JeffCroft.com: Jakob’s Ten Mistakes: Responses from a real live web designer

Comments

001 // Brian Ford // 10.03.2005 // 7:01 PM

I think that what it boils down to is that any experience should be a pleasant balance of aesthetics and usability.

Flash bad? Yeah, if it’s used too much. If I get bored waiting for your portfolio to load, chances are I’m never going to see it. Flash -isn’t- bad if it’s a nice addition to an impressive site. (Leave the load times for Hollywood.

It seems like a lot of his rules would have us all visiting extremely bland text-based sites with no aesthetic value. While this would leave the quality content, I’m not so sure I’d stick around to read it. It’s the job of the designer to make sure that all of the bells and whistles and design tricks enhance a site instead of hindering it’s usability. I think there are a ton of examples of people who manage this just fine, while breaking most of the rules on his list.
002 // Brian Ford // 10.03.2005 // 7:01 PM

I think that what it boils down to is that any experience should be a pleasant balance of aesthetics and usability.

Flash bad? Yeah, if it’s used too much. If I get bored waiting for your portfolio to load, chances are I’m never going to see it. Flash -isn’t- bad if it’s a nice addition to an impressive site. (Leave the load times for Hollywood.

It seems like a lot of his rules would have us all visiting extremely bland text-based sites with no aesthetic value. While this would leave the quality content, I’m not so sure I’d stick around to read it. It’s the job of the designer to make sure that all of the bells and whistles and design tricks enhance a site instead of hindering it’s usability. I think there are a ton of examples of people who manage this just fine, while breaking most of the rules on his list.
003 // Jeff Croft // 10.03.2005 // 7:05 PM

Exactly, Brian. And that’s what’s always bugged me about Jakob Nielsen. He presents all of his ideas as steadfast “rules” which must not be broken — which, as I’ve said, it totally impractical in the real world.

An example: he used to say (it seems he’s shied away from it slightly) that ALL links MUST ALWAYS be blue and underlined. And what’s more, the SHADE of blue shall ALWAYS be the browser default shade.

Seriously.
004 // Zach Inglis // 10.03.2005 // 7:39 PM

What a way to take the fun out the web.

I believe that the web should have semantic code and whatnot. But telling people how they should write. Thats a bit over the top.
005 // Tony Summerville // 10.03.2005 // 9:58 PM

But users don’t care about technology and don’t especially want new features. That about sums up Mr. Nielson’s so-called knowledge of the web in my opinion. They may not care about how it works, but I believe users do care about technology that makes the web easier to use.
006 // Jared // 10.03.2005 // 10:24 PM

I feel like the point Jakob is trying to make in Item #10, in his own fuddy-duddy way, is that technology should be transparent. However, he seems to be of the opinion that “fancy Web 2.0” features must be gratuitous add-ons by troublesome code-strokers. Ah, Jakob… if only you applied yourself a bit more, you might understand technology before you publicly lambast it.
007 // Dustin Diaz // 10.04.2005 // 12:26 AM

The way I take Jakob’s tips every year is looking at them from a very dumb person’s perspective. Yes, there are dumb people out there and his tips often scare the developer from doing anything remotely creative.

On the same token like you said Jeff, he is not, in-fact, a designer. He doesn’t care much for standards, but that’s nothing new. His heart and passion is for usability and getting the user the information they came for.

The tip about “Click Here” as link text cracks me up. I’m a big one on that well… one could have found it on the w3.org tips section.

The deal with “frozen layouts - fixed widths” (I never heard of “frozen layouts” - but I know what fixed widths are) he’s really taken away power from the designer…again, he’s not a designer. Sure, designs flex, some don’t… get over it.

