Mobile Phones: Europe's Next Minitel?

Europe's cellular phone system is far superior to that in the United States. However, telephones will not be the platform for the mobile Internet. Given this, Europe's advantage may in fact be an obstacle to real innovations, as France's experience with Minitel shows.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Design>Information Design>Wireless Web

The Most Hated Advertising Techniques

Studies of how people react to online advertisements have identified several design techniques that impact the user experience very negatively.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>User Centered Design>Marketing

Multiple-User Simultaneous Testing (MUST)

Testing 5-10 users at once lets you conduct large-scale usability testing and still meet your deadlines.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods

The Myth of the Genius Designer

Having a good designer doesn't eliminate the need for a systematic usability process. Risk reduction and quality improvement both require user testing and other usability methods.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Testing

The Need for Speed

Every Web usability study I have conducted since 1994 has shown the same thing: users beg us to speed up page downloads. In the beginning, my reaction was along the lines of 'let's just give them better design and they will behappy to wait for it.' I have since become a reformed sinner since even my skull is not thick enough to withstand consistent user pleas year after year.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1997). Design>Web Design>Usability>Bandwidth

The Need for Web Design Standards

Unfortunately, much of the Web is like an anthill built by ants on LSD: many sites don't fit into the big picture, and are too difficult to use because they deviate from expected norms. Users expect 77% of the simpler Web design elements to behave in a certain way. Unfortunately, confusion reigns for many higher-level design issues.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Design>Web Design>User Interface>Standards

Noncommand User Interfaces

Several new user interface technologies and interaction principles seem to define a new generation of user interfaces that will move off the flat screen and into the physical world to some extent. Many of these next-generation interfaces will not have the user control the computer through commands, but will have the computer adapt the dialogue to the user's needs based on its inferences from observing the user. This article defines twelve dimensions across which future user interfaces may differ from the canonical window systems of today: User focus, the computer's role, interface control, syntax, object visibility, interaction stream, bandwidth, tracking feedback, interface locus, user programming, and software packaging. Keywords: Agents, Animated icons, BITPICT, DWIM, Embedded help, Eye tracking, Generations of user interfaces, Gestural interfaces, Help systems, Home computing, Interactive fiction, Interface paradigms, Noncommand based user interfaces, Prototyping, Usability heuristics, Virtual realities, Wizard of Oz method.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1993). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface>Usability

Novice vs. Expert Users

Web usability has traditionally been focused on increasing ease of learning for the novice users. This makes great sense and should continue to be the main goal. Remember Jakob's Law of the Internet user experience: users spend most of their time on other sites than your own. Thus, users rarely learn enough about any given site to become true expert users.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Web Design>Usability

Official Winter Olympics Site: Not Even Bronze

An early tweaking raised the Salt Lake City website to 70% compliance with homepage usability guidelines. Inside the site, however, task support falls far below medal contention.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability

Offshore Usability

To save costs, some companies are outsourcing Web projects to countries with cheap labor. Unfortunately, these countries lack strong usability traditions and their developers have limited access -- if any -- to good usability data from the target users.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Articles>Usability>Outsourcing>Offshoring

OK-Cancel or Cancel-OK?

Should the OK button come before or after the Cancel button? Following platform conventions is more important than suboptimizing an individual dialog box.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface>Usability

One Billion Internet Users

The Internet is growing at an annualized rate of 18% and now has one billion users. A second billion users will follow in the next ten years, bringing a dramatic change in worldwide usability needs.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability

One Hundred Million Websites

The early Web's explosive growth rate has slowed, but even the mature Web is still expanding and recently crossed the 100 million websites mark.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Web Design

Open New Windows for PDF and other Non-Web Documents

When using PC-native file formats such as PDF or spreadsheets, users feel like they're interacting with a PC application. Because users are no longer browsing a website, they shouldn't be given a browser UI.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Adobe Acrobat

Optimize Your Site's Usability

A specter is haunting the world of business: The specter of customer empowerment. Users rule the Internet and vote with millions of mouse-clicks every day. Users go where they are well treated, so customer-centered Web sites that are easy to use and pleasant to visit get the credit card numbers. Sites that are difficult to use or take forever to download suffer the death penalty. This simple fact is the reason usability has become a core competency for business survival in the network economy.

Nielsen, Jakob. ZDNet (1998). Design>Web Design>Usability

Outliers and Luck in User Performance

6% of task attempts are extremely slow and constitute outliers in measured user performance. These sad incidents are caused by bad luck that designers can -- and should -- eradicate.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods

Paper Prototyping: Getting User Data Before You Code

With a paper prototype, you can user test early design ideas at an extremely low cost. Doing so lets you fix usability problems before you waste money implementing something that doesn't work.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Usability>Prototyping

Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute

In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action. Your website's design undoubtedly influences participation inequality for better or worse. Being aware of the problem is the first step to alleviating it, and finding ways to broaden participation will become even more important as the Web's social networking services continue to grow.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Design>Web Design>Community Building

Passive Voice Is Redeemed For Web Headings

Active voice is best for most Web content, but using passive voice can let you front-load important keywords in headings, blurbs, and lead sentences. This enhances scannability and thus SEO effectiveness.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Grammar

PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption

Users get lost inside PDF files, which are typically big, linear text blobs that are optimized for print and unpleasant to read and navigate online. PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online presentation.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Adobe Acrobat

PDF: Unfit for Human Consumption

Users get lost inside PDF files, which are typically big, linear text blobs that are optimized for print and unpleasant to read and navigate online. PDF is good for printing, but that's it. Don't use it for online presentation.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Adobe Acrobat

Personalization is Over-Rated

Web personalization is much over-rated and mainly used as a poor excuse for not designing a navigable website. The real way to get individualized interaction between a user and a website is to present the user with a variety of options and let the user choose what is of interest to that individual at that specific time. If the information space is designed well, then this choice is easy, and the user achieves optimal information through the use of natural intelligence rather than artificial intelligence. In other words, I am the one entity on the world to know exactly what I need right now. Thus, I can tailor the information I see and the information I skip so that it suits my needs perfectly.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Design>Web Design>Personalization>Usability

Poor Code Quality Contaminates Users' Conceptual Models

Software bugs and system crashes result in huge productivity losses and undermine users' ability to form good models of how computers work. Website designers can help improve user confidence by prioritizing quality and robustness over features and the latest technology.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Articles>Usability>User Interface>Software

The Power of Defaults

Search engine users click the results listings' top entry much more often than can be explained by relevancy ratings. Once again, people tend to stick to the defaults.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Design>Web Design>Usability>Search

Preparing for the Holiday Shopping Season

Reduce the bounce rate for organic landing pages, collect data to manage PPC for maximum ROI, and take five other steps to maximize your site's holiday sales potential before it's too late.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce