Thoughts on blog and website designs

I started a blog on Wordpress nearly 9 years ago. I designed it for use on computers, and later on found that the graphics I made don’t work well with phones, plus the photos are now from many years ago and don’t reflect our current homestead, so I’ll be changing some things around for these reasons.

When I started, I chose the cheapest ad-free plan, and a layout that the plan allowed for. Now there is a cheaper ad-free plan that I am keen to switch over to, and there is a chance that my current layout won’t be available with the new plan, so I’ve been considering other layouts.

I went to look around for new layouts and it has changed so much in 9 years! I am wondering what other peoples thoughts are on what makes a blog easy to access and pleasant to read?

Observing the way that my husband and I use the internet, when my husband goes to a website and there is a menu with 3 lines, he calls me over and says he can’t find anything, and I show him how to click on the 3 lines and it’s all in there, sometimes he needs to call me over a second or third time to help navigate a website that’s been designed for phone users or other people with different brains to his - I wonder how many other people are like that? For this reason I am thinking of avoiding any layout that uses a 3 line menu on desktop view.

When I use the internet, I am usually in a hurry and just want to quickly load stuff up to read offline. Some layouts are hard to navigate and make my brain feel weird. Lots of layouts have small excerpts from posts and then you have to click on them to get to the full post, so there’s lots of windows that need to be opened rather than just reading it all on the one page - is this something that annoys you? Or is it a good thing in that it reduces scrolling through full posts and that you can quickly glance at the post title and figure out what you are interested in reading while ignoring the rest?

Things that are important to me in blog design:
• A top bar of clickable links to various parts of the blog - I have one link that people can click for recipes only, another people can click for homestead stuff only, another for all posts, along with links to my books.

• Two columns - 1 big one for posts, one small one for email list signup, books, and social media stuff

• Easy to read and easy to post to, so that I don’t have to worry about figuring out featured images with particular dimensions or any other finicky stuff.

The layout I currently have fulfils all three of these requirements. There are a couple of other layout options that may be suitable in case I can’t use this one anymore, and I’ll post them below.

A couple of questions:

• Do you prefer a classic blog view of full posts (as can be seen in my current layout), or small excerpts of posts that need to be clicked on to be read individually?

• Can you imagine my blog with a logo? Or is a similar approach to now with photos + plain text more suited?

• What are your thoughts on the ‘button 2’ and ‘bitácora’ layouts? If I were using ‘button 2’ I would be changing the orange text to something less loud.
Button 2: https://wordpress.com/theme/button-2
Bitácora: https://wordpress.com/theme/bitacora
My existing blog layout: https://thenourishinghearthfire.com/

so there’s lots of windows that need to be opened rather than just reading it all on the one page - is this something that annoys you?  

Oh, so very much on news sites. I click once on an abbreviated title, get three or so lines then I must click again. I feel like I'm in a battle with an, 'are you sure you want to read this?' But if you can keep it to 1 more click, that's okay.

Ooohh, web design-- fun!

I love the look of the Button 2 theme; it feels clean and tidy but not austere like a lot of modern themes.  As to your question about headers, I usually prefer logos because they scale well, whereas header background images can be cut off strangely (depending on what size the viewer's screen is).  For post length, I don't mind full-display posts if they're under 700 words and light on images.  But if they get too lengthy, excerpts are nice for being able to scroll through a page quickly and only click on the posts I want to read in full.  With all that said, there's no way to please everyone; it's your site and your opinion of how it looks and functions is the most important.

If you're still considering other Wordpress themes, I wanted to ask if you've seen the Customify and Kadence themes?  These are the MOST customizable free themes I've ever seen!  Both provide a lot of options for menu, header, footer, and content layouts in each screen type (computer, tablet, and phone)-- meaning no more hamburger (three line) menus if you don't want them.  And it's all done with a simple drag-and-drop utility.  Moreover, if you have a good grasp of CSS, you can modify things even further in the Custom CSS box, and I've found the Wordpress support pages for these themes to be pretty active and helpful.  The preview images for the themes look sleek and modern but, if that's not your cup of tea, please don't judge the themes by their sample images.  I've personally set up over a dozen websites with these two templates (including a rustic camper rental site, an adorable craft blog, and a light-and-airy art portfolio) and each one had a totally unique look and layout because Customify and Kadence are so versatile.

Anyway, I'll end my fanatical endorsement of my two favorite themes right there. ~_^

Regardless of what theme you choose, I hope you'll post again when your site makeover is ready.  I love seeing the designs people come up with and am excited to see what you'll create!

The existing page looks fine to me, both on mobile and desktop.

What I would like is a list of posts (just the post title, no picture), similar to a table of contents, linked at the top of the website, so it can be found without having to scroll through everything.

Destiny Lauritsen wrote:Ooohh, web design-- fun!

I love the look of the Button 2 theme; it feels clean and tidy but not austere like a lot of modern themes.  As to your question about headers, I usually prefer logos because they scale well, whereas header background images can be cut off strangely (depending on what size the viewer's screen is).  For post length, I don't mind full-display posts if they're under 700 words and light on images.  But if they get too lengthy, excerpts are nice for being able to scroll through a page quickly and only click on the posts I want to read in full.  With all that said, there's no way to please everyone; it's your site and your opinion of how it looks and functions is the most important.

If you're still considering other Wordpress themes, I wanted to ask if you've seen the Customify and Kadence themes?  These are the MOST customizable free themes I've ever seen!  Both provide a lot of options for menu, header, footer, and content layouts in each screen type (computer, tablet, and phone)-- meaning no more hamburger (three line) menus if you don't want them.  And it's all done with a simple drag-and-drop utility.  Moreover, if you have a good grasp of CSS, you can modify things even further in the Custom CSS box, and I've found the Wordpress support pages for these themes to be pretty active and helpful.  The preview images for the themes look sleek and modern but, if that's not your cup of tea, please don't judge the themes by their sample images.  I've personally set up over a dozen websites with these two templates (including a rustic camper rental site, an adorable craft blog, and a light-and-airy art portfolio) and each one had a totally unique look and layout because Customify and Kadence are so versatile.

Anyway, I'll end my fanatical endorsement of my two favorite themes right there. ~_^

Regardless of what theme you choose, I hope you'll post again when your site makeover is ready.  I love seeing the designs people come up with and am excited to see what you'll create!

Thank you for your feedback re logos vs images. My current image does get cut off at the sides on phone view.

I just had a look at those themes, but they're only for more expensive plans than mine. Good to see there is something so customisable though.

Will definitely post here when it's done.

I'm also considering Substack, but might make a separate thread for that.

Sebastian Köln wrote:The existing page looks fine to me, both on mobile and desktop.

What I would like is a list of posts (just the post title, no picture), similar to a table of contents, linked at the top of the website, so it can be found without having to scroll through everything.

That is a really good idea, thanks. I have a little “top posts” and “recent posts” section in the sidebar, but theres’ a lot of older content that’s not being seen much because it’s buried behind several pages of other posts.