In the end, I think the only thing you can do is take in what he says and decide for yourself what’s acceptable for “Your” users.
008 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 12:46 AM

Most of Jakob’s stuff would sit just fine with me if it were presented more as “here’s what I’d do if I were a web designer,” or “here’s the way I like pages to be when I’m using the web.” But instead, it’s got so much of a “I’m the expert, and this is the way it shall be done under all circumstances or else it’s piss-poor” tone about it that it really turns me off.
009 // divya // 10.04.2005 // 3:37 AM

Jeff: He is only talking about javascript with reference to linking - which is spot on coz there are oh-zillion-times I middle click those blasted javascript links giving me nothing but a blank page.

His statement on flash does not contradict the statement on users dont care about technology. It is the inconvenience that flash offers when used for splash screens or trying to do tabbed navigation, etc. Not that flash is bad as such but needs to be used effectively.

Also, you will be shocked to know the number of people who dont click links that are of different color and not underlined. I had such an experience and from then on started using the nielsen’s underlines for links. Again it depends on your target audience. If your audience is not an internet yuppie then you better take that into consideration.

It seems to me that you are being sensationalist here by giving undue importance to Jakob Nielsen’s “Gospels”.:) I take them as advice from someone who has done enough user testing to know a thing or two about users. Agreed he doesnt quite know how to explain fixed and fluid layouts but in anycase, a practical read nonetheless.
010 // Kev // 10.04.2005 // 3:53 AM

Divya said: I take them as advice from someone who has done enough user testing to know a thing or two about users.

Possibly so, but ‘users’ are not one big generalised group. Knowing about how to conduct user testing does not equate to knowing a user group inside out.

I agree with jeff in comment 8 above. Its not so much what he says (I too am totally bored of hearing about ‘web 2.0’) but the way he says it. He’s got a bad attitude. Unfortunately that seems to be the case for a lot of self-appointed gurus. Joe Clarke for example has some potentially very interesting things to say but his attitude is so poor I simply can’t listen to him.
011 // Nick Rigby // 10.04.2005 // 4:47 AM

I think you are missing the point in some cases. Jakob Nielson is not a web designer, as you point out. He’s a usability expert, he studies users interaction with web sites. He spends lots of time doing this. To suggest that he can’t define what the solutions are, because he isn’t a designer or developer, is absolutely crazy. I work with a usability expert - she is not a designer either. Secondly, I think you have misinterpreted the guidelines for links. He does not state that links must be the standard browser colour. He states that a standard link should be underlined and colored to make obvious what is clickable. A standard link, is a standard link within the page i.e. not part of a navigation menu. Jakob states this: There are two main cases in which you can safely eliminate underlines: navigation menus and other lists of links. I’m not sure that a well-used pop-up exists. In exceptional circumstances there may be the need. But as a general recommendation, which this is, the user should control when a new window is opened. Just my two cents.
012 // Shawn // 10.04.2005 // 7:20 AM

When Jacob is talking about “big monitors” - I’ll guess he is referring to large screen resolutions where some fixed width sites do look pretty shabby. Mostly the ones locked into 720ish pixel width on a 1600 x 1200 or larger resolution. If the design had at least used ems for positional widths it could be resized for larger monitors gracefully. Otherwise, yeah the problem with Jacob is his toxic “do this now” writing style. Yuck.
013 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 9:05 AM

When Jacob is talking about ‘big monitors’ - I’ll guess he is referring to large screen resolutions where some fixed width sites do look pretty shabby

Look shabby? Maybe. But that’s not what he says. He says they are more difficult to use, which is just absurd.
014 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 9:08 AM

Nick:

Jakob states this:

“There are two main cases in which you can safely eliminate underlines: navigation menus and other lists of links.”

If Jakob states that, it’s most certainly not in his Top Ten Mistakes column.
015 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 9:10 AM

But as a general recommendation, which this is, the user should control when a new window is opened.

Which is exactly why I said I agree with Jakob on this one.
016 // CC // 10.04.2005 // 9:36 AM

The only thing I can think of with respect to fixed-width content being more difficult to use on a large monitor is that it requires more scrolling up and down than it might otherwise need if it were a liquid layout. So it technically IS more difficult to use, but only incrementally so.

