Review: Suburbian Queen

All the previous blogs that I reviewed had a set focus that was easy to determine once you read the blog. This week’s review is a little bit of a change. There are probably millions of blogs on the Internet, and a great many of them are personal blogs where the author just rights about anything. I review a blog that falls into this category this week.

Suburbian Queen is written by a mother of 2 who obviously enjoys writing on her blog. Although the focus may be a little hard to determine, her posts are far from boring.

Design 

The design of Suburbian Queen is a simple design with the main content on the left, and a navigation bar on the right. The provides an easy to read layout for the blog.

There are a few flaws that I can see in the current design of the blog. The first is the background image. I found it too distracting, and think a solid grey colour, or a faded image in the background would be better. Another issue I found with the design in the fact that all text is bolded. This seems to be a common trait for many blogs, but I feel bold should be used for emphasis only.

The last issue I had with the design is the order of the items in the navigation bar. I would move some of the post navigation links, such as the categories and archive links to the top of the navigation bar. This will allow visitors to easily navigate around the blog.

Besides the simple layout, I did like the size of the font, which made it very easy to read the posts. The menu at the top of the page stands out as the font is large, capitalized and is fairly dark compared to the white background.

Overall the design of the blog makes reading and navigating the blog easy.

Focus 

The focus of the blog can be confusing to a visitor who has not heard of Suburbian Queen in the past. There is no brief description of the blog in the header, which would have been nice.

The description of the blog sent to me by the author is as follows: “Suburbian Queen is a blog about everything in general. Sometimes funny and often times thought-provoking. This blog has something for everyone”, which after reading a few posts becomes quite obvious. This brief description would be nice in the header of the blog to prevent visitors from being confused.

Content 

Unlike my posts, the posts on Suburbian Queen are short and sweet. Many posts can easily fit on a single page without causing the page to become too large. This is a big plus, since many visitors probably won’t want to read large posts.

Another thing I also like about the posts are the little images the author has inserted at the beginning of each one. Each image the acommpanies each post is simple, yet appropriate, to the subject of the post. Images are always a nice touch to any blog.

Spelling and Grammar 

This is the first blog to receive a perfect 5 star rating in any category. It is hard to find a Web site, or blog for that matter, which has near perfect spelling and grammar. Suburbian Queen has well written posts that are very easy to read. The author has definitely spent some time to ensure to correct any spelling and grammar mistakes, and it shows in the posts.

Overall 

Suburbian Queen is an interesting blog that is fun to read. The design of the blog doesn’t distract or make it difficult to read the blog. The focus may be a little confusing to a new visitor, but after reading several posts you have an idea of what the author is trying to achieve. The posts are nice and short, and include simple and appropriate images. The spelling and grammar is top notch and achieved a perfect 5 star rating, a first in any category.