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Warning! BloggingZoom May Cause Seizures
January 30th, 2008 in Design Inspiration
by: Matthew Griffin
I was bouncing around my favorite social news sites in an early Monday morning stupor, when I discovered that BloggingZoom.com had released a redesign over the weekend. For a few seconds, I squinted my eyes at the at the glaring screen wondering if I had mistyped the url. Now I just wish someone had warned me about the celebration—the new BloggingZoom slapped me in the face and put a sparkler in my hand. Its minimalistic design had been shucked overnight and replaced with something from the high-energy, patriotic, art-deco aisle (if such and aisle exists). Upon closer scrutiny, though, I discovered that not all of the changes were unhelpful or inappropriate—time to get out the scalpel and start dissecting.
Color Palette
Most of my criticism will fall on this aspect of the design. I would expect this color palette on a Ron Paul fan site but it doesn't make a lot of sense on BloggingZoom. Unfortunately, it's the most prominent feature of the new motif. It created a knee-jerk reaction that was difficult to shake off as I navigated through the rest of site. They might be able to pull it off if the dark red and blue weren't applied so liberally. The white, lighter blue and natural yellow could be used to fill large areas and the the darks could be used to separate blocks of content and bring out the logo. Overall, though, the number of colors in the palette needs to be cut down and I think the dark orange should be the first to go (it's only used once as far as I can tell).
Layout
Once I regained my composure from the color explosion, I found that the new layout was a significant improvement. I was able to find the content I was looking for without any frustration. The only real complaint I have is that the header takes up too much space. On a content-rich website, the content should appear as far above the fold as possible. This problem could be easily remedied by moving the top nav bar to the bottom of the page. Other than that, I give them congratulations on a successful layout.
Proportions and Consistency
The last element of the design that caught my attention was its disproportionate text and button sizes. Some of this may be an illusion caused by inconsistent style application but the problem remains either way. It would be too difficult to give a step-by-step prescription for fixing this so I'll just say that it all needs to be tightened up. One good principle to follow is to try to keep at least one aspect consistent from button to button—shape, color, background pattern, font style, etc. And keep the number of button styles to a minimum.
Conclusion
BloggingZoom.com is a great service and I plan to continue using it on a regular basis. But if the Pligg powered social media site is going to kick Digg's butt as they claimed in a recent member email, they are going to have to take design seriously. My criticism is intended for their improvement , not their detriment—so BloggingZoom, good job...try again.
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