Goodbye, Mr. Nielsen
Pretend you’re self-appointed expert on “usability” and design—of websites, software, anything.
Pretend you run a corporate racket and charge hundreds of dollars to download PDF reports. Pretend you’ve cornered the market on quantitive studies of a qualitative subject.
Pretend you are so brash that you use inflammatory language like “narrow-mindedly insular” to describe the companies that manufacture products you review.
Pretend all of those things. All done? If you’re that person, you had better fucking be able to walk the walk.
That person exists. His name is Jakob Nielsen, and he can’t walk the walk.
I want you to go to his website. I want you to laugh. Laugh. Out loud. It’s so amateurish, so pathetic, it just screams 1997. This man would fashion himself a “usability guru.” This man would criticize others’ designs. I want you to laugh. And you will.
The time has come for Jakob’s Nielsen’s house of cards to fall. In “An Open Letter to Jakob Nielsen” (link via Jim Ray) beautifully penned by Andrei Herasimchuk, the foundation of that house is systematically destroyed. Now it is time to complete the razing: By ignoring the narrow-mindedly insular comments of a man out of touch. Goodbye, Mr. Nielsen. Your time has passed.
March 21st, 2004 at 1:28 pm
I think I’m one of the few web nerds I know who’s actually read “Designing Web Usability : The Practice of Simplicity”, Mr. Nielsen’s magnum opus (this fact is owed singularly to one Paul Jones, director of ibiblio at UNC, once a professor of mine).
In context of the web circa 1999, there are actually a few flakes worth panning through the silt for. Simplicity is certainly an admirable quality, though Nielsen’s perscriptions have probably done more to hinder this goal by virtue of the ensuing backlash. I mean, when the normally cool-headed-to-a-fault Jeffrey Zeldman is ripping on you, there’s something seriously wrong with your argument.
My biggest problem with Nielsen, besides the fact that every single publication that writes about his wanking diatribes calls him a “usability guru”, is that I really _liked_ the web in 1999. Yeah, standards support sucked and everything was a table with in a table and the software sucked and us Macheads were still languishing under OS 9, but the web was so much more about unfulfilled possibility and creative exploration. I certainly have a bias, in that this was right around the time when I was sharpening my own web chops, but I sometimes miss those Bubble salad days.
Interestingly enough, a lot of what Nielsen was advocating (aside from capital D, Design) is coming to a head, particularly in regards to things like accessibility and useful navigation, although the routes to these seem to be circuitous or even avoidant of Nielsen’s suggestions. But I’ll be damned if I ever call the man a guru of anything.
March 21st, 2004 at 4:00 pm
Jim Ray wrote:
“Interestingly enough, a lot of what Nielsen was advocating (aside from capital D, Design) is coming to a head, particularly in regards to things like accessibility and useful navigation, although the routes to these seem to be circuitous or even avoidant of Nielsen’s suggestions.”
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I agree. Jakob Nielsen fashions himself the therapist for the Web’s usability problems. But therein lies the problem; if his patient gets better, he becomes irrelevant. So he’s forced to use harsher, brasher language and branch into areas where he has less expertise.
If the Web gets better, no one will care about Nielsen.
March 24th, 2004 at 1:48 pm
I completely agree with Andrei, and this site. I heard about him being some “usability guru,” even bought his book and read a few chapters. Then I went to his website…
…and promptly returned the book.
I mean, is the man high? Is he just trying to do a virtual “Punk’d” or something? That website is rubbish - complete horror of design. I mean, the colors alone are enough to make me go blind.
Bah. If his site is an example of what he defines as “usability,” then that makes me weep for anyone he dupes into beleiving he’s correct…
April 5th, 2004 at 10:46 am
Goodbye Mr. Nielsen - we hardly knew ye…thankfully!