405 Web Design Blogs You Should NOT Read (and 14 you should)
Sure, reading blogs is necessary for inspiration and to improve your web design skills. But have you ever noticed how time-consuming it is? Fortunately, I have a solution!
Don’t read your RSS feeds
RSS feeds are not a panacea: 3 difficulties
Over the year, I read many blogs, some good, some bad, a few only really worth my time. In the end, I subscribed to more than 400 RSS feeds.
Quickly, I have been overwhelmed by the number of new unread articles. This lead to 3 bad situations:
- first, I started to lose more time reading my feeds than actually browsing my few favorite websites
- second, I missed many good articles as they were hidden and difficult to find
- third, I didn’t learn anything new because I could not focus enough one one aspect of the web design
But with a little work, it can be great: 3 solutions
In order to face these 3 problems, here are 3 quick solutions:
- select 10 to 20 awesome RSS feeds that you want to read daily and solely follow these ones.
- classify all your other feeds by categories and read them only when you have extra free time
- in order to learn something new, use the search feature of your feed reader and focus on one precise subject (eg. how to debug IE6, or how to design search boxes)
The only problem remaining is that it takes time to find good blogs, and even more time to classify them properly. Well, that’s where I come and lend you a hand :)
My 419 classified RSS feeds
Here are my 419 classified RSS feeds. They come with a 3-level organization:
- 14 awesome feeds you should follow daily (such as Smashing Magazine, Six Revisions, etc.)
- 12 more than you can read on week ends
- 395 feeds than you should not read but only browse sometimes, classified in the following categories:
- Best of Web Design
- Blogging
- Business
- Daily readings
- Design
- Inspiration
- Other
- Podcast
- Programming
- Resources
- SEO – Marketing
- Tech Blogs
- Tutorials
- Typography
- Usability
- Web Design
- Wordpress
Simply download my OPML file and import it in Google Reader. Then, enjoy more free time, classified feeds and more productive reading habits!
What now?
That was a short post, but I’m sure that it’ll be useful to many of you. Am I missing something? What are the best RSS feeds you follow? Please share and let’s make the best classified RSS feed list possible!!!
Thank you.
Related Posts
You may want to check out the following related posts:
Rahul Jadhav
November 19th
thats awesome!!!!! thanks a lot for sharing the list
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Oli Gardner
November 19th
I’m going through the same process right now but on Twitter, luckily the new list feature has simplified things and I’m doing something really similar – with a top list that I check every day and a couple of other lists that I like to have as a backup.
Thanks for packaging up your resources, whenever I feel the need to “get informed” I start trawling for great sites to add to my RSS reader – but simply copying someone who’s been through the pain of that is much simpler.
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Dainis Graveris
November 19th
Great article – very simple and short, but so true! I am using that way of thinking already, but really I should separate everything in appropriate sections as well! Thanks a lot!
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wparena
November 19th
Good tips to save time..thank you to help me focus on useful blogs
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Kevin
November 19th
“For people who want to build better websites”
Usability Fail #1: Making a list consisting of 419 items
Usability Fail #2: Admitting that only 14 are any good, and another 12 are semi-worth it
Usability Fail #3: Requiring the user to download a separate file and view in another application to see what the list is.
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Tsedaka
November 20th
@Kevin
“Usability Fail #1: Making a list consisting of 419 items”
When you need to search for information in your feed reader, the more you have, the better.
“Usability Fail #2: Admitting that only 14 are any good”
I never said that! I said you should choose 10 to 20 feeds, out of all the awesome blogs you follow.
“Usability Fail #3:equiring the user to download a separate file and view in another application to see what the list is. ”
Well, maybe I should have written a few blogs directly inside the post. But the main point was to share my OPML file + tips on how to organize your feed reading habits.
I hope you enjoy next article more :)
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LaDonna
November 20th
Very good article.
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Xtence
November 23rd
Thanks for sharing the list, that’s awesome !
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Phil
November 23rd
Some good advice. I use the Mac’s Mail RSS reader which simplifies posts. Less is more. I’s say your top 14 dailies is more or less spot on – some more graphics sites on mine. I’d probably add Woork, Queness, Mac App Deals to my daily dose.
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