of Rarst.net
1.On first glance (which is a very important phase), I agree it does look like there is too much going on. However, as you also say, the great organisation of the site mitigates this over the next few seconds.
2.Yes it is boxy, but I think this is part of what helps organise the site. I think there could be less boxes. i.e. simplify the design, because I find myself mentally filtering out some of the less essential boxes. It’s partly habit because I mentally filter out adverts, and while none of the boxes are commercial adverts, on first glance you get the sense that they are.
3.The colour scheme, or lack there of, is an issue for me too. I have a similar condition to Rebecca, which requires me to sometimes wear coloured glasses to aid my reading. So completely black on white is quite harsh for me, without my coloured glasses. I wouldn’t really class this as a design flaw, but it’s an accessibility issue that effects most web sites.
4.I haven’t ever found image cropping to be an issue. Sometimes it’s better to maintain resolution and crop, sometimes it’s better to scale. It’s a case by case issue.
David´s last blog ..Battle of the Maps
Welcome David, and thank you for your insightful comments.
I think that a little tweak here and a little tweak there, and Rarst.net will have 0 things I hate about it.
@David
Some of the boxes are adverts. Guess your mind filter works just fine.
Oh dear… If even black on white is considered usability issue nowadays – I can’t help but feel helpless about that stuff.
I will try my best (which is not much) with typography for new theme, hope it will turn out better. Current state is more like lack of typography.
Thanks for your input. I know whom I will bother with sneak previews of new theme if I need harsh readability evaluation.
Rarst´s last blog ..How do you drag notebook around?
We’re very intrigued by this concept of blog critique.
As bloggers, we rarely ever receive this type of penetrating evaluation.
The fact you made this into a blog, in itself, is brilliant.
Keep it up.
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