Feeds – A Threat to Design?

Author: May

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3 Nov

Over at friendlybit, Emil talks of feed readers being a threat to a design on web. I find it a good article and something to think about. I’ve seen many debates over “Full vs Partial Feed” publishing. I’ve seen lots of talk on “Great Content vs Great Design”. Now Emil brought up another thought on “Users should decide vs Webmasters should decide” and “styling vs unstyling” web trends.

The widely accepted rule was to let the users decide the layout; after all why should we need to download the same design over and over? Design was something the user decided, not the author.

But those content-only sites didn’t live long. First tables, then CSS, enabled users to make sites more interesting and in many cases easier to read.

Everything has pro and con. Sometimes it’s so hard to take sides.

Myself as a user, I like the idea of reading full feed from various site content through feed reader for faster and easier (no need to remember all site urls) accessibilities.

But then again, you lost track of the site look and feel aspect as well as some other factors like aside links, photo galleries, no-feed related content pages such as “about page”, “portfolio”, others articles and even a good comments discussion. You become very unfamiliar with the site and sometimes you don’t even recognize the site that you roll the feed from when you happen to came across.

Not too long ago feeds were introduced. Feeds make it easier to subscribe to websites by separating content from all the “design stuff”. This enables users to decide how your content should look. Proponents often talk about how much faster it is to read content from different sites when they all look the same. No time is lost trying to understand a new design.

Apart from having a great content, site aesthetics is also one of the essential factors of web medium.
So, myself as a designer/site owner, I published partial feed only.
Why? Becos’ I got alot more stuffs to show off than just feed content.
I prefer varieties of stylish medium than a dull unstyled web.
I want my readers not only to taste my writing but also to feel my overall site identity.

What kind of web do we want? What kind of web do you want? Should we go back to an unstyled web where content is the only thing that matters? Did the “content only”-proponents win after all? Is it a “feeds only” web what we want?

In the case of “Users should decide VS Webmasters should decide”, I take it as webmasters are the advanced users and hence they have a chance to change the direction in which they prefer best. ie. If you favor unstlyed web, go ahead and publish full feed. Otherwise, support the effectivness of design aesthetics and ~~force~~ trick the users to the direction by publishing a partial feed.

Oh yes, LONG LIVE DESIGN!

Read Emil’s full article on “Feed – a threat to design on the web” here.

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Filed under: Blogging, Blogosphere, CSS, Design, Web

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3 Responses for "Feeds – A Threat to Design?"

Preetam Rai November 3rd, 2006 at 8:57 am 1
I would prefer if the author provides several options for the feed. Full, Partial, comments etc. I would even say that providing partial feed is like being impolite to a guest – guys who subscribe you on a RSS reader are doing so because they already have several sites to visit and probably they don’t care about the site interface too much so showing them partial feed does no good. Here is an experimental vindication of this
http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2006/10/why-you-should-provide-full-feeds.html

As for the identity bit, I think the web as we see it today with the design elements etc is only aspect, people care more for the information. As newer mediums like Second Life emerge we will have to come up with vastly different interface objects and the emphasis will change from a 2-D design to 3-D.
Strange Pants November 3rd, 2006 at 9:47 pm 2
An interesting discussion, with no right or wrong side.

There are a couple of things to be said for feeds:

Feeds shift the emphasis back to good content … which is what makes or breaks a site. Design is good, but at the end of the day, it’s about content. Design informs the content, helps clarify it’s message and brands the owner(s) of the content, but it can do nothing to improve poor content!

Feeds offer your visitors/subscribers the freedom to get updates, and in the case of full-text feeds, content whenever and however they want. If you believe that the ‘user/client/visitor is always right’ then you allow them the freedom to read your excellent content in a manner that fits into their schedule.

That said, full-text feeds can a be a little scary: the idea that someone can read your content without referring to your site breaks the current monetisation models for sites … which means it’s time for a change. The web has always been a fluid medium with people experimenting, inventing new delivery mechanisms, and just occasionally something comes along that changes the way we all work. Perhaps the days of going to a web site will pass, and the feed model of getting from a web site will take over.
May November 4th, 2006 at 1:45 am 3
@Preetam Rai,
Yes, I guess you are right in saying it might be impolite to a guest esp for those who subscribe hundreds of feeds like you guys. Well, I’ll think of a way to publish both feed.

@Strange Pants,
Oh yes, even in friendlybit article, i read about the possibility of formatted designed content to go in the feed readers in future. Yes, that’s gonna be very interesting if you can read the whole content design bit from the feed reader. I’m waiting for the day.

The thing about full feed is that, I got full feeds from lots of sites and I’m enjoying it but then I lost track of the whole site appearance and sometimes forgot who/how the author is. Also I miss out lots of other very good resources like asides links, icons, layout effects, etc. I guess not all people are same like me who like checking out everything, so they need not know those and sure to prefer full feed.

You know I hate that part “user/client/visitors is always right” haha. I hear that all the time and getting so annoying. Why can’t the developers be right sometimes too? So unfair man.

Thanks guys good thoughts and discussion.