Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.
Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design (Updated 2006)
useit.com — Since my first attempt in 1996, I have compiled many top-10 lists of the biggest mistakes in Web design. See links to all these lists at the bottom of this article. This article presents the highlights: the very worst mistakes of Web design.
MrBabyMan- 1572 diggs
- digg it
- scatterbrain13, on 10/12/2007, -19/+5211.) Making an ugly and long winded page about web design.
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -17/+52**FIXED**
11.) Making an ugly, long winded, and hardly informative page about web design. - diggmaddy, on 10/12/2007, -12/+5I disagree. As far as readability goes, that was one of the best laid out web pages I've seen on the internet. Although content, that's another story...
- codelogic, on 10/12/2007, -20/+10@scatterbrain and panique
You're obviously Frontpage designers with no clue about usability. - RunsRampant, on 10/12/2007, -18/+10@codelogic
You're obviously just a coder that knows nothing about design. - OhJay, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13panique,
Care to list what you find so uninformative about that piece? His advice might sound blatantly obvious, but the fact remains that a ton of sites completely disregard usability and break most of Nielsen's "rules". - scatterbrain13, on 10/12/2007, -12/+1hey codelogic, i've never used frontpage in my life and you say that this page is an example of usablity? For what... monkeys on crack?
- codelogic, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16yeah, if you actually think that the page is unreadable, then it's pretty clear who's on crack.
- noisician, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I don't think his page was ugly. And it was very easy to read. You can quickly scan down it and see what it's all about and start reading the details of any section of interest.
But I am happy to see that he has improved his site, for example: adding images. They actually do improve the reading experience by making the page friendlier and more inviting.
Nielsen's pages used to be much more like the "walls of text" he mentions.... look at his 1999 article - no images, no margins so the text goes right up to the left and right edges of the screen making it so you have to read very wide lines of text (hard for the eye to follow)... really, not inviting at all...
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530.html - RoboPimp3000, on 10/12/2007, -8/+4Jakob Nielson couldn't design a circle if he were given a compass. I don't take design advice from someone who's too lazy to fix his own site or too cheap to hire someone to do it. Here's another mistake from his own site:
12. Using free-floating text that stretches to fill the entire screen, causing visitors with wide-screens to resize the window horizontally in order to make the site readable. - n0va, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7That's Jakob Nielsen for you. If you don't know him, you probably don't know anything about usability.
- theOster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3coming out of architecture school i was all for the maverick designer throwing convention to the wind and thinking outside the box and all that whatnot. then i started to look at how i use things and interact with objects in my everyday life. if i can't intuitively figure out how to work something (basics, not advanced functionality) i leave it for something else.
seeing products that do both - beautiful design with intuitive (probably standardized) interfaces and workings, just puts a smile on my face. i hate to give the nod to apple, but "iPod". done. perfect.
anyway. to summarize the article, you don't have to (and i think you shoudl *never*) sacrifice usability for design. if you find yourself doing this, step back and get a second opinion on your design. you'll produce a better product. - Cory70, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Well if mr.Usability and front page man there get together they just might make a pretty cool site.
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -17/+52**FIXED**
- mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13#2 PDF files - agggh! I HATE pdf files, especially if I'm on a machine with a bloated post-5.5 Reader. Readers 6 and 7 take ages to load, and 6 takes ages to unload, at least on my machine when I'm using Firefox.
#5 Fixed Text Size is not right. I can change the text size even on pages that I know use fixed-size CSS styling.- dsignr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"#5 Fixed Text Size is not right. I can change the text size even on pages that I know use fixed-size CSS styling."
Not all browsers are equal. IE 5.5 kept pixel based font sizes. Firefox allows the user to change the font size, regardless if it is pixel-based or em-based.
I completely agree on the PDF files statement. - wstrucke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3that's not true for all browsers
- dodd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14#5 has nothing to do with web design. This is IE bug, other browsers do it right.
- cherouvim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1#2 use foxitreader. free, *fast* & no-install.
- dsignr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"#5 Fixed Text Size is not right. I can change the text size even on pages that I know use fixed-size CSS styling."
- ttiwguitar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Frames.
