People Just Don't Understand...

... this whole blog thing according to a BW usability study:

• 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.

Download the study if you'd like more. Their conclusion is:

broad comprehension is fairly far away – and better design and terminology are essential.  All those tested were optimistic about blogs following the test, with many expressing interest or enthusiasm for what had been a new experience.  However, few felt that the presentation of functionality and navigation was intuitive, and many wondered why more effort had not been put into education.

Oh what to do...