Matt Jones

before you play two notes learn how to play one note - and don't play one note unless you've got a reason to play it - Mark Hollis

Blogger Relaunch: Big on CSS Tricks and Little Else

You won’t get very far through your morning intake of weblogs and news sites without reading about the Blogger relaunch. But for all the talented people involved in the re-design and the clear amount of effort that’s gone into it, I’m unimpressed. The problem is that once you strip away the attractive design – the CSS smorgasbord of sliding door tabs, rounded boxes and drop shadows – very little has changed in terms of its user interface.

As a user of Blogger, I appreciated the way in which it made maintaining a web site so much easier; you could just concentrate on your writing rather than having to use HTML and FTP to make date headers and maintain archives. As a free and unique service, I was never going to complain about its regular downtime or the fact that its user interface was merely adequate rather than stunningly elegant and intuitive.

Now, under the mighty wing of Google – with their mastery of functional web interfaces – I expected Blogger to take a similar route towards setting new standards in web application UI design (much like Google has purportedly done with the Gmail service). For me, the fact that Blogger’s user interface remains largely unchanged is a disappointment and if Google wants to continue to own the most popular weblogging tool, I think they need to do much more than this seemingly superficial redesign.

8 Responses to “Blogger Relaunch: Big on CSS Tricks and Little Else”

  1. 2:03 pm on 10 May 2004 :::

    Stu Says:

    I agree Matt. To be fair, the UI has been enhanced, although not perhaps to the level of simplicty/elegance expected of Google (or Amazon). (I wonder how much user testing it\’s gone through?) A nice job on the part of Bowman et al, both in design, copywriting and coding. Still, I\’m surprised it made the BBC News front page. The homepage is certainly much more user-friendly in terms of helping new users to get started (long overdue!), but overall it feels much more like a repaint than a radical improvement.

  2. 2:24 pm on 10 May 2004 :::

    Stu Says:

    And yes, it\’ll take more than CSS tabs and free Zeldman templates to fight off the likes of Typepad. I\’m planning to switch to WordPress, mainly for the extra functionality (and the fact that it\’s open source). Blogger\’s a great tool to begin with, but anyone who continues blogging for a longer period will inevitably switch tools for one that offers more features. For this reason I think Typepad is in a very strong position, sticking a user-friendly UI on a very powerful (in comparison to Blogger) application.

    When Google bought up Blogger I expected to see see some big additions in terms of functionality, to compete with MT/Tpyepad, etc. So far this has not happened, which I find quite surprising. It could be that they just don\’t care about advanced/experienced users, as there simple aren\’t that many of them. Most people start blogging and then give up after a few months. Blogger\’s competitors seem to be more attractive to people who have tried Blogger but what something more; the majority of first-time users will probably choose Blogger (at least until Microsoft/AOL launch blogging services).

  3. 2:26 pm on 10 May 2004 :::

    Stu Says:

    please excuse the typos…

  4. 4:16 pm on 10 May 2004 :::

    Jack Says:

    Aside from the commenting, it\’s a cosmetic upgrade, sure, but I think they\’re just cementing their position as first port of call for folk wanting to see what all the weblog fuss is about, not intending to cater to those who want all the options (and attendant complexity) TypePad/MT/Wordpress/Textpattern etc. etc. offer.

    I wouldn\’t be surprised if they offer an equivalent to the old Blogger Pro at some point. (Reminds me – I\’m still waiting on that free T-shirt from when it went free.)

    Also: interesting to see that links on the essay introducing the relaunch all redirect through Google in some kind of sinister tracking excersise. (Paranoid, moi?)

  5. 4:34 pm on 10 May 2004 :::

    natis Says:

    Design-wise: I like it. Simple, clean, fun, kinda conveys what most people looking to have a journal online think of it. Yes, there are those of us that are political, technological, philosophical, etc, but for the most part, it\’s kids out there talking about why Johnny didn\’t call back or how hard finals are going to be yada, yada.

    Just my 2 cents.

  6. 10:13 pm on 10 May 2004 :::

    Phil Says:

    The strange Google-redirects also happen on the \”Developer\”:http://www.blogger.com/developers/ and \”Knowledge\”:http://www.blogger.com/knowledge/ pages. I\’m guessing this is some trick to bypass PageRank?… It\’s a bit messy – what with the second or so delay it takes the Google page to redirect.

  7. 9:26 am on 11 May 2004 :::

    Matt Says:

    \”Blogger\’s explanation for the redirects\”:http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=808

  8. 1:27 pm on 11 May 2004 :::

    Jack Says:

    Ah, non-sinister redirects then. It still seems a bit clunky to have a whole redirect page load before you reach your destination, though.

    I guess the paranoia was sparked by the fact that between my Gmail account, Blogger profile and whatever link tracking they do, Google have a worrying amount of information about me and my interweb habits. Let\’s hope they continue the whole not being evil thing.

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