And, I suppose, for people who have a large monitor and bump up the font size because they have poor eyesight, fixed-width formatting could make life more difficult because it squishes the content together inside the fixed width rather than breathing out to the window extents. (In other words, if that left hand navigation bar is fixed to 150px as opposed to 20% of the window width, and you bump up the font size five times, you’re going to get a mess of text over there that proportional sizing might not suffer from on a large monitor.) But again, this is only an incremental difference to usability which may be greatly offset by the aesthetics of the visual design that required fixed-width in the first place.
017 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 9:52 AM

The only thing I can think of with respect to fixed-width content being more difficult to use on a large monitor is that it requires more scrolling up and down than it might otherwise need if it were a liquid layout

True, but it doesn’t require any more scrolling than the same site on a small monitor — in fact, it probably requires less since the height of the screen (pixel-wise) is probably bigger, as well. Good point, though.

I’ll reiterate: I do like, and sometimes even prefer, fluid layouts. I just don’t think the fact that fluid layouts are slightly more usable means that fixed-width layouts are unusable.

So again, it bios down more to how Jakob says something, then what he really says. He seems to enjoys absolutes. Observe:

Problem: users don’t like animation. Solution? Don’t use Flash.

But isn’t that a bit extreme? I use Flash on every single page of this website, and yet there isn’t one iota of animation.

Problem: users can’t always locate links. Solution? Make them colored and underlined.

Again, is this the only solution to the problem? What if I give them a different background color? What if I make them colored but not underlined? Aren’t these solutions also going to aid users in finding links?

Problem: users think fonts are too small. Solution? allow users to resize text.

Why can’t I just make my fonts bigger? Sure, it’s not as ideal as letting users resize the text, but it does solve the problem, doesn’t it?

I guess what I’m getting at is that not every problem, or every finding in a usability study, has one absolute solution. But, that’s the way Jakob tends to present it.

To suggest that he can’t define what the solutions are, because he isn’t a designer or developer, is absolutely crazy. I work with a usability expert - she is not a designer either.

To this point: I’m sure that there are plenty of usability experts who also have the web design knowledge to offer solutions to the problems they find in usability testing. However, the definition of design is “solving problems.” That’s what designers do This is our core area of expertise. Jakob displays a lack of technical knowledge to adequately offer solutions. He also seems to believe that every problems has a one-to-one ratio with solutions, which is just not true. Again, I’ll suggest that usability experts would be more helpful to web designers if they’d primarily stick to telling us what the problems are and let designers — problem solvers by trade — solve them.

Sure, make a suggestions once in a while. But don’t make it in such an absolute way as Jakob does, or you’ll just end up sounding like a know-it-all who doesn’t.
018 // Elliot Swan // 10.04.2005 // 10:26 AM

Apple’s tabs aren’t colored or underlined. Can you tell they’re clickable? Me too.

Though, that’s not a “text link,” which is what Jakob’s talking about.

There’s much talk about new fancy ‘Web 2.0’ features on the Internet industry’s mailing lists and websites, as well as at conferences. But users don’t care about technology and don’t especially want new features.

Then what I’m wondering is, why are Amazon and Flickr so popular?
019 // Jared Christensen // 10.04.2005 // 12:46 PM

Then what I’m wondering is, why are Amazon and Flickr so popular?

Because the technology driving them is transparent. Most people don’t care about how their city’s traffic grid operates, as long as it works correctly. I think Jakob is referring to useless “it’s there because it’s possible” features. No one cares if technology allows an animation of a dancing chicken to be projected from traffic lights. It’s simply unnecessary. Likewise, I think some people are going way overboard with some emerging technologies, like AJAX.
020 // Emil Virkki // 10.04.2005 // 1:47 PM

It is especially important for color-blind users to underline links because otherwise they might not see the difference between the link and the surrounding text.
021 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 2:05 PM

Emil-

Will a color blind users see the difference if I make my links bigger than other text? Bolder? Use a different background color? What about if I use a background image on each link to highlight it? Color blind users would see all of these.

