matgb: Artwork of 19th century upper class anarchist, text: MatGB (Default)
Mat Bowles ([personal profile] matgb) wrote in [community profile] getting_started 2010-10-07 03:51 pm (UTC)

Briefly, and I'll find more later (I really ought to write this up properly anyway, it's not just DW based users who frequently get the importance of titles far too far down their priorities)

For other pages than the homepage, start the title with a few of the most salient information-carrying words that describe the specifics of what users will find on that page. Since the page title is used as the window title in the browser, it's also used as the label for that window in the taskbar under Windows, meaning that advanced users will move between multiple windows under the guidance of the first one or two words of each page title. If all your page titles start with the same words, you have severely reduced usability for your multi-windowing users. (under "6. Page Titles With Low Search Engine Visibility" in the top ten mistakes)

I can't find the specific post on WPTS (I really wish one of the bestusability sites was actually usable, bugbears are us). He does have it, sort of, in the "does my site suck" list the sort of is
Our site's TITLE tag is something like "New Document", "Index" and not the name of your company or other search-engine friendly terms.


Now, for you, "imaginary footlights" is useless, and TBH it is for this specific case. LJ derived users and sites, being frequently inward focused, don't tend to worry about this stuff.

But, my journal title is my actual name. People searching for me online aren't going to search for "matgb" if they want info on my when I'm a candidate (and at least 10 people came to my journal when I was last a local election candidate, came 3rd, not too bad for the area), they're going to search for "Mat Bowles".

I didn't have to do any layer hacking to get "Mat Bowles" displayed as the title first in Expressive on LJ, that's the default.

My username is MatGB, ergo people will find it. Jennie's is Miss_S_B, derived froma very old net handle.

To the overwhelming majority of her current readers, miss_s_b is completely meaningless, she's Jennie Rigg, potential candidate for Party Presidency and a Known Person, nationally. No one is going to search for miss_s_b to find her when she's next up for a national level office, but finding her is something we'd want people to do.

A username can at times be chosen randomly, or chosen at short notice, or even at times the third, fourth of fifteenth choice. I was lucky, MatGB was my second choice on LJ, after MatB, and using the middle initial works better anyway. Others?

We sell rename tokens for a reason, right?

To me, your rename is slightly confusing, but at least I know all about it. A journal title can be both more fixed and, importantly, more flexible. If I write about something specific regularly, I can add that, if I set up a comm or a new journal for a specific use, I can set the title to be very user friendly and indicative.

A username is just that. DW_News is "Dreamwidth News" to us. But to a mainstream audience, it's Home | Deutsche Welle. Or even for fandom BBC - Doctor Who - Doctor Who: The Adventure Games - News & Features.

The username is a lot less useful than the journal title. That a large number of users don't, currrently, think about the importance of the page title is a reason to strengthen it's use, the username is nowhere near as meaningful, even currently, let alone in a few years when the most expressive personal names are all gone.

"Imaginary Footlights" is a useless title, to us, but it might mean a lot to readers of that blog, especially if they come in from elsewhere. But if I get around to setting up the Comm for the local film festival I keep meaning to, it'll likely have a comm name like "ffw-bradford" or similar. But the Title will be "Fantastic Films at the Media Museum".

That's meaningful, and useful.

You're thinking entirely of on site users, on site traffic, and your preference for thinking by username. I'm thinking of general users, a new-to-the-site audience, and for off site traffic, including DWers who aren't solid core users looking for useful content. A username tells people very little at times.

But a blog title can, and should if done well, tell a lot.

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