Contemplating WordPress.com themes

Finally a 4am blog post. Oddly sleepless, for someone who can sleep through air raids. Ended up pottering around with alternative themes for this blog which has been on the “Chaotic Soul” theme (your are looking at it now) since day 1. I prefer dark themes since I find them easy to read.

After all the computer monitor is essentially a light source. Black text is shadows on a bright surface. Asking someone too look at a light bulb to read you blog post that written on it seems too much. In a “dark” theme, the background is a restful black with the letters glowing clearly.

One draw back of a dark theme (I say this without bothering to do a google search about the topic) it that if there’s a lot of reflected light on the monitor it may be hard to read. I haven’t had the chance to test it myself.

Perhaps I’m lazily reaching for some sort of user interface justification for my own petty little visual preferences. After flipping through the available themes, I’ve settled on not changing anything. Too many bright screens. And the few other dark ones are either too dark or have some sort of other quibble like the content area being too narrow. Personally I’d link a nice fluid theme such as “Simpla” but with a black/dark grey scheme. Or a fluid version of “Chaotic Soul”.

There are other grumbles but I secretly I think I like the “Chaotic Soul”. And I really shouldn’t grumble. WordPress.com afterall IS a free service. If I really wanted to change things at a visual level I ought to pony up and pay for an upgrade so I can customise things.

The only reason I’m fretting over this is that I wrote a pretty long post. It seems by the stats that quite a few people went to read it (wonder if they read the whole thing ;). All of which made me wonder if the visual layout of the blog is actually readable. Or what I find to be a readable layout works for people trying to read my blog.

After writing the above: another  realisation. A change feels harder since I associate with the look of the blog with its identity. Dare I say “brand”. Which makes me not want to ask anyone who has managed to read this far down the post : how does the visual layout of this blog help or hinder in reading it?

And no I’m not plotting to go corporate and splatter the whole thing with ads 😉