Oct 17 2008
First Impression Friday: “Hello. My name is Bland.”
WSMS’s tagline states:
…because you have less than a second to make a good first impression.
So I decided it was fitting to have a standard post covering first impressions. Each week I will randomly visit a website or blog, then post my honest reaction. No critique. No list of things that are good or bad. Just my general thoughts.
I think this will be a refreshing change for me. At 10 things I hate about your site I’m always striving to maintain that fine balance between constructive feedback and outright criticism. Here, for FIF, anything goes!
Because I couldn’t think of any better way to pick a site at random, I simply used StumbleUpon.
Let’s get it started!
Today’s Victim
My first impression: bland. Not so bland that I wanted to click on the SU button again, especially since the first post seemed really interesting, but still kind of bland. The problem is the color scheme. Brown, black, and multiple shades of gray are, well, bland. I’m also no sure why the link hover color is a shade of red. Now that’s NOT bland, which means it doesn’t fit with the overall color scheme.
I’m all for the minimalistic approach to web design, especially when there is a lot of content involved. Keeping colors and graphics toned down is a good thing. You should try, however, not to put your visitors to sleep.
