Design has always mattered to me—a lot actually. Remember, my background training in college was performance and composition. Music and stage production, both in school and in church, was a major part of my early professional life for many years. I thrilled at staging hundreds of children and adults in huge productions for deeply enthralled audiences. I learned early on that the way anything is presented to the target audience is of critical importance, whether it's a product, a unit of instruction, or a leader's vision of excellence. Simple things were so powerful: using color and lighting to effortlessly focus attention, set emotional tone, and enrich the story's unfolding. Oh, I could write so much about all of this.

Beauty, in all of the many forms it can assume, is near the very core of a satisfied human experience. I wish I had a lot of training in design as I think it represents very critical and creative thinking and problem solving. But, alas, I don't. I just go with my instincts, try to pay attention to why I think something is well designed when I come across it, and read about the topic as I can. In fact, I even have an RSS folders on creativity and design in my aggregator.

Often, presentation slides are visually unappealing, cluttered, sterile—well, just boring. Often website and blogs are noisy and hard to read. The information is so cluttered I don't feel welcomed into the site. In fact, sometimes I feel repelled: too many widgets, banners, animations, and links all competing for attention and mouse focus.

I suspect many children are attracted to this as they get excited when building their social networking pages. After all, one of the things our minds crave is motion: add those animated gifs! More, more! But as I have grown older, the noise wears thin. I find I need a balance between efficient message as well as positive emotional connection.

And I confess to really getting exasperated on corporate sites when I have to click more than 3 mouse clicks to get to what I need. Ease of use is another huge part of design: focus on function and form, in emotionally compelling ways.

At any rate, all of that to say this: I came across two posts a couple of months ago that offer some insight into how people read blogs and web sites. How the eyes move across the web page, just like how the eyes move across the stage in a production or the screen in a movie, matters. This is the quiet, unseen, gentle nudging of attention by the creator.

The writer of these posts then gives some basic, easy ideas for improving your blog or web site's readability. I don't recall the author explicitly suggesting the generous use of white space, but I'll toss that one on the table, just in case it wasn't. These are a quick read for those who have an interest in making your blog or web site easy to read and visually welcoming.

What to do with a visually noisy blog: Part 1: Your template as your visual foundation

Suggestions for a visually noisy blog: Part 2: Ideas for visually simplifying a blog