Demonstrative blog review: worldit.info, in its good parts and things that can be improved

Hello,

In this blog post I analyze the blog world IT, a Romanian weblog about IT.

A. What I like about the blog?

– In the upper-right corner there’s the search box; great!
– Lots of useful content;
– A good community;
– Nice interviews;
– Emphasis on beauty;

B. What can be improved?

Design

– The design seems crowded to me; a lot of items in little space;
– I like the call-to-actions;

Usability

– The search box is fine;
– I like the fact that you have a box for login (this is good if you have inexperienced writers, who don’t know how to login directly using the URL /wp-admin/);

SEO

– I like that you use All-in-one SEO Pack, but please read this article also;

Copywriting

– There’s way too much text written with ALL CAPS;
– No diacritics? Why no diacritics?
– A lot of spelling errors;

Organization of information

– When I generally open a blog, I get a list with the latest articles; on your blog, I get a scrollable list of articles (a fixed number), and a list with the latest articles from three categories;
My preference goes to the information organization of a typical blog – If I come back to your blog I have to remember which articles from each category have I read last, and not repeat reading those articles again; if I’d do the same thing on a typical blog I’d only have to remember one single article, not one article for three categories;

The “stay connected” box

– Repeats the email subscription; put it one time only, not two times;
– The box for email subscription could be replaced with a link; it would be simpler, take less space; the ratio between the number of visitors and the actual subscribers could prove you that you should rather put emphasis on the viewers than the subscribers;
– The text with the online users:
“6 online: 5 vizitatori, 1 robot.”
is not relevant for the theme of the box – “stay up-to-date”;

The “have news updates” two boxes

– The news have their own icons; I don’t really like that they are repeated 4/5 times;
– I entered your blog to read about your news; shocking, isn’t it? Well, you should try to keep me on your blog; there are 500+ vertical pixels taken up by these boxes on every page of your blog; it’s too much; put some links if you really want to show other web sites; or, better yet, create a page on your blog dedicated to other resources; the current layout takes way too much space from other options; this leads to cluttered design, a lot of things to click on; I want a simple design, few things to do, focus on your news, not others’;
– Again, a preference for ALL CAPS text;
– It’s a little paradox to have “with without” text here:
“cu FaraVirusi.com”;
– I think you should know that there is no “ultimile” word in Romanian language; “ultimele” perhaps?
– If I were you, I’d avoid having titles on two rows, they take up valuable space;

The tag box

– The title:
“Comentarii | Populare | Taguri | Arhiva”;
is too crowded; you can solve this by writing with a smaller font or by giving up ALL CAPS; oh, wait!, you prefer ALL CAPS;
– It’s hard for me to follow the Flash animation, I would prefer a classical tag cloud;
– Some tags are irrelevant:
“probleme” (problems);
Both “Twitter” and “rețea socială” (social network);
ONI? What’s ONI? (Olimpiada Națională de Informatică? How should I know this?)
Both “Firefox” and “Mozilla Firefox”;
Yahoo without the exclamation mark;
Both “Web” and “Internet”;
Lol :) “motor de cutare”;

The archive box

– You should either:
a. Use this solution;
b. Or this one;
to translate the date into Romanian;

The logo

– It’s hard for me to see that’s it’s written “world IT” and not “worldl T” (I can be easily mistaken with l);
– I personally think that suspension marks leave things in suspension;
– The text with the photo (worldIT) is hard to read, too many differences;
– You say “world IT” and put a globe; that’s the logo; it’s not bad, and it’s also not that smart either;
– Is that “into” or “info”? Hard to see;
– The words “World IT” make little sense; what’s “world IT”‘s meaning?
– Why start a word with small capital? I thought you liked ALL CAPS; the text should read:
“World IT
Evolve with us”
rather than
“world IT
evolve with us”;
– It’s not easy for me to read both “info” and “evolve with us”, due to variation in color (at the top a light gray, at the bottom close to black);
– The motto is written with a too small font for my taste;

The latest articles box

– Have this scenario: I open the blog, see the box with “the latest articles”; I click on “next article”; what should happen? Nothing; Since this is the box with the latest articles, pressing next would logically lead me to your future next article, which isn’t yet published; so nothing should happen; currently your blog does a circle tour with the last few articles, and this is to me a little illogical;
– You put “anterior” in an un-articulate form, yet “urmatorul” is articulate; pick your way;
– This text:
“Adaugat de Andrei Avădănei la 06 Jun 2010 in”
has both diacritics and no diacritics; make up your mind; also, the date is English;
– Regarding:
“6 Comentarii / Add”
a. Why Title Case?
b. Why both Romanian and English?

The search box

– Both “Search” and a magnifier and a “Go!” button? That’s too much for my taste, I’d give up the magnifier;
– I prefer “Caută…” without the suspension marks;

A banner

– Too pixelated for my taste;

The footer

– Is that the logo? Sure doesn’t look so;
– Why Title Case?
– No note for WordPress?