- Rekzai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4712.) Music plays automatically
- tendonut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5EVIL!
- Cbeck527, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4MYSPACE!
- CmbJo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2would agree I do really hate to listen to any crap music coming from crap sites. And often i'm just unable to turn it off
- icexe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18sometimes PDF files are necessary. For example, you want to make an offical form, brochure or poster available for people to download. Tax forms are a prime example of this. So long as you clearly indicate that it is a PDF and WHY its a PDF file, i see nothing wrong with them when used for the purpose for which they were intended.
- spoops, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I agree. The best thing about PDF files (I use OSX) are that they're NOT ON the web (plus they're reliable, formatted, scalable, and often vector). I'll take those puppies over a rubbish website any day - that's the whole point...
Incidentally, is it me, or is this website really ugly? You'd think for an expert in usability, the idea of aesthetics might factor into the design :) - kcpwnsgman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4PDF's are needed for some specific reasons, but when people put a PDF of a document that could have easily been html, such as documentation for software, it gets annoying.
- wordsofwisedumb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@spoops
PDF files are not good for general web content. While they might be vectors and be scallable that is bad for variable monitor sizes. They keep their formatting, there is no automatic word wrap based on screen size. To fit a PDF to your monitor it might end up having the equivalent of a 300 point font or be shrunk down to illegible 8 point font. To make that 8 point font legible you have to zoom to the point where sideways scrolling is inevitable. PDFs are for printing on the paper size they are originally created for, not for reading on monitors that can vary by over 1000% in size. - tendonut, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Having PDFs on a website isn't nearly as bad when they are properly labeled. What really irks me with PDF files on websites is when they disguise as a harmless link to what appears to be just another HTML page within the website. Then I am frozen with fear when the Adobe Reader 7.0 splash screen appears and Firefox locks up for anywhere between 10 seconds to 2 minutes, depending on the size of the PDF (no damn progress bar..) If the web site designer would just stick the (PDF) tag at the end or in front of the link so I know what I am getting into, I would be a happy camper and just avoid clicking it until I am ready (or not at all)
- schroeder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Foxit
http://www.download.com/Foxit-PDF-Reader/3000-2079_4-10313206.html
Fast enough that PDF's don't bother me anymore.
(not spam... i know most of you use it already, just letting people who still have PDF issues know)
- spoops, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I agree. The best thing about PDF files (I use OSX) are that they're NOT ON the web (plus they're reliable, formatted, scalable, and often vector). I'll take those puppies over a rubbish website any day - that's the whole point...
- BigBeaker, on 10/12/2007, -7/+4Lol:
4. A wall of text is deadly for an interactive experience. Intimidating. Boring. Painful to read.
Yeah, aren't unimaginative, disengaging, mind-numbing, monotone, scrolling articles crap, eh? - eizooo, on 10/12/2007, -7/+21> 3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links
it's convenient having different colors for visited links but disturbs sometimes the design consistency
> 9. Opening New Browser Windows
sometimes very convenient, see digg- NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11"> 3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links
it's convenient having different colors for visited links but disturbs sometimes the design consistency"
Usability over design, always.
"> 9. Opening New Browser Windows
sometimes very convenient, see digg"
No, but sometimes very annoying. That's what the middle mouse button is for, what if I want to open the link in the same window, then what? ***** me? - resplence, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3"> 9. Opening New Browser Windows
sometimes very convenient, see digg"
Ugh, no. I HATE it when I forget to middle-click the article's link and it opens a new window, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
If it wasn't for firefox, I doubt I'd ever become a regular on digg.
- NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11"> 3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links
- AriaStar, on 10/12/2007, -8/+10That website to talk about bad web design is a perfect example of what to not do. Too much dead white space, annoying font size.... I didn't even bother reading it.
- codelogic, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5What's annoying about it? That you can actually read it? As opposed to the font size of Digg comments that you're probably accustomed to.
- takamalak, on 10/12/2007, -8/+7code: We're not all old farts like you, or Luddites that refuse to wear their glasses.