Making links obvious is important. There are a million ways to make them obvious besides underlining, and that’s my point. Again, Jakob problem (users can’t always find links) is spot-on, but his solution (underline them) is only one of many possible answers.
022 // Jim // 10.04.2005 // 4:57 PM

To be honest, I think you are seeing disagreement where there is none.

To start with, what is a ‘standard link?’ Does this mean blue and underlined? On today’s web, I don’t think the ‘standard link’ is very well-defined. ‘Make obvious what’s clickable.’ Here’s a typical example of Jakob’s concept being spot-on, but his solution being unpractical. Of course, things that are clickable should be apparently so. However, are colored, underlined links the only way to achieve this differentiation?

No, and he didn’t say that it was. It’s your job as a designer to decide what is obviously clickable.

When he’s talking about “standard” links, he obviously means links that operate normally - i.e. that don’t break when you middle-click to open in a new tab, that are obviously recognisable as links, that can be pasted into an email, and so on.

He then goes on to describe ways in which people make their links non-standard. You seem to be reading that backwards - seeing the examples and assuming that by standard he means that there’s only one way to do links. It’s the other way around.

Most certainly not. Apple’s tabs aren’t colored or underlined. Can you tell they’re clickable? Me too.

Then they are not contravening his guidelines, and constitute a “standard link” in his opinion. Where’s the problem?

However, ‘avoid Javascript and other fancy techniques’ just goes to show how little he really knows about these techniques. There are plenty of ways to use Javascript without hindering typical interaction.

He didn’t say to avoid Javascript. He said to avoid Javascript when it breaks standard interaction techniques. Again, you’re reading things into his words that aren’t there. He didn’t say that Javascript intrinsically breaks standard interaction techniques, so you are arguing against a straw-man.

‘On big monitors, websites are difficult to use if they don’t resize with the window.’ What? How?

Big monitor != big viewport. In my experience, people with big monitors are far less likely to surf with a maximised browser window.

I was already a bit disappointed with your methodology, Jakob. It was bad enough letting your readers further your agenda, but now you are just going to take over and do it yourself?

There’s only so many times you can say the same thing about pop-ups without boring people. Given the choice between copy & pasting from a previous article and writing something new, I don’t blame him at all for writing something new.

If users don’t care about technology, why are you telling us not to use Javascript and Flash?

Nonsense. He’s saying no such thing. He’s saying don’t break standard interaction techniques. He’s saying don’t animate stuff unnecessarily. Javascript and Flash are only mentioned because those are the techniques people usually use to do that kind of thing.

He makes many valid points, but it’s unlikely they’re anything you haven’t heard before.

And yet you criticise him for writing something new instead of rehashing anti popup arguments.

There’s plenty of room for disagreement with Nielsen, but this hatchet-job just makes you look like you either have terrible reading comprehension or you have a grudge against him. By all means disagree, but why waste your time attacking straw men?
023 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 5:38 PM

No, and he didn’t say that it was.

Actually, that’s precisley what he said. His exact words: “use colored, underlined text (and don’t underline non-link text).” Seems pretty non-ambigious to me.

Then they are not contravening his guidelines, and constitute a ‘standard link’ in his opinion. Where’s the problem?

The probably is that I clearly didn’t understand what he meant by “standard link,” and you think it’s “obvious.” If Apple’s tabs don’t constitute “standard links,” then I stand corrected. I assumed they would.

He didn’t say to avoid Javascript. He said to avoid Javascript when it breaks standard interaction techniques. Again, you’re reading things into his words that aren’t there. He didn’t say that Javascript intrinsically breaks standard interaction techniques, so you are arguing against a straw-man.

