Winternet

Jakob Nielsen writes about web usability. He’s often got some great insights backed up by some good research or just common sense. However, he wrote about design mistakes in building blogs a few months back and I’m still reeling from the effects of his second “mistake":

2. No Author Photo
Even weblogs that provide author bios often omit the author photo. A photo is important for two reasons:

• It offers a more personable impression of the author. You enhance your credibility by the simple fact that you’re not trying to hide. Also, users relate more easily to somebody they’ve seen.
• It connects the virtual and physical worlds. People who’ve met you before will recognize your photo, and people who’ve read your site will recognize you when you meet in person (say, at a conference – or the company cafeteria if you’re an intranet blogger).

And in the past few months I’ve seen more and more awful photos of geeks in the blogs I read.

The downside of his advice is that putting a picture on your blog will often ruin your credibility. After seeing these horrible pictures I think to myself: “Well can someone who can’t put on a decent suit, can’t crop a photo, can’t smile without a ridiculous smirk, and can’t match a tie to his suit really know that much about MySQL tuning?” Or, the converse: “Well, can someone who clearly spends 2 hours twisting his hair into perfect points, ironing his ironic Miami Vice T-shirt, and polishing his stylish Italian leather shoes every day have anything interesting to say about closures in Javascript?”

I don’t mind drunken cameraphone photos in your photos section. Especially ones that you wish you hadn’t published by the next day. I do mind you putting your weird mug on every page of your blog. I don’t want pale, doughy guys looking seriously at me while I read about XML. It’s creepy.

Author photos also emphasize the worst part about working with computers, even worse than the vain, smarmy dudes in bad suits. The huge gender imbalance in the IT industry. When all I see are balding, pudgy dudes with weird smirks on their faces it makes wonder: where are all the balding, pudgy women with weird smirks? Where do they work? Renaissance Faires?

What to do about it? Well, Firefox has a few extensions that might help: Adblock (get rid of them forever), NukeAnything Enhanced (destroy them each time you see them).

Or, just read some blogs that remain author photoless (so far as I see): Ned Batchelder, Sam Ruby, Wil Shipley, and Joyce Park.