Why blogs use {add to *|d*gg this!} buttons

(tags blog, del.icio.us, design, user interface)

Those "add to whatever" or "d*gg this!" buttons on most blogs are really annoying me. Call me a curmudgeon, but I don't like it. In particular, Coding Horror's Jeff Atwood shares this viewpoint in his "Excess Blog Flair". The connection of blog "flair" with stickers on a NASCAR car alone is entertaining in itself.

It didn't really dawn on me until I made the mental connection with another interesting Coding Horror article, "Office 2007 -- not so WIMPy". In it, he cites Jensen Harris's "An Office User Interface Blog: No Distaste for Paste (Why the UI, Part 7 [of 8])". According to the latter, the top 5 most-used commands in Microsoft Word 2003, based on opt-in statistics, are:

1. Paste
2. Save
3. Copy
4. Undo
5. Bold

I am a keyboard junkie, and I know the keyboard shortcuts for these in a myriad of programs, even ones that don't follow the Windows shortcut key guidelines, for example, cmd.exe, Emacs, Teraterm, etc, and other OSs. I don't need no stinkin' buttons. Then again, I'm not everybody. The blog above explains that the Office 2007 needs to keep these often used commands in the new UI "ribbon".

If I had to guess, for browsers, it would be:

1. Back
2. Reload
3. Home
4. Stop
5. Bookmark
6. Forward
7. Find

In the course of writing this post, I had to revise my list multiple times, just to be sure my preconceptions were properly accounted for. I use a multiple-tab GUI, most people use single windows. I don't ever navigate to a "home", most people probably want to start from a single page or don't even change the default.

The motivation seems clear enough. Flairful blogs are shooting for the hits and advertising revenue and what better way to do that than hook up with a bookmark or blog aggregator service. Make it really easy, easier than even a toolbar button, for people to bookmark or blog (hence the flair) and they will come.

I just see noise, though. No, the "this is a commercial site looking for hits" switch in my mind turns on. I'm considering adding Privoxy block rules for these things now.

That's why my blog will forever look like Web 1.5. No ads, no button flair.

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