Our analysis sheds light on a variety of heretofore neglected, user-experience related design challenges associated with blogs’ potential to become a mainstream medium for Internet users. Link >>

The Catalyst Group in New York City has posted the results of a rather sobering usability study on blogs, which can be downloaded here (.pdf).

Among other things, the study found that:

• No participant understood the mechanisms associated with RSS/subscribing to a blog – not even the minority familiar with the term “RSS.”
• Few participants even recognized that they were on an actual blog – and once they did, had a very different reaction to the information presented.
• A minority of participants understood how to navigate within the blog itself – with most being confused by areas for recent posts, categories, trackbacks and even the comments and archives functions.

For Boyink.com, I immediately took this study to heart, and made the following changes:

• Added a link to whatisrss.com under the links to my RSS feeds.
• Added a “How to Use Boyink.com” section with plenty of screenshots to my About Boyink.com page.
• Added more direct links to that content in the “About” blurb that appears at the top of the right column in many areas of the site.

Any other suggestions?