Ask Dave Taylor: Tech and Business

Tuesday

Jakob Nielson nags yet again about Web usability

Maybe I'm tilting at windmills with this particular discussion, but when usability guru Jakob Nielsen comes out with his list of Eight Problems That Remain, an excerpt of his newly published book Prioritizing Web Usability I can't help but yawn and marvel at how he's so out of touch with the reality of the modern Web and blogosphere.

For example, he believes that sites that don't have visited links a different color to unvisited links are committing a critical, three skull-and-crossbone error, yet I can't think of a site I visit with any frequency that doesn't violate this "guideline".

I admit, some of what he highlights remains a genuine problem with Web usability, but so much of his criticism seems to be from a place of some antiquity and I have to wonder what sites he visits on a daily basis, actually.

Please read my much longer commentary on the piece: Jakob Nielsen on Web Usability