#13561
Links that go directly to a site's interior pages enhance usability because, unlike generic links, they specifically relate to users' goals. Websites should encourage deep linking and follow three guidelines to support its users.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Design>Web Design>Usability
#21016
Deferred Hypertext: The Virtues of Delayed Gratification
Navigating a full browsing session to find information can be unpleasant and slow, particularly on mobile devices. Instead, issue a deferred request and have the information arrive later, as done by some SMS systems.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Design>Web Design>Information Design
#13791
Design for Process, Not Products 
Customers of business-to-business sites are often faced with much more difficult decisions than the customers of business-to-consumer sites. A concept such as 'getting management approval' doesn't even exist in B-to-C but is core to most B-to-B processes. We recently studied users who were trying to decide whether to lease or buy office equipment. BuyerZone.com and OfficeMax both failed because they didn't support users going through a process. In order to support a customer's process, businesses need to understand it from the user's perspective. If users feel pushed through a process or can't figure out what to do next, you're skipping steps that matter to them. Don't design Webpages. Design support for users' tasks.
Nielsen, Jakob. Business 2.0 (2001). Design>Web Design
#13357
Designing Web Ads Using Click-Through Data
Search engine ads are one type of Web advertising that can actually work. To create the best ads, do quick experiments and redesign ads based on usability principles for online writing. Doing so helped us increase ad click-through by 55 to 310 percent.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Design>Web Design>Information Design>Usability
#21018
Did Poor Usability Kill E-Commerce?
User success rates on e-commerce sites are only 56%, and most sites comply with only a third of documented usability guidelines. Given this, improving a site's usability can substantially increase both sales and a site's odds of survival.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Design>Web Design>Usability>E Commerce
#28461
Digital Divide: The Three Stages
The 'digital divide' refers to the fact that certain parts of the population have substantially better opportunities to benefit from the new economy than other parts of the population. Most commentators view this in purely economic terms. However, two other types of divide will have much greater impact in the years to come.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Accessibility>Online
#20831
Directions for Online Publishing
Online publishing of newspapers, magazines, and books is really a meaningless concept. We have to leave the legacy publications behind as we invent the world of online publishing.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1995). Articles>Publishing>Online>Web Design
#19029
Discount Usability for the Web
The introduction of the spreadsheet turned millions of people into programmers without the benefit of a computer science degree. Because of the resulting lack of knowledge about even the simplest debugging techniques, spreadsheet formulae and macros are riddled with bugs and million-dollar business decisions are sometimes based on calculation errors. It has been estimated that at least 40 percent of spreadsheets have bugs. The introduction of the Web is causing a similar phenomenon in user interface design. My current estimate is that there will be about 10 billion Web pages on the Internet by the Year 2001. Intranets and extranets will probably hold at least 10 times that many pages. We already have two million pages on SunWeb (the intranet at Sun Microsystems). Each Web page is a user interface design problem equivalent to that of a dialogue box: you must design a task flow that brings the most important items to users' attention and design alternative options for them to click on -- all the while keeping the meaning of these options clear for novice users. Considering that the world will design more than a 100 billion of these dialog-box equivalents in the next three or four years, extremely simple and inexpensive usability methods are crucial if we are to avoid a usability meltdown on the Web.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1997). Design>Web Design>Usability
#28259
Diversity is Power for Specialized Sites
Small websites get less traffic than big ones, but they can still dominate their niches. For each question users ask, the Web delivers a different set of sites to provide the answers.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Web Design>Information Design
#19759
Diversity is Power for Specialized Sites
Small websites get less traffic than big ones, but they can still dominate their niches. For each question users ask, the Web delivers a different set of sites to provide the answers.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Web Design>Search>Search Engine Optimization
#28699
Do Government Agencies and Non-Profits Get ROI From Usability?
Although the gains don't fall into traditional profit columns, there are clear arguments for improving usability of non-commercial websites and intranets. In one example, a state agency could get an ROI of 22,000% by fixing a basic usability problem.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#18565
Do Productivity Increases Generate Economic Gains?
Usability improvements can save time-on-task, but critics argue that this is not the same as saving money. Others worry that productivity gains cause unemployment. Neither is correct: usable design saves money and saves jobs.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Usability
#28696
Making users suffer a drop-down menu to enter state abbreviations is one of many small annoyances that add up to a less efficient, less pleasant user experience. It's worth fixing as many of these usability irritants as you can.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability
#11865
Drop-Down Menus: Use Sparingly
Drop-down menus are often more trouble than they are worth and can be confusing because Web designers use them for several different purposes. Also, scrolling menus reduce usability when they prevent users from seeing all their options in a single glance.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Design>Web Design>Usability
#25082
Durability of Usability Guidelines
About 90% of usability guidelines from 1986 are still valid, though several guidelines are less important because they relate to design elements that are rarely used today.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Articles>Usability>History
#20208
Cascading style sheets (CSS) are an elegantly designed extension to the Web and one of the greatest hopes for recapturing the Web's ideal of separation of presentation and content. The Web is the ultimate cross-platform system, and your content will be presented on such a huge variety of devices that pages should specify the meaning of the information and leave presentation details to a merger (or 'cascade') of site-specified style sheets and the user's preferences. If the introduction of WebTV broke your pages, you will appreciate the ability to introduce new page designs by creating a single style sheet file rather than by modifying thousands of content pages.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Design>Web Design>CSS
#14186
Email Newsletters Pick Up Where Websites Leave Off
Users have highly emotional reactions to newsletters which feel much more personal than websites. In usability testing, success rates were high for subscribe and unsubscribe tasks, but users were frustrated by newsletters that demanded too much of their time.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Design>Web Design>Email>Newsletters
#27813
Email Newsletters: Surviving Inbox Congestion
Newsletter usability has increased since our last study, but the competition for users' attention has also grown with the ever-increasing glut of information.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Articles>Usability>Marketing>Email
#18453
Employee Directory Search: Resolving Conflicting Usability Guidelines
Guidelines conflict on whether to limit intranet search to a single search box or dedicate an additional box to employee directory searches. There's theory to support both guidelines. What's up?
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Design>Usability>Style Guides
#13355
Web services will free individual site designers from having to program and design common features. This will decrease business costs, increase usability, and let designers focus on and improve features that are unique to each site.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Design>Content Management>Web Design>Usability
#10168
Websites must tone down their individual appearance and distinct design in all ways: visual design; terminology and labeling; interaction design and workflow; and information architecture. These changes are driven by four different trends that all lead to the same conclusion.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Usability>Web Design>Interaction Design
#26629
Enterprise Portals Are Popping
A usability analysis of 23 intranet portals finds strong growth, increasing collaboration features, and cross-functional governance.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Design>Web Design>Intranets>Usability
#26627
Usability goes beyond the level of individual users interacting with screens. It's also a question of how easy or cumbersome it is for the entire organization to use a system.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Usability>Workplace
#25779
Evangelizing Usability: Change Your Strategy at the Halfway Point
The evangelism strategies that help a usability group get established in a company are different from the ones needed to create a full-fledged usability culture.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Usability
#31905
Extreme Usability: How to Make an Already-Great Design Even Better
The 1% of websites that don't suck can be made even better by strengthening exceptional user performance, eliminating miscues, and targeting company-wide use and unmet needs.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability
