10 things I hate about your site

Writer’s Round-About is a great writer’s blog. Rebecca is insightful and posts timely content. This is great since content is king; however this blog suffers from cross-browser incompatibility and a wee identity crisis.

Yes, it’s a shameless cross promotion! But I’m really happy with the new design of my website (not blog, site). Web-Betty is where it all started for me, 10 years ago. Scary to think I’ve had the same email address for over 10 years!

So for all of you requesting reviews, remember that I’m a designer, and would be more than happy to fix all the things I hate about your site.

Entrecard is working well for me, it appears. This is my second review request from a fellow “Entrecarder” and there are more in queue. This review is on the blog Focus Organic. As the name implies, this blog covers organic and eco-friendly topics. I have to start by saying that I LOVE the design of this blog. The graphics are great and tie in with the theme, the icons and web elements aren’t distracting, and the page loads quickly.

Focus Organic

10 7 things I hate about your site:

1. Are you blogging for the environment, or are you blogging for the ad revenue?
2. Are you blogging for you, or are you blogging for your advertisers?
3. What’s with the itty, bitty text size?
4. Love the Eco-Friendly Friday graphic. Hate that it’s larger than the posts.
5. Link confusion—why do I keep getting Sept. 19th’s post when I click on the Eco-Friendly Friday graphic?
6. Series confusion—where are the rest of the Eco-Friendly Friday posts?
7. Why the green “F”?

I think I’m reviewing myself into a corner. What started out as an endeavor to review web sites (but not excluding blogs), has taken a sudden turn to the blog side. This creates a bit of a conundrum for me since most blogs rely on pre-made templates.

I believe Whathuh Studios is my first request from an Entrecard member. I think the time I’m spending there might be panning out.

Whathuh Studios Rant

10 8 things I hate about your site:

1. PayPerPost blog, or Whathuh Studios Rant blog?
2. “We make web design personal” doesn’t
   appear to be a very accurate tag line
   for this blog.
3. The Digg widget–its placement just bugs me.
4. Visit Flordia, the 51st state.
5. Whathuh heck is that icon?
6. Your sidebar widgets icons are magically disappearing.
7. Translation: worth it, or pretty space-filler?
8. Tag cloud vs. topics.

Did you notice there wasn’t a “thing of the week” last week? I just wasn’t inspired by much. With all the browsing I do, you’d think something would’ve stood out. Even StumbleUpon failed me, which is rare. All that ended today when I received the mysterious note “Here’s a good way to spend your Friday!” Ooh, what was it? A nice beefcake site? 101 things to do with human hair? Nope. It was the thing of the week!

I have to admit, I’m featuring this site as much for the COOL products, as I am for their über-minimal design. Without further ado, this week’s TOW is:

The blogosphere, for all of it’s bloggers, can be a small world. Our next site review comes via a theme I chose to use for one of my other blogs, The Web-Betty Blog. There were quite a few comments regarding the Unstandard theme and how to modify it. A few of these comments came from Tracy Rosen. She provided some good info that really helped me modify the theme to my own liking.

That said, I’m going to find it difficult to provide an unbiased review as she has been oh so helpful to me. Since I’ve been asked, however, this is my way of returning the favor.

10 5 things I hate about your site:

1. Holy navigation, Batman! You have quite a few navigation buttons.
2. Busy, busy, busy. There is a lot going on here.
3. Gray, highlighted text.
4. Too many formatting styles in a post.
5. Overall layout—are you making the most of your blog real estate?

Don’t be mislead. While there are only five items listed, they cover a multitude of sins.