Practice Versus Preachings

Do As I Say…	Jakob Nielsen (www.useit.com) is known for his column, AlertBox, and for his book Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. The “short preview” of Designing Web Usability is “Relish simplicity, and focus on the user’s goals rather than glitzy design” (p. 5). How popular is Nielsen? In 1995, AlertBox had 50,000 page views; in 2001, the site predicts 10 million page views.I found it irresistible to evaluate Designing Web Usability, AlertBox and the www.useit.com Web site to see whether they comply with Nielsen’s advice and my own understanding of usability.
… Or As I Do?	I evaluate a Web site’s appearance, navigation, information architecture, and content. Appearance is the use of fonts, decoration, and design. Navigation and information architecture are related but different: If your Web site were a grocery store, information architecture would dictate that the refrigerated cases go at the edge of the store (for easier stocking) and candy in the checkout lanes (to encourage impulse buying); navigation would be the numbers over the aisles and the signs that state where to find bread or toilet paper. Content includes the text, charts, or photographs that convey meaning (note the delineation between images used to make things pretty versus to convey meaning).
Appearance	Nielsen uses few graphics on his site. This minimizes download time for people with poor bandwidth, a principle that his book and AlertBox discuss. In AlertBox, Nielsen writes that he is not a visual designer but manages the Web site himself. He chose not to pay for an artist, let alone the multidisciplinary team he recommends for large sites. Nielsen has a public relations contact at the bottom of his page, however. I’d like to know when a site becomes “large.” Is that determined by the number of pages, or the number of page views? Ten million page views in a year sounds large to me. I found no notation on his site regarding when this page (http://www.useit.com/about/nographics.html) was updated.In the upper left corner is a link back to the home page. Part of this link is red and the other is blue or purple (visited or not visited). Nielsen fails to explain why he’s taken a liberty with the “blue+underlined=hypertext” rule. Why not use initial capitals (www.UseIt.com), which would help colorblind people understand this concept too? This is a tiny issue, and yet the usage is self-indulgent. More on that later.
Navigation	Is it easy to find things on Nielsen’s Web site? Well, yes and no.It’s easy because he lists every article he’s written on a single page.It’s difficult because the list is arranged chronologically. I would find it most helpful if it were organized by topic: content development, Web site behavior, wireless technology, Web site reviews, e-commerce. Categorizing the content would help me find the information pertinent to my problems. (For example, providing data to WAP telephones is near the bottom of my priority list.)He does have the “breadcrumbs” at the top of the page that link to the higher level hierarchy. This concept works well for people who have used hierarchical filing systems, but I’d love to see someone who has little experience with Windows Explorer try to use it.
Information Architecture	useit.com is organized into the permanent content versus the News. When reading this page, the content appears to be only one or two clicks away. The best part is that it really is only one or two clicks away. For its purpose, the site is very well organized.
Content	AlertBox’s home page bills it as “Jakob’s biweekly column on Web usability.” The column in fact addresses usability of Web sites, intranets, mobile devices, traditional software, and consumer electronics and the trends in these various industries. There’s surprisingly little guidance on “how to build a good web site,” unless you look at the older content.“The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do,” said Thomas Jefferson. The man who wrote, “don’t require users to read long continuous blocks of text,” would do well to remember that advice (see Be Succinct!).Nielsen’s book Designing Web Usability is over 400 pages and reads like a thesis on usability, despite his description of it as one of “two relatively slim volumes” (p. 5). I use the index to find specific answers when I need them, and the table of contents to review the content. Given the objectives stated in his preface, I think Nielsen would be disappointed to learn that I repeatedly tried and failed to read the entire book.
Findings	Nielsen’s book is a difficult entry into the world of Web site usability because of its detailed, thoroughly defended information.AlertBox has the advantages of being free, comparatively short, searchable, and up-to-date. The disadvantage is that the user must print these columns (wasteful) or read them online (annoying since they are mostly narrative and not chunked for that purpose). While early AlertBoxes address principles of Web design, the past two years of columns focus on changes in the technology.Designing Web Usability is on my bookshelf and AlertBox is in my bookmarks. The book that never makes it back onto the bookshelf and that I recommend to people is Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think,which is under 200 pages, half the length of Nielsen’s book. This book even explains, in 34 pages with illustrations, how to do usability testing to see what does and doesn’t work. Nielsen does not describe how to do this in his book or on his Web site. Krug’s book is even $10 cheaper.I’m grateful we have Nielsen — he has supported Web usability for years and built this into a significant source of income for many people, including me. It’s time though, that Nielsen hired an editor to “kill his darlings,” as John Gardner said, and make his thoughts clearer for us to understand.