#27940
Users Interleave Sites and Genres
When working on business problems, users flitter among sites, alternating visits to different service genres. No single website defines the user experience on its own.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability
#27701
Variability in User Performance
When doing website tasks, the slowest 25% of users take 2.4 times as long as the fastest 25% of users. This difference is much higher than for other types of computer use; only programming shows a greater disparity.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Testing
#18456
Voice Interfaces: Assessing the Potential
Visual interfaces are inherently superior to auditory interfaces for many tasks. The Star Trek fantasy of speaking to your computer is not the most fruitful path to usable systems.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Design>Usability>Accessibility>Voice
#10255
The good news is that usability has been recognized as an important element of Internet success: the average speaker at industry conferences now promotes good user experience in preference to 'cool sites.' The bad news is that most sites employ horribly misguided methodologies that do not assess real usability. Sometimes the methods are simply worthless; other times they are directly misleading.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1999). Articles>Usability>Methods
#10169
The WAP Backlash has started in Europe: Most speakers at last week's NetMedia 2000 conference in London proclaimed WAP a temporary aberration that delivers substandard services. British and continental newspapers are full of stories about WAP phones that don't work and services that are difficult to use. Many commentators point out the simple fact that since you have a phone in your hand, most tasks are faster to perform by simply placing a voice telephone call than by using WAP.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Usability>Wireless Web>WAP
#11874
Following a UK field study, 70% of users decided not to continue using WAP. Currently, its services are poorly designed, have insufficient task analysis, and abuse existing non-mobile design guidelines. WAP's killer app is killing time; m-commerce's prospects are dim for the next several years.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Usability>Wireless Web>WAP
#30828
AJAX, rich Internet UIs, mashups, communities, and user-generated content often add more complexity than they're worth. They also divert design resources and prove (once again) that what's hyped is rarely what's most profitable.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>User Interface>Ajax
#20852
The Internet doubles every year and has done so ever since it was founded. Currently, the Web grows even faster (doubling every four months or so), though this higher growth rate will have to slow down eventually since the Web is a subset of the Internet and thus cannot outgrow it.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#13072
Web Research: Believe the Data
We know a good deal about users' behavior on the Web. For example, they demand fast download and are extremely impatient and want immediate support for their own goals. Even so, most websites are slow, internally-driven, and do not focus on solving the users' problems. Do not ignore research: it can improve your site by several hundred percent.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1999). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#28380
Webに関連する統計データの可視化：対数グラフと垂れ下がるテール
ウェブサイトへのアクセスログを線形グラフにするだけでは、データの大切な部分を見落とすことになりかねない。ときには、一歩進んだグラフ化にもやってみる価値があるものだ。
Nielsen, Jakob. U-Site (2006). (Japanese) Design>Web Design>Reports>Log Analysis
#26630
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes
Weblogs are often too internally focused and ignore key usability issues, making it hard for new readers to understand the site and trust the author.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Blogging
#20862
WebTV achieves a very high level of usability given its design constraints. Unfortunately, the constraints are so severe that even this great design ultimately fails to provide an optimal Web user experience. WebTV's usability engineers have done a good job at making it very easy to install and as easy as possible to use, and WebTV's imaging engineers have done an incredible job at high-quality character rendering in an NTSC video signal. In fact, the screenshots in this column do not look as good as WebTV does when displayed on a good television set: you have to see it to believe that it's possible to achieve WebTV's level of text readability on a television screen.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Design>Web Design>Usability>Web Browsers
#31903
Weekly User Testing: TiVo Did It, You Can, Too
TiVo ran 12 user tests in 12 weeks while designing its new website. As TiVo's experience shows, frequent and regular testing keeps the design usability focused.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Usability>Testing
#24466
When Search Engines Become Answer Engines
The website is becoming a less prominent locus of experience as people use search engines to bring up answers to their current questions. How can sites cope with masses of freeloaders?
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>Usability>Search
#20833
Who Should You Hire to Design Your Web Site?
You need to hire someone to design your Web site. What should you look for before signing on the dotted line?
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1995). Design>Web Design>Interviewing
#22309
Why Consumer Products Have Inferior User Experience
Physical products, from consumer electronics to cars, are needlessly complex because they're developed by insular companies that continue to ignore the growing usability trend.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>Usability>User Experience>User Centered Design
#10258
Why Frames Suck (Most of the Time)
Judging from the email I receive, the most controversial statement I have made in my Alertbox columns so far was to make 'the use of frames' one of the mistakes in my list of top ten mistakes in Web design. For new or inexperienced Web designers, I stand by my original recommendation. Frames: Just Say No.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Articles>Usability>Web Design
#22587
Why Mobile Phones are Annoying
Bystanders rated mobile-phone conversations as dramatically more noticeable, intrusive, and annoying than conversations conducted face-to-face. While volume was an issue, hearing only half a discussion also seemed to up the irritation factor.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Design>User Interface>Usability>Voice
#27413
Why You Only Need to Test With Five Users
Some people think that usability is very costly and complex and that user tests should be reserved for the rare web design project with a huge budget and a lavish time schedule. Not true. Elaborate usability tests are a waste of resources. The best results come from testing no more than 5 users and running as many small tests as you can afford.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Usability>Testing>Methods
#19122
Will Plain-Text Ads Continue to Rule?
Text-only advertisements work far better than banners, but is this only due to their novelty? Search engine text ads will retain their superiority over time, but text ads on other sites will work only if they focus on directly meeting users' needs.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Design>Web Design>Marketing>Usability
#28974
Write Articles, Not Blog Postings
To demonstrate world-class expertise, avoid quickly written, shallow postings. Instead, invest your time in thorough, value-added content that attracts paying customers.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Writing
#31906
Writing Style for Print vs. Web
Linear vs. non-linear. Author-driven vs. reader-driven. Storytelling vs. ruthless pursuit of actionable content. Anecdotal examples vs. comprehensive data. Sentences vs. fragments.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Usability
#20867
Zipf Curves and Website Popularity
Much available data suggests that Web use follows a Zipf distribution. The figure shows the distribution of incoming page requests to www.sun.com during a one-month period last year. Each datapoint represents one page, with the x-axis showing pages sorted according to popularity: the first page is the most popular one (the home page), the second page is the one that received second-most requests that month, and so on until we reach page number 10,000 which was only requested a single time that month.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1997). Articles>Web Design>User Centered Design>Usability
#28374
初期の頃の爆発的な成長も徐々にそのスピードを緩め、成熟に達しつつあるWebではあるが、その歩みは留まることなく、最近、ウェブサイトの数が1億を突破した。
Nielsen, Jakob. U-Site (2006). (Japanese) Articles>Usability>Web Design
#28460
経済的要因による格差は、たいした問題ではないが、ユーザビリティと活用性の格差は、膨大な数の人たちをインターネットの潜在的利益から引き離している。
Nielsen, Jakob. Usability.gr.jp (2006). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Online
