{"id":3444,"date":"2009-02-21T14:08:31","date_gmt":"2009-02-21T19:08:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=3444"},"modified":"2009-02-21T14:08:31","modified_gmt":"2009-02-21T19:08:31","slug":"the-look-of-a-writers-blog-putting-readers-at-ease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2009\/02\/the-look-of-a-writers-blog-putting-readers-at-ease\/","title":{"rendered":"The Look of a Writer’s Blog: Putting Readers at Ease"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This borders on “for geeks only” territory. But I think it’s worth at least some attention if you aspire to get — and keep — a reading audience for your words on the Web.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"A highly respected site for Web-site designers, typographers, and so on, is called A List Apart<\/em>. It’s been around for years, freely dispensing advice and information from various experts on how to make pages look good and behave properly.<\/p>\n

You may or may not know that a given page looks differently when viewed in one Web browser vs. another (Firefox vs. Internet Explorer vs. Safari vs. Opera vs. whatever); even if you know that, though, you may not know why you perhaps should care<\/em>… let alone what to do about it. If that bothers you, and if you’re not too intimidated by tech subjects presented gracefully, A List Apart<\/em> needs to be in your bookmarks list.<\/p>\n

Regardless of your expertise, I want to draw your attention to a recent article by Mandy Brown, “In Defense of Readers<\/a>.” It will be of interest to anyone placing his or or her words online, in an environment — like a blog — where one hopes or expects to attract readers<\/em> as well as mere visitors.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The piece is hard to pull an excerpt from, because the temptation is just to copy-n-paste the whole thing. Here’s a sample, though:<\/p>\n

The best readers are obstinate. They possess a nearly inexhaustible persistence that drives them to read, regardless of the circumstances they find themselves in. I’ve seen a reader absorbed in Don Quixote<\/em> while seated at a noisy bar; I’ve witnessed the quintessential New York reader walk the streets with a book in hand; of late I’ve seen many a reader devour books on their iPhone (including one who confessed to reading the entire Lord of the Rings<\/em> trilogy while scrolling with his thumb)…<\/p>\n

What each of these readers has in common is an ability to create solitude under circumstances that would seem to prohibit it. Reading is a necessarily solitary experience — like dying, everyone reads alone — but over the centuries readers have learned how to cultivate that solitude, how to grow it in the least hospitable environments. An experienced reader can lose herself in a good text with anything short of a war going on (and, sometimes, even then) — the horticultural equivalent of growing orchids in a desert.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Brown discusses various strategies readers use to insulate themselves from their surroundings. Then she gets into what makes this article particularly relevant to A List Apart<\/em>‘s audience:<\/p>\n

…The key is not to halt all activity around a reader, but to give her her space. (Remember the girl reading Quixote<\/em> at the bar? You want to order your drink without bumping into her.)<\/p>\n

In practice, this means you need to limit distractions to the full extent possible. Pull quotes — so effective near the top of an article — become a nuisance further down; many readers will find themselves unconsciously drawn to them, even when they want to focus on the text. Attention to the basic typographic details — line length, a readable typeface, the right balance between font size and line height, appropriate contrast between the text and background — can make the difference between a reader who makes it to the end of the article versus one who tires and gives up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And so on.<\/p>\n

Now, I know that many bloggers (especially of the writing sort) simply use built-in themes and templates. They have neither the time nor training nor, really, the inclination to go diving into the mysteries of Web-page makeup and adjusting every little thing that might make their pages even slightly less readable.<\/p>\n

And yet, and yet…<\/p>\n

Just ask somebody what s\/he thinks could be improved, especially if it’s someone you know wants<\/em> to read your blog. If s\/he could change just one thing about the way your blog looks, what would it be?<\/p>\n

Now think about that.<\/p>\n

Think, further, of your experience in a bookstore. In just browsing with no particular book in mind, have you ever found one with an alluring cover which enticed you to open it up, perhaps read a paragraph or a page? If so, have you ever put it back because the text was too small or crowded, the margins too narrow? No, you say — that wasn’t why you put it back.<\/p>\n

Are you sure?<\/p>\n

(For that matter, if — when — your next book is published, do you care at all what the pages look like, how they feel?)<\/p>\n

Even if you yourself\u00a0 can’t do anything about the “look” of your blog, you owe it to your audience — and to your words — to bring readers to the page and keep them there… to provide for their visual<\/em> comfort as well as the intellectual sort. If need be, get a techie friend or relative (or your site’s administrator\/designer!) to brainstorm it with you.<\/p>\n

But first, check the List Apart<\/em> article.<\/p>\n

And yes, I’m going to be making some adjustments myself. If anyone reading this has suggestions, please let me know!<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This borders on “for geeks only” territory. But I think it’s worth at least some attention if you aspire to get — and keep — a reading audience for your words on the Web.] A highly respected site for Web-site designers, typographers, and so on, is called A List Apart. It’s been around for years, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,17,19,20,5,324],"tags":[241,1021,1022],"class_list":{"0":"post-3444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-03_runningaftermyhat","7":"category-04_technology","8":"category-internet","9":"category-programmingetc","10":"category-06_writing","11":"category-researchresources","12":"tag-readability","13":"tag-web-design","14":"tag-a-list-apart","15":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-Ty","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3444"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3478,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3444\/revisions\/3478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}