- aboyd, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4@codelogic
I believe that site violates its own top 10 list. Specifically, the article violates rule #4 - don't deliver a "wall of text." Also, while that site doesn't violate rule #5 (no tiny text), rule #5 is onto something -- people care about fonts. And that site has not put together decent defaults for the font settings. I suspect I could make the site much more pleasant to read with just 10 (or fewer) changes to the CSS. However, I'm very familiar with "that site" -- I know this is Jakob Nielsen we're talking about. He hasn't updated his site design in years. - codelogic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@takamalak
Even though I'm not an old fart, guess what, the fact that EVEN an old fart can use it is what makes a site usable; and that's my point. - codelogic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@aboyd
I agree with you on point 4, regarding the 'wall of text'. However, with respect to the font size, even though it seems a bit large in terms of aesthetics, IMHO, that increase probably helps a small percentage of people read it, as opposed to not. So my guess is, he's traded off the aesthetics for marginal readability. - perogi21, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0codelogic can do neither.
- vhtrading, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Interesting that some of you claim his article is nothing but a "wall of text"; but if you would call it that, then you'd have to classify have the articles posted from Digg as that as well. Or are you one of those people that don't RTFA and click on the headlines because it sounds interesting?;-)
What he's referring to in #4 is horribly long-winded pages with mile-long paragraphs, no headers to break up the subject matter, and no scannable text summarized with bullet points.
- aliotsy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12For those of us who have read the article annually, noting an update for 2006 without specifying what has been updated doesn't seem very usable, either.
- motionblur, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1True. Jakob is usually pretty good about pointing out the actual updates, but not this time...
- supremacyy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7I find it weird that he's trying to tell us how to design better websites when his looks like something from the '80s...
- barnaclebarnes, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@supremacyy
That would be pretty hard considering the web wasn't around until 1990....
- barnaclebarnes, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1@supremacyy
- celestial, on 10/12/2007, -2/+813) giving myspace users ability to change their page
- meat30, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Most of that is fairly handy, but the font size point is a load of rubbish & I'm surprised that Mr Nielson has made this error. There is no 'fixed font size' except pixels for IE6 & below (& pixels are in essence relative). Any other semi-decent browser will happily resize any text no matter how its size has been specified. None of this 'disable the resize button' nonsense.
- OhJay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Yeah, IE6 and below. What is he thinking?! I mean, that's only about 85-90% of the market. He must be a complete tool thinking that web pages should cater to that audience.
- jonathanbearak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Fixed text size is not the problem: browsers will resize text regardless of how the font size is specified.
A greater issue is fixed-width container elements, which is an issue perhaps for web browsers or even the w3c. When the user increases the text size, overlapping text may block the main content which the user is trying to read.
One possible solution is bitmap scaling: if the user has a wider screen than is necessary to view the page in its standard size, then there really is no technical problem is scaling the entire page (including container elements and images) so that the content remains in proportion. - donnyburnside, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I agree with part 2, PDF's are just awful while browsing. I very rarely use them anyway.
- Sp4nk, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1413.) Continuing to design your Web site like it's 1996.
- mcc123, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Take a look at this abomination - http://www.casaubon-eck.co.uk/
Probably the most disorienting background-repeat I've ever seen. - lazyrussian, on 10/12/2007, -6/+4Wow this guys website LOOKS boring.
Informative? Hardly. - idlegamer, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0quote/- Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don't have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience. Every time you release an apple over Sir Isaac Newton, it will drop on his head. That's good.
The more users' expectations prove right, the more they will feel in control of the system and the more they will like it. And the more the system breaks users' expectations, the more they will feel insecure. Oops, maybe if I let go of this apple, it will turn into a tomato and jump a mile into the sky. -/quote
14.) Conforming to standards and not expressing artistic flare. Yes, all webpages have to look the same! Who is this guy and why should we care what he thinks? His site sucks monkey butt too!
Now, this site has great web design... http://www.zgeek.com/trailerparkpage/- smhill, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@idlegamer
"Conforming to standards and not expressing artistic flare. Yes, all webpages have to look the same!"