You make a valid point. However, I’ll remind you that Jakob has forever been anti-Flash and anti-Javascript. I may be “reading into things,” but I’m doing so based on Jakob’s history. I’ve been reading hist columns for many years, so I know his feelings on these technologies.

Big monitor != big viewport. In my experience, people with big monitors are far less likely to surf with a maximised browser window.

True, but that’s completely irrelevant here. Whether we are referring to a big monitor or a big viewport, the bottom line is that it’s absurd to say a fixed-width layout is more difficult to use then on a smaller screen/viewport.

Given the choice between copy & pasting from a previous article and writing something new, I don’t blame him at all for writing something new.

A third choice would have been to write nothing at all — that’s what I do when I have nothing new to say.

And yet you criticise him for writing something new instead of rehashing anti popup arguments.

When did I criticize him for writing something new? I clearly said he didn’t write anything new. I criticized his methodology, not what he wrote.

There’s plenty of room for disagreement with Nielsen, but this hatchet-job just makes you look like you either have terrible reading comprehension or you have a grudge against him. By all means disagree, but why waste your time attacking straw men?

If this came off as a hatchet-job, then I certainly apologize to both Jakob and ye faithful Neilsen-ites.

I would have thought it was fairly obvious that I agreed with almost every concept is Jakob’s Top Ten Mistakes. Alloow me to recap:
1. Legibility problems: I agreed here, almost completely.
2. Non-standard links: I totally agreed with the concepts outlined here. I simply thought there were other ways besides underlines to make links clickable, and that there are ways to use Javascript without breaking standard interaction. Again, I almost completely agreed.
3. Flash: I don’t really agree with Jakob that “Flash” (the title of his “mistake”) is a mistake. I do agree that Flash is poorly used sometimes. But to list ‘Flash” (not animation, not annoying sounds, just ‘Flash”) as a mistake seems a bit extreme for me.
4. Browser Incompatibility: I only brought this one up to point out how happy I was it made the list. Obviously, I agreed.
5. Frozen layouts and fixed-widths: While I generally agree that liquid layouts are more usable overall, I can’t say that I think fixing a width is a “mistake.” I guess I disagree.
Obviously, the reason i didn’t bring up numbers 4, 5, 7, and 8 is because I agree with them.

I’m not sure how saying that I only agree with eight of 10 mistakes is a “hatchet-job,” but if you, or Jakob, saw it that way, then I certainly apologize.

Thanks for taking the time to post your thoughtful comments.
024 // Nick Rigby // 10.05.2005 // 4:01 AM

The thing with the Apple tabs, is that they are clearly part of a navigation, and do not fall into the “standard link” category.

A standard link is a link that would appear in the main body of some text for example - so it becomes important to distinguish it from the words around it. The single most effective way of doing this is to make the text a different color and underline it. Sure, make the text bigger, give it a different background colour or whatever, but because of the way the web has evolved, people expect links to be colored and underlined. Why would you want to interfere with this common standard? I’m not saying “You must do this” and neither is Neilson, but it is the most effective way of displaying links to a user. And that’s what usability is all about.
025 // JJ // 10.05.2005 // 6:13 AM

Jakob Nielsen is renowned (or maybe notorious) for communicating his ideas as if he is a parent scolding a child, even though that might not be his intention. He also seems to hold the view that most web designers deliberately ignore what he says; look at statements such as this one in a previous Alertbox: “Although horizontal scrolling was one of the top-ten Web design mistakes of 2002, I continue to see this abomination.” By saying it in this way he creates the impression that he is surprised that people are arrogant enough not to listen to what he is saying (like a parent to a nauhty child).His points are valid, but one has to have a background in usability to know when to take what he says with a grain of salt. In usability, context is very important, but he never makes this clear.About the fixed layout statement: Is it better to have liquid layouts that cause excessively long lines of text, making it more difficult to read, than to try to limit line lengths by fixing the width of a page element to a certain degree? Is it good to force some users who prefer to browse with maximized windows to restore and resize their browser windows to shorten line lengths and make the text more readable? One cannot please everyone. One can always use a zoom layout that adjust itself according to the user’s font-size setting. This is not liquid, but it’s also not fixed. Maybe that’s the golden mean? Maybe the alternative is to provide many stylesheets and give users a choice.I think the point is that Jakob Nielsen sometimes communicates valid points in ineffective ways, and seemingly without a context. He sometimes does not properly qualify his sweeping statements or state the exceptions and counter-arguments. This might be fine if you’re trying to teach a child the correct way of doing things, but it might not be the best way of communicating guidelines to Web professionals.
026 // Brian Ford // 10.05.2005 // 8:28 AM

