tedster - 6:51 am on Dec 30, 2003 (gmt 0)

I agree that Nielsen's opinion is worth taking into account. After all, it's not just an opinion -- his company does significant amounts of user tresting and they get paid very well for it because they get results for their very top shelf clients. He's not just some hoser with an "opinion", he's got decases of experience in user interface design.

About having no self-linking pages, it's not all that hard to have the same text in the same menu position, but no active link. Instead, just have some change in display -- a different color, all caps, something to show that inh this case it is NOT a link.

By doing that you create a location cue. Having a number of location cues on a page may seem redundant but I've seen many times that it generates a stickier website because visitors feel more comfortable.

In fact, one of my design pet peeves falls right in this area - when you click on a link that says "wordA wordB', you should arrive at a page that clearly says "wordA wordB" somewhere near the top and very obvious - a heading tag is often best. If the top of the page says "Section 2 - wordX" then even if those words are synonyms for the link text, my first reaction is "Maybe I didn't click on the link I intended to."

It's widespread and it's a usability error. Similarly, it's helpful if the first word or two in the window title tag mirrors the same language. Then when you have several tabs or windows open, you can easily pick out the page you want.

It makes maintenance a breeze

I sure do sympathize, grandpa, but I also think that some of the most atrocious usability gets generated by designers thinking about themselves first and their users second. If your attitude is really service, then you care more about site usability being a breeze than about making site maintenance a breeze.