Good job reading for comprehension! He says nothing about pages looking all the same. He is talking about UI conventions not appearance. And as for "expressing artistic flare", that is fine for your little blog or myspace page, but if you are making a site that actually has a purpose, then you need to design it for usablity first. Not to say you can't be creative, but being creative for creative sake is stupid if you don't have a design goal. There are many examples of sites that are very artistic and creative and are usable.
"Who is this guy and why should we care what he thinks?"
Here is his resume... http://www.useit.com/jakob/index.html
"the king of usability" (Internet Magazine)
"the guru of Web page usability" (The New York Times)
"the next best thing to a true time machine" (USA Today)
"the smartest person on the Web" (ZDNet AnchorDesk)
"the world's leading expert on Web usability" (U.S. News & World Report)
one of the top ten minds in small business (FORTUNE Small Business)
"the world's leading expert on user-friendly design" (Stuttgarter Zeitung, Germany)
"knows more about what makes Web sites work than anyone else on the planet" (Chicago Tribune, March 6, 2000)
"one of the world's foremost experts in Web usability" (Business Week)
"the Web's usability czar" (WebReference.com)
"the reigning guru of Web usability" (FORTUNE)
"eminent Web usability guru" (CNN)
"perhaps the best-known design and usability guru on the Internet" (Financial Times)
"the usability Pope" (Wirtschaftswoche Magazine, Germany)
"new-media pioneer" (Newsweek)
Pretty decent cred I would say. What has CNN, NYT or Fortune said about you lately?
- smhill, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@idlegamer
- sweetpapa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Someone please save us from the useless network of web pages with walls of search engine optimized text to suck your search to a useless ad page.
Is it just me or is anyone else finding it harder and harder to find anything relevant for your Google searches? - OSDAgent, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Jacob Nielsen's site is a perfect example of the tail wagging the dog.
- perkonis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4How did he miss resizing the users browser? That annoys me more than pop ups. But not by much.
- MachBoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20.5) web pages that take control of the window and decide they need full screen because the user shouldn't be allowed to manage his/her screen real estate when the 'artistic integrity' of the website is at issue
- Cojawfee, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4What does this guy even do? Does he just release this same exact list every few months and say it is the top ten web design mistakes of the year? This hasn't changed ever since I've seen it.
- smhill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Nielsen_(usability_consultant)
http://www.useit.com/jakob/index.html - imakecomments, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1He's a usability expert. Google his name.
- smhill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Nielsen_(usability_consultant)
- jakepaulus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Pricing really got me. I can't tell you how many times I've spent 20 minutes looking around on a business's site at what looked like a good product to recommend to management only to find no prices listed. I will not spend more time than I've already wasted waiting for a vendor to email me back and I'm not going to management with a suggestion that I don't have a cost for. You just lost business and pissed me off at the same time! That's a double-whammy!
- smhill, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2VERY good article. At least by comparison. Most lists of these nature tend to point out the obvious and are penned by n00bs. (no frames, no animation, no background sounds, blah, blah, blah). This one actually is very informative and I would hope that many would-be designers would take it to heart.
Here is one common mistake that I see mentioned here more than once:
Design != Visual Appearance.
Visual Appearance is a component of Design. Design takes into account the whole experience, from document flow, interface to site structure. Generally speaking it covers architecture as well, but often that is broken into frontend/backend design. Comments like: "it's convenient having different colors for visited links but disturbs sometimes the design consistency" really make no sense.
It is a consistent and useful element of surfing the web in general, you should take that into account when you are designing the visual appearance of the site. Usability is part of design. As another person posted, you should not forsake usability over visual appearance. - RunsRampant, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Buried for being in the wrong topic. He's talking about 'design' and it's under the programming category. But I guess that's because he knows nothing about design... might be eaten alive in a group that is made up mainly with designers. Maybe this should be under 'miscellaneous'?
- noisician, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2yeah, he knows nothing about design... that's probably why every industry rag (and many mainstream rags) constantly have him interviewed and writing articles for them about user interface design...
and how about something to back up your statement? - noisician, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6remember that DESIGN is not just GRAPHIC DESIGN
i think Nielsen intentionally makes his sites simplistic to stress that point
fancy GRAPHIC DESIGN often hinders the USABILITY aspect of site DESIGN
i hate those frickin clever flash sites with their tricky little navigation schemes
pretty, but annoying as hell - RunsRampant, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@noisican
noisican wrote, "and how about something to back up your statement?"
