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Posting Interface Size

Posted Sep 08, 2009 in Technology and Web Design

Nice post comparing the interfaces of a number of blogging tools. Adam Mathes compares Movable Type, Blogger, and Wordpress and finds that they all come up short compared to Twitter:

This is why anyone – even confused celebrities who barely comprehend technology – can actually use this product. You show up, there’s a box at the top, you type in it, and it shows up below with other people’s stuff you can read.

Textpattern’s posting interface has a bit more complexity, but it does one thing right. On logging in, you’re always presented with a big box for typing in and a prominent “Publish” button.

(Yes, I am on a bit of a Textpattern kick again, why did you ask!)

update: Post discovered via the inestimable Waxy Links.

2 comments so far

Comment by Ben Buchanan at 10 September, 04:16 pm

I still can’t quite bring myself to call Twitter a “blogging” tool, though! It doesn’t have an awful lot in common with the others, really. For one thing, it’s the only service which knows exactly how long your post is going to be…

I actually think the post is a little harsh on Blogger, if you look at the dashboard without the grey masking the “new post” link is the only one on the entire page which is a big blue button – very “click me!!!”. The monetize button is gauche though, agreed there.

The actual editing window is way too small though; and being left-aligned it’s ridiculous on my 22” monitor. I’ve user-CSSed it into something a little more workable, but that’s hardly a mainstream solution. More CMS interfaces need a “full screen” option for editing.

Ultimately though… for serious writing, I use Dreamweaver and just drop the final copy into Blogger.

Comment by Nick Caldwell at 17 September, 04:15 am

Yeah, Wordpress has a full-screen mode now, but ick, it’s still Wordpress.

I actually think if you’re serious about blog-writing you’ll already have a XML-RPC desktop tool; not sure what the Windows options are like but on the Mac, Marsedit is excellent, with support for drafts, macros, spell-checking (well, that’s baked in to the OS but it’s a rare nicety for Windows users) and drag-n-drop image uploading.

In other news, sheesh, I really should check my comments moderation queue more often. Sorry Ben!

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