Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dasil003 | Hacker News Reader

I applaud Nielsen for trying to bring more data to the usability world, but man, the guy just doesn't bring any insight. All he does again and again over the decades is analyze a bunch of data which proves that well-established UI conventions work better on average than less common UI conventions.

However any designer or UI person worth their salt innately knows 95% of everything he has ever said, and applies it intuitively while balancing a dozen other issues which Nielsen pretends don't exist (branding, innovation, gameplay, etc). Nielsen's biggest achievement has been branding himself as a top-tier usability expert when in fact probably every high school in America has at least one aspiring designer with a better understanding of how people actually use computers.

Not really sure why you're getting downvoted. I agree to some extent. I've always had a love-hate thing for Mr. Nielsen. I've come to terms with him in the regards of treating his philosophies as baseline rules. Kind of like overriding laws in the real world we are recommended to abide by. But as in real life, rules are meant to be broken when it makes sense, such as not crossing a street when you have a don't walk sign. That would be a law. But when you don't see a car for miles around, it just doesn't make sense to abide this law. Jakob spells out these simple laws, but there will always be occasions where you say, well in this instance, it doesn't make sense, because of so-and-so. And that's where it will make sense to get creative and deviate.

I probably got downvoted because people thought the last part of my comment was unnecessary. If that's the case then I'm willing to take my lumps without regret. My experience as a web designer for 15 years and being thoroughly unimpressed with Nielsen during the entire tenure of useit.com certainly will have a tendency to come out a bit sideways from time to time.

I upvoted you as well.

The problem with Nielsen and his like is that they talk about averages but fragmented.

Everyone worth their salary know that it's a balance question not an average question and that looking at users instead of customers simply isn't useful.

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