blog design

Tags in WordPress.com

blogdesign — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 15:18:23 +0000

There’s a very interesting conversation (almost a campaign) on the use of Tags in WordPress.com blogs over at Stephanie’s Cheese Sandwich blog here. WP makes categories “Tag friendly” which means services such as Technorati will pick your categories up as tags. However, many users prefer to keep their tagging separate to their categorizing.

A variety of tools exist, including bookmarklets, greasemonkey scripts and plugins, to integrate tagging capabilities to WordPress. However, no such plugin is packed in WordPress.com at the time of posting this.

tags: wordpress.com, tags, tagging, blogging, plugins

The importance of adherence to web standards

blogdesign — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 00:38:50 +0000

Some people may claim that adhering to web standards is limiting to their creativity. That is absolutely not so. Just looking at some of the designs in CSS Zen Garden, will convince you that web standards truly liberate one’s creativity.

A modern day, standards compliant website should at least use valid XHTML and valid CSS. The two main reasons – besides professionalism and the respect of the web design community, are flexibility and accessibility.

A valid site is accessible by more people through more pieces of software and user agents than an old badly formed HTML document. It is also more accessible to people with disabilities. Don’t forget, not everyone accesses the content you create on the web, the same way you do. Some people use different web browsers, others use their mobile phones or PDAs, while others use audio browsers which read your content aloud to them.

Also, the more current your code is, the easier it will be for you to migrate to the next new thing that comes out, and to incorporate other technologies and tools to what you already have set up.

What do you think of web standards? Do you think it is worth the effort to adhere to them? Leave a comment and tell us about it!

Resources & further reading

css Zen Garden The Beauty in CSS Design
World Wide Web Consortium
Category: W3C standards – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cascading Style Sheets – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

introductions

blogdesign — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 22:48:20 +0000

Welcome to blogdesign.wordpress.com! blog design is a blog dedicated to introducing readers to the wonderful world of blogging with style. Right here, we’ll be discussing things such as template design, blog functionality, user friendliness, valid web design, blog templates, tools and resources for today’s blogging enthusiast.

Every aspect of blogging, including photo blogging and podcasting will sooner or later be addressed, so keep your web browsers tuned in for updates!

Suggestions are always welcomed and if you have them, don’t hesitate to leave a comment. Tell us what is it about blogging you’d like to know more about, and we’ll turn the blogosphere upside down to satisfy your curiosity.