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A fascinating discussion, if only because it shows the completely opposite perspectives people have on things. I can't stop myself from playing devil's advocate (hmm, not very flattering to Dr. Nielsen, sorry), or maybe user advocate, or just plain me-advocate (maybe that's all that's left). These comments by our distinguished members left me completely mystified:
Useit.com is one of the most frustrating sites I have ever used. Lists upon lists of links and no common navigation anywhere. It is so easy to get lost on that site it drives me crazy.
My experience is exactly the opposite. Are we talking about the same site? It's one site that I never get lost in, because it's got a simple and clean navigation bar on the top of every page. When it jumps to the sister site of his NN Group, there's a clear link in the same place back to useit. The pages are heavily interlinked so I can always follow interesting threads and not get lost.
The Nielson site presented me with a pile of text links of more or less equal weight. It wasn't clear where they wanted me to go.
Where they wanted you to go? Isn't the idea of the web that the user selects where to go? It is true that if you want the tunnel effect of being forced down into a hole, Nielsen's site won't satisfy you. You are right it is a pile of text links, because the site is a collection of text pages full of information; isn't this complaint like saying, "The front page of the New York Times is just a bunch of text and it never tells me where I should go; that's so annoying." Like a newspaper, Nielsen's text links are very well organized, basically into two columns, and at the bottom of each there is a link to the whole chronological collection. Perfect. And are they of equal weight? No, they're just the opposite: look at the full list of Alertbox columns and you will see that Nielsen specifically emphasizes popular and important columns (and even wrote a column recommending that very practice). Again, it's hard to believe that I'm looking at the same site as other people.
And useit.com is still one of the "butt ugliest!" sites I have ever seen! Useable? Only if eye-strain is the least of your worries!
I don't know. Is the front page of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal "butt ugly"?
Neilson is completely over-rated, I dont agree with a lot of what he says. I've seen and read much better usability books than his.
I don't have Nielsen's book or any others on usablity, but I'd be glad to know what titles you recommend as much better than his. I do remember a review by Philip Greenspun that said the book was good and sometimes even funny, or, as Greenspun said, "at least as funny as you could hope for from a Danish guy with a Ph.D. in computer science."
Everytime I go to useit.com, the first thing I cringe over is having to click "Search" and going to a new page to use the search.
Everytime I go I am gratified to know there is one search link in the same place on every page. (Just like WebmasterWorld.) The only thing I could see that would possibly be better is an active search box in that place. If that what you are suggesting, I agree that would be somewhat better. But it would also take up distracting screen space, and in comparison to 99% of sites on the web that have no search, or search buttons in five different places, I'd say it's pretty clear and helpful.
I agree that useit.com, and the corporate site for The Nielsen-Norman Group as well, are both pretty rough on the eye.
They are easy on my eye. Can you say specifically what you would do to make them better? A seasonal graphic like Google - is that all it would take? (Sure, I agree that would be nice.)
If I were a potential client and I visited Nielson's nightmare site, I would look elsewhere for a consultant.
I'm not in the business side of this business, so I'm the last person to know anything about money, ROI (I think I know what that means), conversion (I think I know what that means also, but it's kind of sketchy), or anything else like that, but... if you're in this kind of work to make money, it seems to me that Nielsen sells books, gets consulting commissions, gets paid to speak, etc., etc.; i.e., he's making lots of money. If you're running a web business of any kind, isn't that the point?
(And as a humorous usability note, the messages in this thread show that lots of people don't spell his name right. He knows that very well, and if you look at the <meta> tags on his page you'll see that he's put several versions of his name in there. I don't know if Google picks them up in that location, but it's the right thing to do in general.)
Puzzled,
RJO
(edited by: rjohara at 6:53 pm (utc) on Feb. 23, 2002)
Yes - emphatically fair, and rightly so!
The business side of the web is no place for creativity of that sort.
