The Ethel Experience is all about–what else?–its author, Ethel. It’s a blog about her personal life, her work (sometimes), and her love life with her boyfriend whom she met over teh intarweb (that’s “the Internet” to the rest of us). There’s a bit of humor, a dash of musings on personal life, and a lot of ranting.
Visual Aesthetics – 8
We give The Ethel Experience high marks for visual aesthetics because the author uses different themes on different occasions. For instance, the default theme these days is the XMas Ethel, which is Christmassy. But the blog also has a theme switcher so you can select among the previously-used themes, such as Ethel Unleaded!, Floral Ethel, and Oktoberfest Ethel, each using the same blog layout but with different header images, color schemes and backgrounds. Our only gripe is that the switcher requires the blog to reload, which is something I don’t think should happen because you really only have to switch the blog’s stylesheet–perhaps something’s wrong with the way Ethel coded the switcher.
User Friendliness – 8
The Ethel Experience uses WordPress, and inherits most of the usability and user friendliness that a default WordPress installation has, including permalinks on the blog titles, and clearly-labelled links to archives on the sidebar. On the readability aspect, the blog has high contrast and uses fonts that are big enough for comfort.
Reading Enjoyment – 7
The Ethel Experience is a peek into its author’s life. A personal blog is hard to keep interesting, especially if you expect most of your readers to be strangers. I was really amused with some of Ethel‘s posts, though, particularly with how she tells stories about her every day life at work, at the gym, and elsewhere.
Useful Info – 5
Being a personal blog, the purpose of The Ethel Experience isn’t exactly to publish useful information. But it’s not lacking in interesting material, either, so we give it an average rating.
Overall Experience – 7
The Ethel Experience is a good personal blog. Its designed well enough to be easily readable and user-friendly. Reading enjoyment goes as far as your interest in the author’s life goes. You’ll stumble upon some interesting stuff along the way (like how muscle is “more dense” than fat, and not “heavier”). However, unless you know Ethel personally or want to, this blog is best visited once in a while. Still, it’s a good read!
[tags]work, life, personal, female, rantings[/tags]