For a usability guru, it seems odd to me that he writes in a way that is clearly so open to individual interpretation. He seems to confuse a lot of issues. I suppose being a usability guru does not a writer make.

What I get from the comments is that he hates flash, except when he doesn’t. Standard links should always be underline, but sometimes not, and it really depends on what you consider to be a standard link.

Also, it’s always weird to me when people write so passionately in the defense of an author, practically doing so in his name. “He didn’t say this, he said this.” Well, if he didn’t make himself clear, it doesn’t really matter -what- he said.
027 // Jeff Croft // 10.05.2005 // 8:43 AM

Nick: Normally I wouldn’t want to deviate from colored, underlined links, but certainly there are times when us visual designer would prefer a different aesthetic. Have you seen Shaun Inman’s Mint website? He uses a pretty unique link treatment, but it certainly is effective — right?

JJJ: Thank for succinctly and clearly saying what I’ve been trying to get across for three or four days now. It’s not Jakob’s concepts I disagree with, tis’ the absoluteness with which he communicates them — as if every problem has exactly one solution and his way is the only way.
028 // Nick Rigby // 10.05.2005 // 9:20 AM

Jeff: Other treatments of links can work, but I don’t believe they are ever as effective. Looking at the Mint site, it is not totally apparent where the “standard links” are. Sure, I can make an educated guess, but I have to think about it. There is never that uncertainty with coloured, underlined links. I’m pretty sure that if you had two versions of the Mint site (for want of another example), one with the current link styling and one with coloured underlined links, and asked a group of testers to point out a link they would do it much easier, and quicker with the latter. I’m not saying the site is totally unusable because of this, because it’s simply not. But it creates some form of learning curve. Usability is about lessening these learning curves.
029 // Jeff Croft // 10.05.2005 // 9:28 AM

Nick-

I’m not as convinced that your group of tester would have that much easier of a time finding colored, underlined links than finding Shawn’s colored boxes with a bottom border. But you’re probably right — I bet the underlined links would win — I just don’t think it’d be by much.

So, if web design was 100% about usability, then we’d always use colored, underlined links. But it’s not, is it?
030 // Brian Ford // 10.05.2005 // 9:41 AM

I don’t think anything can ever be about 100% usability, or 100% aesthetic.

The first would be ugly as hell, and the second would by unusable.

HAPPY.FRICKIN.MEDIUMS.
031 // Nick Rigby // 10.05.2005 // 10:26 AM

Design, as you mentioned, is about solving problems. I read this the other day, and I think it’s quite apt. “When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong.” I just don’t think that usability means ugly websites, or restrictive design. Links are a tiny part of design, but a massive part of what makes the web go round.
032 // Jeff Croft // 10.05.2005 // 10:33 AM

Nick-

That is a nice quote…where’d you find it?

I also don’t think that a focus on usability inherently means ugly websites, but most everything in life has a trade-off. The trade off for the usability enhancements gained by using colored, underlined links is the loss of creative control over the look of links on your page. This may or may not be of concern to you, and that’s fine. But ultimately it’s going to be up to each individual designer to find a link style that is usable enough, and provides a suitable visual aesthetic. The same thing goes for just about every design decision made on the web.

