I work in an office. It’s an office that encourages the reading of blogs. Well, encouraged in moderation of course. We’re a company that is keeping up to date with the latest trends and I subscribe to 29 RSS feeds which is nothing compared to most of you. These 29 feeds entertain, enlighten and educate me on current events in technology and web trends. However, they all use images in the blog posts that take up most of the screen. I’ve included some screen shots to showcase why I ABSOLUTELY HATE photos on every single blog entry.
See what I’m saying? So the issue is that I’m at work and I constantly catch people stopping to look at my web browser. I have a 24″ Monitor at work so it’s pretty decently sized and it’s just tiring. The same thing happens at coffee shops, libraries and even at home Laura is always looking over my shoulder. At home I have a 30″ computer monitor so I guess she can’t help it but it’s still something that I want to stop. The second issue is that it’s distracting. I really can’t focus on the text with “shock photos” there to distract me. Honestly, I don’t know what to do.
Maybe one day, John Gruber’s blog design will rub off on everyone. His site is perfect and flawless. Everyone else can suck it!
I agree that pictures shouldnt be used on a blog… unless the pictures arent stupid or relatively crappy. If you have to use a picture then make it something small or eye catching… not a kid with a half grown ‘stache licking something.
then just turn off automatically downloading images in your brower. Duh!
I don’t mind a pic in every blog post so long as it’s tastefully done in a non-obstructive manner. The one’s you have above where the photo is floating to the right or the left with the text wrapping around it is a sin in my book–I absolutely hate that style. It’s a very newspaper-like layout to me and well, the web is not a newspaper, therefore blogs shouldn’t resemble them.
That’s just my two and half cents on the matter. ^_^
Oh, in regards to daringfireball.net, I have been subscribed to him for a while, but what keeps me from reading it is the dark background (hard on my eyes), and endless lines of texts, so much, that the posts appear to run together. It’s a one part aesthetic and one part visual handicap issue for me–primarily the latter. Dark sites hurt my eyes!
I agree that pictures shouldnt be used on a blog… unless the pictures arent stupid or relatively crappy. If you have to use a picture then make it something small or eye catching… not a kid with a half grown 'stache licking something.