Here we go:
1. Yes design can mean more than simply graphic design. What you need to stop doing is humping that little gem of a statement and look at the context of the term design in these threads. The context of the term design is being used in the creative sense for a majority of the discussions that take place here. More importantly - you've decided to reply to MY thread; in MY thread you damn well know what I mean when I say design so get off your high horse and stop trying to redefine what I say.
Now that I've cleared that up, in the context of DESIGN and specifically interaction and interactive design...
2. Usability design is one piece of the larger topic of this type of design. The best designed pieces communicate THE WAY THEY ARE INTENDED to communicate. If the designer has put thought into their creation then the level of difficulty or ease are intended.
3. Typically, the best usability comes from people with creative backgrounds. Looks at BMW, OXO, et. al. Read the book A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink, the future is right brained. If you don't want to be creative and think of new ways to redefine a medium, be my guest. I'll be sure to drop some change in your cup when your job is outsourced because your boss found out they can find somebody else that doesn't use their brain for pennies on what they pay you. Not like you'll need it; I'm sure you'll get your nutrition from Nielsen's teet - you seem to enjoy it so well.
4. If you don't think that this is a design issue from the creative sense go to this link: http://www.mica.edu/PROGRAMS/bfa/interactive_media/curriculum.cfm
See what interactive designers are learning - read it, chew on it. Realize that you don't even know WTF you are talking about. The design and art industry is focused on communication.
5. Just because people (and from the sound of it - you are one of them) can download a 30 day trial of Photoshop and Dreamweaver you think you can be a self-proclaimed authority on a subject you probably digested over a donut and some downtime at ABlogOnWhyAllDesignShouldBeTheSame.com.
6. Nielsen is an engineer trying to go to an extreme to prove a point that is not coming through on his website. His homepage looks like somebody threw up a bunch of text on his page. He's also never brought anything up that is breakthrough. He's a movie critic who can make a movie, but is more than willing to tell you what the people who actually know what they are doing might be doing wrong. But hey, those you can, do, and those who can't, teach... or try to. And why do the media follow him... because he's been spewing the same crap since the beginning of mainstream internet time. And just because a mass of people are head over heals about somebody, it doesn't make them legit, or are you still a Vanilla Ice fan, too?
So it's backed up, and why it has everything to do with design, and why you are just one more person spewing the same ***** I've heard from the beginning of time... but hey it's not all your fault. You don't know what you don't know... and there are a lot of bad "designers" out there in the same boat with you.
- noisician, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2yeah, he knows nothing about design... that's probably why every industry rag (and many mainstream rags) constantly have him interviewed and writing articles for them about user interface design...
- thesixthdesign, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0i used to hate .pdfs until i encountered firefox.
PDF PLUGIN - codelogic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1sorry, wrong post.
- bleutuna, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Nielsen's a cocksmoke. He's like Michael Jackson or Howard Stern - a self-appointed GUI God who is nothing of the sort.
Look at his site. Is it easy to read? Yeah. Do you WANT to read it? Hell no. It's boring. And that's something Nielsen has ALWAYS had trouble understanding.- imakecomments, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Michael Jackson and Howard Stern are self-appointed GUI Gods?
- imakecomments, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Michael Jackson and Howard Stern are self-appointed GUI Gods?
- bleutuna, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2Ha. Funny :D You know what i meant - self-appointed masters in their field. Touche ;)
- n3rrd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2lol, going on about usability and slamming on Jakob but you can't even figure out the "reply" feature on digg. Nice.
- snowwrestler, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@n3rrd
Take a look at what I just wrote. (@n3rrd) Now take a look at what it says right above this comment field: "Replying to comment by bleutuna (cancel)" Now take a look where the comment field is: at the bottom of the page, nowhere near bleutuna or your post.
Want to talk about usability problems? Let's talk about Digg's comment system. Why the hell should we have to use these terrible hacks to talk to each other??
