Criticism can be difficult to handle, especially at 8 in the morning.
When I invited Stephanie Booth to come talk with us, I asked her to be direct and share where she thought we could improve our site and our blogs. As requested, she came armed with a mind map of where we needed to improve. Here are some of the things she identified.
- Make sure the objectives and purpose of each feature (blog, forum, wiki) is clear to the end user
- The site has lots of ways to access information. Simplify.
- Branding of different areas – make visual cues so people know they in a specific community
- Clear URL scheme (especially for blogs)
- Blogs are somewhat hidden. Make them stand out in the communities more.
- Too much clutter. Simplify.
- Custom 404 would really help
She also identified a few things to work on for the blogs
- get the few last posts out on the site or on the community home page
- use meta blogging – blog about what’s happening on the site
- standard disclaimer on all blogs, rather than doing it differently on each blog
- people’s blogs should look unique
- make a print stylesheet, including the URL
- remove user generated html, so all blogs keep the same consistent layout
The input was appreciated. We’ll be able to take action on many of these.
Next up: How to be a good blogger
