Content vs. Icons

  • Posted by glen on November 2nd, 2006

37Signals’ blog has a great post that actually made me look much closer at elements of LifeDev, especially the design. The fellas at 37Signals argue that people who litter their post pages with the “bookmark me at X” buttons (like yours truly) aren’t focusing on what’s really important: the content.

The reason posts wind up at Digg, Delicious, or elsewhere isn’t because the authors made it easier to vote for them (it’s already easy). A post winds up at these sites because people respond to its content and quality.

The post goes on to say that none of Technorati’s top 10 blogs and only 2 of the 15 top diggs for the day it was written actually have these buttons. Very interesting.

From a guy that stresses post marination and an overall “quality first” mindset, this came as a pretty big blow to me. But he’s right. If I’m constantly worrying about tweaking things to help the reader, I’m overlooking the easiest way to please more readers: better content.

It’s times like these that I really love the internet and how much you can learn from other people.

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    • I don't think they are mutualy exclusive. There is no harm in making navigation and use more user friendly, even if you have good content. Its just curtesy, and ads to the positive experience.
    • I blogged about this yesterday, and I don't think he's right: http://www.techipedia.com/2006/11/01/new-blogs-...

      You put this an interesting way -- that the bookmark pages "aren't focusing on what's really important: the content." But if you have good content, those bookmarking buttons at the *bottom* of the page should not deemphasize the quality of your post.

      I've actually reduced the number of bookmarking icons on my site since that article (I was trigger-happy for awhile for experimental sake despite its unattractiveness), but I don't think that removing the icons completely really would have a negative effect on my site.
    • glen
      Judy,

      I agree, any way that you can help your readers out, it's definitely a positive. However, I think that 37Signals argument is that you sacrifice your design by adding these buttons, especially for the low number of people who actually use them. I personally agree with 37Signals that it can detract quite a bit from the site if you have a gazillion little buttons running across the bottom of your post. I've used them on other blogs once or twice, and in the time it took me to find the site I wanted to bookmark to I could have already added it at Del.icio.us.

      However, I think Tamar has the right idea. There's probably a happy medium in reducing the total number of buttons to just a few. It just depends on your own site, whether you think it's a big benefit to the people who use it.

      Something to take away from this is the fact that we should always be listening to other ideas, especially from people more qualified. Take 37Signals: They have some of the most popular web apps and are pretty much the poster children of "web 2.0". Their blog RSS subscription number alone is 40X LifeDev. I figure they gotta be doing something right.
      ;)
    • Interesting, except that post wasn't written by me, although I did comment on it, since I'm the guy behind Simpy, one of the social bookmarking services that people often link to from their post footers.
    • glen
      Whoa, how did I screw that one up?

      Otis, my apologies. That would be pretty conflicting for you ;)
      I've made the changes in the post. Sorry for the confusion!
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