The comment system on Digg is a living example of flash>substance. We get gradient headlines, scrolling "show comment" tricks, and client-side digg incrementing. Unfortunately below the surface what we're stuck with is one-deep threading and mob-rule comment moderation.
- vhtrading, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Sage advice from ol' Jakob. I don't agree with him 100% of the time, but he's right on the money about most things.
For all those who have bashed him in your comments, I implore you to take a look back at some of him Alertbox articles at http://www.useit.com/alertbox. Once you do, you'll get a good idea of here's he's coming from in his research, plus you'll soon discover that you don't know what the hell you're talking about when it comes to usability-centric design. - ferreth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3To all those that are saying "His site is boring. Wall of text. Blah." :
His site isn't about making it pretty and visually interesting - it's about USABILITY - in this case, there is some heavy reading here, it's structured to be online readable, not pretty.
It's not about entertaining you, it's not about selling you something (well, it actually is, but it's more subtle than usual).
He uses big text because older people tend to have problems with smaller text. I see this all the time dealing with staff at big companies who run their 20" monitors at 1024x768, etc. Guess what: older people tend to be decision makers in companies that might buy his services.
He sticks with plain text and a few pictures to break the monotony and help illustrate his points because people out there trying to find out information about something don't give a rat's ass about flash or glitz - they just want to find what they need.
In short, people trying to do work using the internet as a tool appreciate simple design that lets them find what they want. People out to be entertained by using the internet want more eye candy and such.- psyked, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ah, but when i come across a site that looks like that, i don't really care how usable it is, because I assume its a relic from the dawn of the internet, and just, you know, ignore it. Usability should be as much about enticing people to read what they came to read, before they have to look for it. White, Black and Yellow pages with default link colours associate his website with all those old-and-no-longer-updated remnants of Web 0.5 and undermine his status of guru. A usability expert who's website I hate to look at, let alone use?
Oh, and US Patents on tooltips? He has several patents on tooltips? Doesn't that belong to the software?
- psyked, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Ah, but when i come across a site that looks like that, i don't really care how usable it is, because I assume its a relic from the dawn of the internet, and just, you know, ignore it. Usability should be as much about enticing people to read what they came to read, before they have to look for it. White, Black and Yellow pages with default link colours associate his website with all those old-and-no-longer-updated remnants of Web 0.5 and undermine his status of guru. A usability expert who's website I hate to look at, let alone use?
- scorwitz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Like this guys list or not, he has put into words all of the things that anger me so much about the websites out there that should know better. There are too many Fortune 100-500 companies that still haven't a clue when it comes to hiring someone that knows web design.
- jsusanka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3anybody who writes for one browser only whether it be for an intranet or extranet should consider a career change or be fired. you are not doing you company any favors by writing for one browser.
- chapium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The most evil in my opinion is embeded files in general. Why cant I just download the pdf/doc/mp3 without loading it in the browser?
- cacheberry, on 10/12/2007, -1/+011) FLASH based sites. The one you have to wait for 10min to load in order to get the company's phone#
- jads, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1No. 11 - Websites that don't validate to standards despite claiming to... hang on a minute
- RidinDirty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+211 - Being an old windbag who constantly publishes list of things that are obvious to a 2 year old, but passes them off as expert opinions. This guy has never produced one bit of usable or relevant content.
- technoboi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1PDF files do have their place. I often specifically look for PDFs. They are particularly good for product guides and technical manuals etc. They can easily be downloaded and stored them to disk. I have sometimes put some on my Palm for easy reference.
Where PDFs fail is for general non-technical sales blurb - then they are usually inappropriate unless they are an alternative to viewing the same information on a standard web page.
It is true that some web site search engines are very poor. If the pages are standard html I usually use Google to find the page I want from a named site. If the site is database driven then, if the site search engine is no good, you're stuck. - cCarter15, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1For designers, PDF's are god.
- targetuser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0somebody above wrote this:
"Conforming to standards and not expressing artistic flare. Yes, all webpages have to look the same!"
