Deconstructing Jakob Nielsen

You probably don't care if I insult famed usability expert Jakob Nielsen. People either don't know him, don't like him, or dare not admit to liking him.

Personally, I think he's misunderstood. When the subject of Nielsen arises (Alright. I admit. I work him into conversations a bit.), I try to explain to my colleagues that they have to consider every Nielsen comment in light of the body of his work and the context in which it was written.

Designers hold special animus toward him for their perception of his utter disdain for all things that might be construed as creative design.

"Haven't you seen his website," they'll ask rhetorically, as if to suggest that by admitting to its obvious lack of aesthetic value, I also must reject everything he says or believe that he thinks every site should be that way.

Invariably I try to explain to them that he's trying to make a point that websites don't have to be pretty to be useful, not that he's making a case for the normative state of websites. No one believes me, of course, but now I have proof.

Guardian Unlimited wrote a nice piece on Nielsen, and explains:

It's a decade-old design and it wouldn't take much effort to make it look nicer, would it? More importantly, surely he ought to be following all his own guidelines on usability.

Nielsen is not a graphic designer, and he reckons that smartening it up would put him in the middle range of site designs: "I'd be just one out of 10m. Redesigning it would take away the real value, which is that it stands out. But I'm probably the only one who could get away with it. I wouldn't recommend it to somebody starting out now!"

Although Use It annoys the people who think web design is graphic design, Nielsen doesn't mind. "There is something good about upsetting people, because it's making an impact," he says. But, he adds: "It's not good if you only annoy people," and you have to offer something of value.

[emphasis mine]

The article gives some attention to Nielsen's recently publicized and subsequently misunderstood and maligned disdain for blogs, but it doesn't really give the sort of depth and nuance that you can get from his original article. To the salient point highlighted in the Guardian article, I can attest that building value in a blog is a commitment. It can be tough to stand out.

Sometimes standing out requires upsetting people -- not for its own sake, of course, but for putting your flag in the ground and taking a stand for what you think is right. If everyone agrees, unless you're the most charming and convincing person on the face of the planet (and you have magical powers that you use to interfere with free will), no one is really thinking.

And that's not a good recipe for standing out, or more importantly, defining the scope or contributing to the course of the debate.

Everyone say it with me:

Jakob Nielsen is my friend.
Jakob Nielsen is my friend.
Jakob Nielsen is my friend.

Even when he's disparaging our profession or hobby. - Cam Beck

Hat tip to If! for the link to the interview.

Comments

[mvellandi]

Good 'ole Jakey,
stirring trouble I remember back in 2000 when I was learning/playing with flash 5.
You know what his and Steve Krug's greatest contribution was to me? Indirectly pointing out the curse of knowledge that most web designers had toward their work. To me, they pioneered end-user TQM, info architectural process improvement, and testing/validation.

Those are very important contributions to effective interactive design, development, and project management.