Longer or shorter blogs?

For Project14s that only require one blog, I prefer just one blog, it is easier to find it all in one place, especially for later reference.

I prefer reading to watching one long video.  A large blog is fine as long as it is well structured and tells ‘the story’ in a logical, coherent way.  Often, it seems to me, that for lots of information breaking into smaller, logical blogs works best.  However, I wouldn’t sweat it too much: do what works for you in getting your info, results and enjoyment of the project over.  Do cross-link them episodes though!

What's easiest for you. You are doing all the hard work, so pick what works best for you.

Once you start thinking about what the readers would like best, you're dealing with a range of opinions that can't be matched.

My workflow is short post, written while I'm doing the project.

I try to write them so that I can use them as self-documentation. That way they are useful for at least 1 person .

A good question but I agree with Jan Cumps - whatever works best for you, making E14 enjoyable for you rather than a chore.

Both approaches have merits. When judging Project14 for example I have unintentionally missed some of the content contained in separate blogs. Sometimes a single long blog post can loose the reader due to complexity (I'm sure many of mine are like that) - but with application of the platform features (such as code formatting and gallery of photos) that can be mitigated to provide a detailed but easy to read blog. Like any document, a logical approach explaining purpose and concepts first before breaking down into detail always helps and adding the index feature also allows a reader to visualise the document structure before starting to read (or jump to the bit they are interested in).

Your last blog Drone Motor Thrust Tester was just the right balance of all the above points in my opinion

My preference is for multiple short blogs, but a longer one may be fine if well organised.

I really don't like long videos  -it's really hard to scan thought to find interesting content and the pace will always be too slow or too fast for half the audience.

2 or 3 minutes is the ideal length.

I don't post videos at all, just lots of pcitures and screen (usually scope) shots.

MK

michaelkellett  wrote:

 

...will always be too slow or too fast for half the audience.

 

That's the price of creating something. It does not matter what you do, you will create it in a way that's not liked by part of the audience.

Hi Milos,

I like it when a blog's context is fully understandable on its own, for example with a photo showing what it's about, or (say) a 2-sentence introduction, so that anyone who has not read the other blogs on the topic, can still understand what it's about. And titles with some explanation in them. Some things just feel natural to have in a single blog, others may be better split up, especially if a project is modular. Sometimes I've regretted combining too much content into a blog post, because then in future blog posts I might want to only refer to a specific part that would have been better written in a more general way applicable to more than the specific project I was working on at the time.

But having said that, if I'm in the flow, I'd rather just organize into a single post, and make use of the table of contents feature. I'm learning to make each section standalone for readers, sometimes I can do that easily, sometimes I cannot. Also as Rod and Michael say, pictures/screenshots make blogs a lot easier to follow : ) Recently I've tried to annotate images more often, mainly because I'm not good at bringing the thing of interest to attention through better photo composition. So annotating/arrows works around that!

Incidentally, the best feature I've found in years is 'grammarly', you can download a plugin for Chrome browser, and for free it performs a quite reasonable spell- and grammar-check : )

I just updated an old blog post with some new content, and while I was at it, fixed my typo's and grammar. It was quick because it automatically makes the right suggestions in real-time, I can just click-and-correct with the mouse, no need to type anything.

On the video point as Andrew and Michael mention, I also feel shorter is always better.

There's one youtube creator, he discussed a measurement using a particular instrument. It took him two hours (over two videos) to do that!

It was very over-the-top, the information could have been read in ten minutes.

I thought these features helped me understand Jan's post, even though PSoC is still new to me, I've not used it:

(a) Easy to follow the title, splitting the description using colon (:)

(b) Photo for context

(c) Framing some things as questions. I feel if you can ask a question in a simple to understand way then the chances are that you'll explain the answer in a simple to understand way too, which is important for complex or new tech where some explanations are too hard to follow.

I‘ve tried both breaking it up and making one long post and as others have said both can work.  Recently I have gone to one long post even on a project taking weeks and often I write as I go along either in Word or by saving drafts on Element14 and publish in one go.

I readily admit to incorporating  style elements from the blogs of others that I enjoy.  I think that has improved my writing.

I’ve made some longer videos up to 20 minutes but notice they don’t get watched, although I probably wouldn’t watch my videos either.  So I stick to short videos that have a specific purpose and frequently note in the text that they are short or even list the time.  However some people are genuinely interesting to watch so it just depends. I like Jan’s advice to do what pleases you.

Having just reread this post I think I need to get grammarly as Shabaz suggests.

As long as the information is presented in detail with a good description it does not matter.

Personally I an not a fan of video logs, just because of my ADD issues.

Doing several posts is fine as long as they are linked in where I can find them.

I do not like being sent off to Youtube sites or personal blog spaces.

DAB