Good job reading for comprehension! He says nothing about pages looking all the same. He is talking about UI conventions not appearance. And as for "expressing artistic flare", that is fine for your little blog or myspace page, but if you are making a site that actually has a purpose, then you need to design it for usablity first. Not to say you can't be creative, but being creative for creative sake is stupid if you don't have a design goal. There are many examples of sites that are very artistic and creative and are usable.
"Who is this guy and why should we care what he thinks?"
Here is his resume... http://www.useit.com/jakob/index.html
"the king of usability" (Internet Magazine)
"the guru of Web page usability" (The New York Times)
"the next best thing to a true time machine" (USA Today)
"the smartest person on the Web" (ZDNet AnchorDesk)
"the world's leading expert on Web usability" (U.S. News & World Report)
one of the top ten minds in small business (FORTUNE Small Business)
"the world's leading expert on user-friendly design" (Stuttgarter Zeitung, Germany)
"knows more about what makes Web sites work than anyone else on the planet" (Chicago Tribune, March 6, 2000)
"one of the world's foremost experts in Web usability" (Business Week)
"the Web's usability czar" (WebReference.com)
"the reigning guru of Web usability" (FORTUNE)
"eminent Web usability guru" (CNN)
"perhaps the best-known design and usability guru on the Internet" (Financial Times)
"the usability Pope" (Wirtschaftswoche Magazine, Germany)
"new-media pioneer" (Newsweek)
Pretty decent cred I would say. What has CNN, NYT or Fortune said about you lately?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You must really be impressed with authority figures...
Look at all those magazines. What do they know about usability. His pr firm fed those quotes to them.
Jakob Nielsen is mainly a widely recognized authority figure in the field of usability (that doesn't mean he's the god of usability as many like to think). The field of usability has matured a lot since he brought the concept into popularity, and I'd say at this point more and more people think Jakob Nielsen seems preoccupied by preserving his guru status and putting out cheesy lists of rules so he can sell more books. - targetuser, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1btw, here's his friend's site. He's a designer:
http://www.asktog.com/recipes/08BladeChuck.html - gerkin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This article is nto what I would consider the "top 10" mistakes. Some of what Jakob says makes sense, some doesn't. Take it with a grain of salt and figure out what works and doesn't work for YOUR site.
Some things just plain don't make sense in his terms. Relative font sizes? Does that mean you also use relative graphics to go with them? If your site is plain text (with horribly bad pale yellow background colors) like his, sure that's fine. If your site actually uses graphics and relies on sizing to work, then by all means use fixed font sizes. So what's the REAL answer? Make sure you properly DESIGN your site. This is something that jakob just flat out doesn't get. Get with the 21st century Jakob ... the web has graphics, flash and all kinds of animations, that while you might not like, do NOT take away from the usability of a web site if done correctly -- meaning that your site is friendly for screen readers, people with sight impairments (by turning off the CSS and adjusting to whatever they like), including skipnav and offering keyboard navigation.
THIS is what usabilty is all about, not helping people that can't spell search your site and unless this is really a need for YOUR target audience I'd hardly call this the #1 problem with websites in 2006.
I consider it a much bigger problem when people who are so widely read as Jakob don't actually get with the times and embrace technology and give some good advice on how to have your cake and eat it too, it's quite possible (as long as you don't listen to his ramblings too closely).- Skotasma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0(with horribly bad pale yellow background colors)
yep, seen it together with that blue on the start site?
ouch...
The article itself rather looks like its got no design or CSS or anything
About the content: I think he's right about most things.. not that they are MY top 10.
What I like for example is a link for the same window and a little icon behind it for a new window.
And my personal number one: Text that goes over all of my 21'' screen at 1600x1200.
I just can't read that and it forces me to resize the browser window...
Newspapers found out about the best text width AGES ago.
- Skotasma, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0(with horribly bad pale yellow background colors)
- accordjazz, on 01/12/2008, -0/+1That's great find
http://www.nasavo.com
http://www.nasavo.com/acne
http://www.nasavo.com/forex
http://car.nasavo.com
http://www.jurugan.com
http://health.jurugan.com
http://www.vrid.net
http://laptop.vrid.net
http://projector.vrid.net
http://hyip.ej.am
http://car.ej.am
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2008 —
Content posted by