After following a link from Alan, I was reminded of something fundamental in website design and was inspired into a bit of a rant about it.

What inspired me to write this rant is the complete and utter lack of good branding on Darren Barefoot's site. Now, I realize this is a 'personal' site for the most part; however, 'branding' is just as important in a personal site if you are writing for the sake of an audience and not just for yourself. I don't want to be specifically criticizing Darren Barefoot's site; however, visiting it happened to spawn this rant, so most of my critique will focus on the deficiencies found there.

A house full of doors

As much as you might like them to, people don't enter your website through the front page. A website is less like a storefront and more like a series of doors to different rooms People most often get to your site through searches, such as Google or Amazon, or through specific links on other websites (say, linking to your latest gadget, a funny entry, etc). With Darren Barefoot's site, I was pushed into an internal page through a link on ufies.org to the "Whales are big" entry.

As a result, the first exposure a user has to your site is most often an internal page. It is entirely likely they have never been to your site before, so they will have no triggers to recognize your site by. In the case of Darren Barefoot's internal pages, there's almost no identifying information at all. Yes, there is a small text block that says "This is darrenbarefoot.com"... but the colours used, and the heavy negative space on either side of it completely obscure it from the user's eye - extremely poor branding at best. Likewise, the italicized text lessens the visibility of the brand even further. As a user, what I'm left with is a lot of empty space, a lot of text, and a picture of some guy in a toque... but no inkling of where I am in the site, what the site even is, or why I should explore the site further. I've been there, seen the silly killer whale video, and have no further reason to stay (never mind the fact that the navigational links that are so prevalent on the main page are not persistent through the rest of the site... so there's no way to get to his CV, Portfolio, or About pages).

In a personal site, perhaps this is fine. You're not really building a brand unless you are trying to build a name as a professional writer and/or blogger (Oops, Darren's trying to do both). In a business case, however, you're committing professional suicide. Would you send out any information that didn't mention your company's name? Why would you then allow yourself to do that on the web? Where's your first impression with a potential client?

Good web design (and usability) reassures the user that they are in the right place, looking at the information they wanted to find in the first place. Better web design then gives the user avenues to explore the rest of the site in a way that is easy, appealing and sometimes even fun (see an older entry for more information on this (it's worth the read, as is the article originally linked to in that entry)). Good design gives the user an immediate signal to the site's name and function, without beating the user over the head with it (or, in the case of the current design, slipping it, folded, under the user's doormat and hoping it's eventually found).

A good example

A prime example of how to integrate branding into your site effectively comes from 37 Signals, one of the leading design firms when it comes to creating usable websites. Though their branding is minimal, it's present and consistent. You can make no mistake when you're at a 37Signals page - the brand is always prevalent, and there's always a way to get to salient information about the company behind the page. They carry the same scheme through in their other sites as well.

Jason Kottke is another great example of this. Not only do you have great minimalistic branding on his site, kottke.org, but you also have an immediate sense of where you are in the site, a few exits to the rest of the site, and even a link to the most current entry in his weblog.

In the end...

It wouldn't be all that hard to work branding into Darren Barefoot's site, nor would it be hard to work in the navigation from the site's main page; the benefits of doing so would be great from a user's perspective. Chances are good that when implemented, perhaps along with some cross-links to other areas of the site, users will be more willing to explore the rest of his site and spend more time there. As it is now, my guess is that people who aren't already familiar with Darren and his writing won't get far in his site.

Bonus

Some links to information about branding:

* US Small Business Association: Building a brand workshop
* Marketing - Branding Concepts
* Lovemarks (beyond branding)
* Mozilla's branding policy

(Bonus cardinal sin, which I've run into before with the person who designed Darren's site: Lorem Ipsum text on a public page. Don't do it. Put in a placeholder that offers contextually relevant information, such as "Hi, this is my portfolio page, which isn't quite ready for public viewing yet. Here's a link to my work site, where you can find more information". Or don't put it up at all. Putting up Lorem Ipsum will serve no purpose but to kill your Google-fu - you can see this in action for yourself: search for darren barefoot portfolio on Google... you get to his About page and Contact page... but not his Portfolio page)