Partners

– You specify:
“Parteneri online”
but all the partners are online; why the mention, then?
– Typos:
“tehnologie , incercam” => “tehnologie, incercam”;
“programare,algoritmica” => “programare, algoritmica”;
“WorldIT.info doreste sa fie util tuturor persoanelor interesate de informatica si tehnologie , incercam sa promovam articole de programare,algoritmica, securitate, precum si stiri legate de acest domeniu.” (this one should be split into two sentences);
“dezvolte.Veti” => “dezvolte. Veti”;
“proiectului.Daca” => “proiectului. Daca”
“neclaritati ne” => “neclaritati, ne”
“le multumit”;
– You say:
“Parteneri cu teme diferite”
Different from what?

About us

– Typos:
“incet incet” => “incet-incet” or “incet, incet”;
“specializat ,” => “specializat,”;
“Wordpress” => “WordPress”;
“.:)” => “. :)”;
“cand pe 29 iunie,” => “cand, pe 29 iunie,”;
“Treptat , domeniul de activatate s-a largit incercand” => “Treptat, domeniul de activatate s-a largit, incercand”
“,precizari” => “, precizari”;
“Cere si ti se va da :” => “Cere si ti se va da:”;
– This sentence makes little sense:
“sursa de stiri ce mentinea apetitul publicului”;
– What’s that? It’s so illogical:
“subiectele care sunt tratate evaziv in Romania si flutura domeniul nostru de activitate”;

Contact

– Huh?
“sa ne intrebi de mine.”;
– Deadly combination:
“Doresti” followed by “va sta” (switch of persons);
– No phone number, no email, no contact persons, no physical address, no Instant Messaging solutions, no photos; “great”!

A random article

– One of the most annoying plugins; I’ve been visiting your blog for an hour, opening a lot of tabs, and you keep on telling me I’m new to your blog; and why? to tell me that I can subscribe to your blog via RSS or email or follow you on Twitter; but, wait! Wasn’t there a link for those on the sidebar also? Oh, yes, it was; I guess that the box follows the general trend on the blog – You can’t have too many links for RSS and email subscription; if I were you, I’d deactivate the plugin;
– You say I’m a new guy on the blog; what if I’m a girl?
– Comma missing:
“asemenea”;
– What’s this?
“fluxul pe email”;

– Do you happen to know how many of your viewers use Buzz! on Yahoo! to share articles? Do you think that Delicious is the #1 choice for a Romanian when sharing your articles? And that Facebook is the last option? Do you think that “Share and enjoy!” (in English) is the right text to motivate a Romanian reader? If not, why do you do all this? In my opinion, you should have links to Twitter, Facebook, Yahoo! Messenger and Email; that’s it; I’ve written an article on this;

– What’s with the name repetition?
“Avădănei Andrei – Autorul a scris 514 articole. Vezi articolele scrise de Andrei Avădănei.”;
The text should read:
“Avădănei Andrei – Autorul a scris 514 articole (vezi lista completa)”;
– Your use of “|” symbol is bad:
“Contact | andrei@worldit.info | @worldIT – @AndreiAvadanei”
the text should read:
“Contact: andrei@worldit.info | @worldIT | @AndreiAvadanei”;
– You start with a colloquial “you” when you offer help and switch to formal “you” when you ask for help:
“Daca ai nevoie de suport tehnic, informatii si sugestii privind diverse produse prezentate pe blog sau doriti sa ne ajutati”;
Quite funny psychology; :)
– You just said about the contact information, what’s the need for repeating?
“Persoanele ce doresc sa-si promoveze produsele pe WorldIT le astept sa ma contacteze prin aceleasi metode.”;

– No Romanian? You can translate the comments.php even if it uses settings from WordPress core (so even if the translation is not in the PHP files of the theme, and the text appears only in the WordPress core, you can still change this);

This text:
“Nume (necesar)
E-Mail (nu va fi public) (necesar)
Siteweb (http://)”
should read, in my opinion:
“”Nume (necesar)
E-Mail (necesar, va ramane privat)
Site web (optional, incepe cu http://)”

– I’m blind!

Love-and-hate article

– I loved this phrase:
“Ar trebui sa dispara linia in care este prezentata versiunea WordPress, acest punct de vedere fiind unul legat de securitate.Te poti folosi de urmatorul cod, inserandu-l in fisierul functions.php, pe prima linie a acestuia.
remove_action(‘wp_head’, ‘wp_generator’);”;
I had to login to all of my WordPress blog and put a plugin to help me do that; very useful tip!
– And I hated this phrase:
“Cred ca ar fi bine adaugarea unui plugin gen All in One SEO Pack pentru a imbunatati putin compatibilitatea cu motoarele de cautare.”
for these reasons;

_________
Bottom line: world IT is a very useful blog, with a few things to improve.

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