How many businesses send out their quotations and business communications as beautiful prose or poetry?
Creativity is OK, but not the arty-farty-see-how-unusual-we-can-be type.
It has a place on the web, but not on business sites - particularly B2B, (OK, there may be a few exceptions)
I was a Purchasing Manager at a Multinational Electronics firm - if one of my prospective suppliers had a web site that fell into that category I would ask serious questions about their business acumen (not to mention plain common sense).
As a prospective customer I expect the web site to give me a clearly marked route to the product information and the checkout. If it isn't there, neither am I!
Still, I would actively encourage all my competitors to have artistic sites. They can have all the customers who like the mystery-meat navigation, and I will have the remaining 99.9% :)
4eyes I agree usability and a focus on the objective of the site in the way you have explained and on the functional expectations of the target user it is vital for B2B but that does not have to mean "boring".
A serious site I liked a lot was radiospares france because despite being a serious business it always had one amusing image e.g. a quizzical frenchman with funny glasses, on the front page leading to perhaps a useful guide to this or that ..
.. that ability to make a visitor smile enhances the user experience.
In face to face communications body language (a smile) is often an essential ingredient of positive communication ... we are not machines after all.
(Note to self: Remember to always check "title" attributes when stealing someone else's HTML.)
but that does not have to mean "boring".
Of course. I think you may have misunderstood my point.
I refered explicitly to 'that type of ceativity"
'functional' does not equate to 'boring'
Even the most functional site can be interesting and stimulating. It is 'content' which makes it interesting.
Mystery meat navigation systems and smarty-pants artistic effects usually server to make the content more difficult to access.
Again, there are sites where this might be appropriate, but very few in B2B.
A site can be artistic and creative without losing functionality, but from what I have seen these are few and far between.
I was in downtown San Francisico two weeks ago and visited the relatively new Sony store that makes some efforts in this direction. The layout and lighting made a very powerful first impression. However, I got very lost trying to find my way around. The interface that the store provided was beautiful and hi-tech, but missing many of the normal visual cues.
Is this a Customer Service desk? Is this a Checkout counter or merely an Information desk? How are the departments classified? Are PDA's with other "small" things, like mini-disks, or are they with other computers, no matter what size? The sign says "Playstation" -- does that mean I should look elsewhere for an AC adapter for my notebook?
I've been noticing more and more how the Physical World Interface could also stand a Usability tuneup as well as an Aesthetic makeover. Like difficult to read fonts on road signs, or more obvious clues to "Where is the restroom?" and "What train did I just get on?"
Maybe I've been spending too much time creating on-line environments and I've just lost it, and now I'm looking for search engines inside my novels! But I really don't think so -- I think all our environments need more Joshua and more Jakob.
About a year ago, I thought that EMC had a really great website. They had used Flash elements with great taste and restraint, adding some nice aesthetic flair without overwhelming me. I also found the information I wanted very easily, and so on. I revisted recently and they had redesigned to corporate vanilla.
Art (like beauty) is in the eye of the beholder. The 'art' of psychology itself has spawned many discussions. But not related to it's pertanence, just to the interpretation of it's effects. Nielson seems to have an intelligent way of understanding and controlling unwanted influences in his studying environment.
Phew, we seem to be duscussing the 'human experience' here, and each individual's view of reality. Einstein once said, "Reality is just an illusion, albeit a rather persistant one".
Hmm, perhaps I should go back to bed now...
It's because he literally wrote the book on Usability Engineering [amazon.co.uk].
Nielsen founded, proved and championed the discount (i.e. quick and cheap) school of usability engineering, invented several standard HCI techniques including Heuristic Evaluation, and was writing about hypertext and hypermedia before the web was invented.
He's made a big contribution to the HCI field and his work has had a big impact on the software industry as a whole - not just the web.
I don't agree with him 100%, but then again I can't think of anyone in the whole world (guru or not) that I agree with 100%... :)