What is usable enough and what is a suitable visual aesthetic is going to vary from person to person — and that’s the part that Jakob Nielsen doesn’t seem to get.
033 // Brian Ford // 10.05.2005 // 10:35 AM

I disagree.. I don’t think that usability is necessarily concerned with beauty, and inversely, I don’t think that beauty is inherently concerned with usability. I think the talent of a designer is the ability to make the two meet.
034 // Christian Watson // 10.05.2005 // 3:08 PM

Jeff,

Like some other commenters I was surprised that you found so much to disagree with on Nielsen’s list.

My conclusion on reading it was that there was nothing new there that I didn’t know about or disagree with.

Most of the issues you raised have been addressed by other people but I will make two points:
1. You do a disservice to yourself to suggest that the people who subscribe to his newsletter constitute a cult-like following. I am one of those people and I treat anything he writes with a considerable degree of skepticism. Consequently, I think his choice of methodology is fine.
2. I’m surprised you don’t know what a standard (text) link is. Create an HTML page with no styling, code a link and view it in your browser - there’s your standard link. Ask 10 people what the standard color for a link is and 9 will say ‘blue’.
035 // Brian Ford // 10.05.2005 // 3:27 PM

And, -I’m- surprised that people continue to ignore what Jeff said in the article, and what he’s reiterated multiple times in his comments. Essentially, he really only disagrees with him about ONE thing… MULTIPLE times. (That one thing being that Jakob appears to allow no room for more than one solution to a problem.)

Sheesh, I’m as big on riding Jeff’s ass as the next guy… but really… read before you post! (In retrospect, the first part of that last sentence might have been poorly phrased.)
036 // Jeff Croft // 10.05.2005 // 3:34 PM

Christian-

I’ll say again that I generally agreed with 8 out of 10 of the “mistakes.” I don’t think I really found that much to disagree with. Just a few nit-picky details is all.
1. I certainly didn’t mean “cult-like following” to be a negative thing. You may be the exception to the rule, but the vast majority of Nielsen subscribers are usability people themselves, and not web designers or average web users. I personally think the people to ask about web design mistakes are web users — not usability “gurus”. My only point with the “cult-like” following thing was that most of the people people are of the same mind as Jakob — it’s a very non-diverse group of individuals.
2. I was obviously confused by the phrase “standard link.” To me, a “standard link” is any anchor tag with an href attached to it. Apparently that’s not what Jakob meant by “standard link.” If he’d said, “link within the body text of a page,” then I’d have certainly understood. Forgive my lack of usability lingo — it’s not my thing.
And finally — I just asked 10 people what the “standard color for a link within the body text of a page is.” To paraphrase their answers: two said “blue.” Five said, “they could be any color.” Two said, “a color that contrasts with the rest of the text.” One said “I have no idea.”
037 // Alex Beard // 10.06.2005 // 2:59 PM

I couldn’t have summed up my thoughts better, Jeff. This is definitely an excellent article. 95% Dr. Nielsen’s views on usability and what should and shouldn’t be done aren’t remotely practical. It seems like a lot of his rules would have us all visiting extremely bland text-based sites with no aesthetic value.”

… just like his own site? Hah.
038 // eric // 10.12.2005 // 12:43 PM

users don’t care about technology and don’t especially want new features.

I agree with Tony - this shows how out of touch Nielsen is with web users. Technology itself - xhtml, css, etc - don’t matter. The end result matters, and that typically means features.

