Hall of Fame
Nielsen (1957 - )
Jakob Nielsen has long campaigned for better usability
on the internet. Using real usability trials he was, and is, a ferocious
critic of excessive and self-absorbed web design. He is highly critical
of designers who see the medium as a mere form of expression, rather
than performing real acts of communication, and has continually
given advice on best practice, based on actual user responses. His
book, ‘Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity’
is the best-selling book ever about user interfaces.
Consistency
A key concept for Nielsen is consistency. Users, he
claims, crave for consistency. They expect to learn how to use a
website or piece of e-learning, but don’t expect to worry
about the rules changing. The unexpected breaks the user’s
confidence in the system making them feel insecure.
Writing for online
As readers scan screen text far more than they scan
written text, Nielsen advises these counteractive techniques:
- subheads
- bulleted lists
- highlighted keywords
- short paragraphs
- the inverted pyramid
- a simple writing style
- de-fluffed language devoid of marketese
Abuse of Flash animation
In his famous ‘Flash: 99% Bad’ article, he characterises
the presence of Flash as a usability disease. He does not criticise
the tool itself, only its tendency to work against usability. Flash
makes things unusable for thee main reasons.
First it encourages design abuse through gratuitous animation.
Since we can make things move, why not make things move? It’s
not that animation has no role to play, only that, on the whole,
it’s a distraction. Interestingly, this was backed up in detailed
research by Mayer.
Second it reduces the granularity of user control, reverting to
presentation type sequences. Flash sequences at the start of websites
have become the most indulgent and annoying feature of the web.
Third, non-standard interfaces are introduced and not easy to use
by users who are used to more common conventions.
These usability problems are not inherent in Flash and use of this
tool has improved over the last few years. However, much Flash design
continues to encourage these types of abuse.
Accessibility
Nielsen’s study on Disabled Accessibility: The Pragmatic
Approach, showed that accessibility problems should come as no surprise.
‘After all, countless usability studies of websites and intranets
have documented severe usability problems, low success rates, and
sub-optimal user performance, even when testing users with no disabilities.’
In general, improving accessibility improves usability, which in
turn improves performance, leading to cost benefits and savings.
The value of Jakob Nielsen’s prioritised approach is that
he has undertaken real accessibility trials of websites with users
with several different types of disabilities on a range of assistive
technologies, including a control group. His conclusions could be
said to run against the grain, in that he recommends a pragmatic,
gradual approach to making existing websites accessible. His advice
is to get your top priorities fixed first through a set of prioritised
design rules. His argument is that pushing for too much too soon,
will create overload and in reality, if the choice is between 100%
compliance and nothing, many will do nothing. This makes a great
deal of sense. On the other hand, if legislation exists then being
a pragmatist is no justification for breaking the law.
Conclusion
Nielsen is not afraid to challenge those who see the internet as
a medium for designers as opposed to users. His user-centred research
confirms, time and time again, that real people want simpler, more
consistent and less elaborate models and content. His advice, informed
as it is by research, is invaluable for e-learning and web designers
alike. However, his web site is hopeless!
Bibliography
Nielsen J. (2001) Homepage Usability: 50 Websites deconstructed
Nielsen J. (2000) Designing Web Usablity: The Practice of Simplicity
Nielsen J. (2006) International User Interfaces
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Nielsen
Encyclopedia article
http://www.useit.com/
Jacob’s home page
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