Sidebars are often overlooked, but in truth, an effective sidebar is key to retaining visitors.

Why?
Lemme explain.

With a standard (well designed) web site, visitors can arrive at a page (ideally) within 3 to 4 clicks. The nature of a standard static web site allows the navigation to work that way.
Blogs cannot work that way.

Blogs rely upon new an unique content that is sometimes posting new content 20+ times a day (like Engadget). It is impossible to build a site’s navigation to allot for that much content.

That is where the sidebar comes in.
The sidebar’s purpose is to drive visitors further into your web site.
Not all visitors may be drawn in by the particular posts that happen to be displaying on your home page at the time of their visit. Or even if they do, the sidebar should be designed to further grab their attention and turn a one-time-visitor in to a subscriber.

This requires a well designed and pruned sidebar for your web site.

What Goes in a Sidebar?

Common elements of a sidebar:

• RSS Buttons
• Search Form
• Recent Posts
• Advertisements
• Popular Posts
• A List of Categories
• Navigation
• Sideblog (a Asides, or Twitter Updates)
• Author Info

All blogs are different - therefore what goes into the sidebar will vary from blog to blog.
New blogs won’t be able to have a “Popular Posts” section, some blogs won’t need a Sideblog - all blogs will vary. Some blogs won’t even need their RSS feed in the sidebar if they have it elsewhere!

Use it to the Max

When designing your blog, make a list of all the components you want in your blog (search form, popular posts list, RSS buttons, advertisements, etc.)
Then figure out what is going in the header and footer - what ever isn’t going in either (and is necessary) put it in your sidebar.

More important items should go towards the top.
Items like your RSS buttons, search box, and advertisements should always be above the scroll.
After those items the rest should follow in order of importance.

Each item should be unique and different from one another. Naturally, the more important items should stand out more.

Good Sidebar Designs

ProBlogDesign.com
PSDtuts.com
Skelliewag.org
I Love Typography - though possibly a little big…
Abduzeedo

It comes down to a logical thought process - analyzing your blog’s needs and the options before you.

Further Reading
ProBlogDesign.com’s Sidebar Redesign Thought Process
Sidebar on the Left or Right? - Pro Blog Design
50 Tips to Unclutter Your Blog (Including 27 tips on how to unclutter your sidebar) - Skelliewag

Plugins
Sideblog Plugin
Twitter for Wordpress
Popularity Contest - note, plugin does not work with Wordpress 2.5 as of 4/23/08

Part One of The Power of Minimalism

Minimalism is arguably the most effective form of web design currently in existence.

Visitors don’t have to wait for annoying flash animations to zip across the screen…
Nor heavy images and graphics to load…
Nor try and figure out confusing animation…
Or anything annoying design related ‘harassment.’

Minimalism fights against it all.

The problem with minimalism is it’s complexity.

Yes, that’s an oxymoron.
But it’s true.

Minimalism strives to remove as much as possible from the design as well as keep as much as possible in the design.

Yes, that is another oxymoron.

Think about it.
Good minimalist web sites (usually) employ simple navigation, simple graphics (or an image), a logo, and effective colors.

Those four components form an extremely delicate balance.
If one element is a little too much, the entire formula can be thrown off.

Even though minimalism is one of the greatest forms of design out there, it is the most difficult to use to it’s full potential.

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I have addressed minimalism before, and perfecting Minimalism has become sort of a passion of mine.

Thus, I shall be turning this into a mini-series, and (eventually) write an eBook on Minimalism.

If you know of a good Minimalist web site, please let me know.

Again, stay tuned for the rest of the mini-series.

Sorry for the lack of posts, but circumstances have prevented me from being able to post.
However, the lack of posting has given me lots of time to think.
And since I have several web site designs going right now (more than I probably should), I have been thinking a lot on, well, web site design.
So, let’s examine one of today’s web trends.

Minimalism

First off, what is minimalism?

Uh…
Well…
You can’t really describe it in detail.
I’ve explored the topic before, and I received very mixed responses.

But in short, Minimalism is a web site that is stripped down to just the basics to put the focus on the content and decrease load time.
There are many other factors to consider, but I have found that the previous statement is pretty general all across the board.

The discrepancy often centers around how little is minimal, and what can be included in minimal sites.

I think it’s [JustinBlanton.com] not to minimal. Sure it might not have an identity but it still works. I think a site will be to minimal when it has bad usability. You could argue in a way that apple’s iphone is to minimal because it takes 2 click to switch programs. I am in no way saying its an unusable phone. Don’t flame me boys.
-Jonathan Solichin

RandomJabber.com and SkellieWag.org are not minimal list. They employe heavy graphic elements. Especially Radom blog you can see too busy at the side bars and at footer.
-Binh Nguyen

Ultimately, I don’t think you can put a checklist on minimalism.
Minimalism is a general category that cannot be nailed down into a science.

Ok, let’s move on.

The Excuse

Since I’m a web designer, I’m trying to immerse myself in good web design so it is always at the forefront of my brain, and thus, shows up in my designs.
In my ‘immersion,’ I’ve been following and browsing many design galleries.
In doing so, I have seen a lot of minimalist web sites.

Most of them suck.

Why?
They’re not very thought out.

Minimalist designs rely heavily on the design’s grid, the identity, colors, and a graphic (and/or photo) or two.It seems that Minimalism has turned into an excuse for designers to not design.

Minimalist designs must be very thought out and extremely effective in order to be ‘good.’

What Makes a Minimalist Site Effective?

I believe I’ve covered this before, but I can’t quite remember.
So let’s look at it again.

A Good Logo

Having a good logo increases memorability tenfold.
It defines your brand and sticks in your visitors heads.

Emphasis on the Content

This can be achieved many different ways.
Colors are often used for this.
By having the content’s background a different color than the rest of the web site will draw the eye to the content. ProBlogger is a good example of this.
Also, placing images in the post headers accomplishes the same thing - like Skelliewag.

These are just two ways to do so - but the possibilities are endless.

Simple Messages

Simple and effective messages are also very memorable.
Like how my tagline contains just three words: “Design & Blogging.” Instantly, visitors know what my web site is about. Unfortunately, the message isn’t as prominant in this design as I’d like it to be. I’ll fix that in my upcoming design.

However, Wake Up Later is an excellent example of a simple message and conveying it well.

Icons

Icons are also nice touches.
They can be memorable (especially if they’re unique icons) and they add splashes of color and imagery to the design.

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Thoughts?
Is Minimalism just turning into a designer’s excuse?
How can we avoid the excuse and use Minimalism to it’s full potential?

Cartoon via World Magazine