Tags are a technology and a feature; del.icio.us and flickr are a testament to the popularity of powerful implementations of newer “web 2.0” (an awful term, I feel) technology. The wikipedia itself is chock-full of technology that equates to features - the mediawiki itself, interlinking, allowing end-users to edit content. Jakob is wrong - users do care about technology when it makes their browsing cooler, easier, or more entertaining.
039 // Danny Foo // 10.14.2005 // 2:03 AM

A very well thought of article. I wish I could’ve said the same in almost every single instance. But I’ll let you have all the honor. :)

Cheers.
040 // Martin Labuschin // 10.15.2005 // 8:49 AM

This i call an really good criticism :) usability is usefull but dont exaggerate
041 // Neil Evans // 10.16.2005 // 8:56 AM

I can’t say I’ve ever been a great fan of Jakob Nielsen’s approach, he labours his point against “designers” constantly without seemingly understanding what ‘good design practice’ actually is. All to often he confuses access with design and this is what (as one of your other contributors so aptly put it) makes him sound like a parent scolding a child, his audience isn’t designers, yet his content is?Most of his advice is good, generally… but when it comes to matters of design the web seems to be being singled out at the moment by a few commentators who seem to want to apply an almost puritanical approach to access solely to the web which if it were followed would mean that every site would look like, well… jakob nielsen’s - which from a design point of view is bloody ugly.
042 // Ryan // 10.28.2005 // 9:17 AM

Let’s not forget that “Dr. Nielson” is an expert in his field. He’s an amazing leader and conduit of web flow practices and modern technological advancement. I’ve seen his desktop background. It’s a swastika.

JeffCroft.com

10.03.2005 // 42 Comments // KSU Foundation Center Jakob’s Ten Mistakes: Responses from a real live web designer

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001 // Brian Ford // 10.03.2005 // 7:01 PM

002 // Brian Ford // 10.03.2005 // 7:01 PM

003 // Jeff Croft // 10.03.2005 // 7:05 PM

004 // Zach Inglis // 10.03.2005 // 7:39 PM

005 // Tony Summerville // 10.03.2005 // 9:58 PM

006 // Jared // 10.03.2005 // 10:24 PM

007 // Dustin Diaz // 10.04.2005 // 12:26 AM

008 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 12:46 AM

009 // divya // 10.04.2005 // 3:37 AM

010 // Kev // 10.04.2005 // 3:53 AM

011 // Nick Rigby // 10.04.2005 // 4:47 AM

012 // Shawn // 10.04.2005 // 7:20 AM

013 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 9:05 AM

014 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 9:08 AM

015 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 9:10 AM

016 // CC // 10.04.2005 // 9:36 AM

017 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 9:52 AM

018 // Elliot Swan // 10.04.2005 // 10:26 AM

019 // Jared Christensen // 10.04.2005 // 12:46 PM

020 // Emil Virkki // 10.04.2005 // 1:47 PM

021 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 2:05 PM

022 // Jim // 10.04.2005 // 4:57 PM

023 // Jeff Croft // 10.04.2005 // 5:38 PM

024 // Nick Rigby // 10.05.2005 // 4:01 AM

025 // JJ // 10.05.2005 // 6:13 AM

026 // Brian Ford // 10.05.2005 // 8:28 AM

027 // Jeff Croft // 10.05.2005 // 8:43 AM

028 // Nick Rigby // 10.05.2005 // 9:20 AM

029 // Jeff Croft // 10.05.2005 // 9:28 AM

030 // Brian Ford // 10.05.2005 // 9:41 AM

031 // Nick Rigby // 10.05.2005 // 10:26 AM

032 // Jeff Croft // 10.05.2005 // 10:33 AM

033 // Brian Ford // 10.05.2005 // 10:35 AM

034 // Christian Watson // 10.05.2005 // 3:08 PM

035 // Brian Ford // 10.05.2005 // 3:27 PM

036 // Jeff Croft // 10.05.2005 // 3:34 PM

037 // Alex Beard // 10.06.2005 // 2:59 PM

038 // eric // 10.12.2005 // 12:43 PM

039 // Danny Foo // 10.14.2005 // 2:03 AM

040 // Martin Labuschin // 10.15.2005 // 8:49 AM

041 // Neil Evans // 10.16.2005 // 8:56 AM

042 // Ryan // 10.28.2005 // 9:17 AM

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