2D is Better Than 3D

Most abstract information spaces work poorly in 3D because they are non-physical. If anything, they have at least a hundred dimensions, so visualizing an information space in 3D means throwing away 97 dimensions instead of 98: hardly a big enough improvement to justify the added interface complexity.

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

"About Us" -- Presenting Information About an Organization on Its Website

Study participants searched websites for background information ranging from company history to management biographies and contact details. Their success rate was 70%, leaving much room for usability improvements in the 'About Us' designs.

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

Accessibility Is Not Enough

A strict focus on accessibility as a scorecard item doesn't help users with disabilities. To help these users accomplish critical tasks, you must adopt a usability perspective.

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

Accessible Design for Users With Disabilities

Making the Web more accessible for users with various disabilities is to a great extent a matter of using HTML the way it was intended: to encode meaning rather than appearance. As long as a page is coded for meaning, it is possible for alternative browsers to present that meaning in ways that are optimized for the abilities of individual users and thus facilitate the use of the Web by disabled users.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Design>Web Design>Accessibility

Alertbox #200

Jakob Nielsen has published 200 Alertbox columns on the Web since 1995; in addition to promoting usability, the column's readership statistics validate the practice of archiving content.

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

Alternative Interfaces for Accessibility

The key difference between user interfaces for sighted users and blind users is not that between graphics and text; it's the difference between 2-D and 1-D. Optimal usability for users with disabilities requires new approaches and new user interfaces.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Design>Accessibility>Usability>Universal Usability

Amazon: No Longer the Role Model for E-Commerce Design

Many design elements work for Amazon.com mainly because of its status as the world's largest and most established e-commerce site. Normal sites should not copy Amazon's design.

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

Archiving Usability Reports

Most usability practitioners don't derive full value from their user tests because they don't systematically archive the reports. An intranet-based usability archive offers four substantial benefits.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Usability>Methods

Are Users Stupid?

Opponents of the usability movement claim that it focuses on 'stupid' users and that most users can easily overcome complexity. In reality, even smart users prefer pursuing their own goals to navigating idiosyncratic designs. As Web use grows, the price of ignoring usability will only increase.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Articles>Usability

Assessing the Usability of a User Interface Standard

User interface standards can be hard to use for developers. In a laboratory experiment, 26 students achieved only 71% compliance with a two page standard; many violations were due to influence from previous experience with non-standard systems. In a study of a real company's standard,developers were only able to find 4 of 12 deviations in a sample system, and three real products broke between 32% and 55% of the mandatory rules in the standard. Designers were found to rely heavily on the examples in the standard and their experience with other user interfaces.

Thovtrup, Henrik and Jakob Nielsen. Alertbox (1991). Articles>User Interface>Standards>Usability

Authentic Behavior in User Testing

Despite being an artificial situation, user testing generates realistic findings because people engage strongly with the tasks and suspend their disbelief.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Usability>Testing

Automated Email From Websites to Customers

Transactional email can be a website's customer service ambassador, but messages must first survive a ruthless selection process in the user's in-box. Differentiating your message from spam is thus the first duty of email design.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Business Communication>Correspondence>Email

Avoid Within-Page Links

On the Web, users have a clear mental model for a hypertext link: it should bring up a new page. Within-page links violate this model and thus cause confusion.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2006). Design>Web Design>Hypertext

Avoiding Bias from the Survivor Effect

Only a few of the survey sites we analyzed in 2000 are still around. We can safely assume that the surviving sites are not a random sample of the original group, but rather that significant differences exist between the sites that made it and those that died. Survival might be due partly to luck, but it is mainly a result of good management and an understanding of Internet fundamentals. Thus, the surviving sites are likely to be disproportionately clued-in about what it takes to run an online business.

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

Avoiding Commodity Status

Software innovations are the main way to differentiate both high-tech products and websites.

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

B2B Usability

User testing shows that business-to-business websites have substantially lower usability than mainstream consumer sites. If they want to convert more prospects into leads, B2B sites should follow more guidelines and make it easier for prospects to research their offerings.

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

B2B: Help Your Fans Convince Their Bosses

B2B websites must support a more complex buying process than B2C sites. Three key goals are to make a buyer's shortlist, offer a downloadable advocacy kit, and build a reputation for great service.

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

Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings

Users rarely look at display advertisements on websites. Of the four design elements that do attract a few ad fixations, one is unethical and reduces the value of advertising networks.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Design>Web Design>Ethics>User Centered Design

Bass Curves for the Diffusion of Innovations

Uptake of hypertext is likely to happen somewhat differently than the standard Bass curve. First, the market for hypertext use is highly dependent on the number of people who have computers with certain minimum capabilities (typically at least a graphical user interface; for WWW use it is also necessary to have Internet access). Second, the influence of other hypertext users is almost certainly not linear.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1995). Articles>Human Computer Interaction

Be Succinct! (Writing for the Web)

The three main guidelines for writing for the Web are: be succinct: write no more than 50% of the text you would have used in a hardcopy publication; write for scannability: don't require users to read long continuous blocks of text; use hypertext to split up long information into multiple pages.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1997). Articles>Web Design>Writing

Becoming a Usability Professional

To reach the goal of making technology truly suited for humans, the world will need about half a million new usability professionals over the next 20 years. The sooner their training begins, the better off we'll all be. People frequently ask me what it takes to become a usability professional and get a job in the field. The answer lies in characteristics that all great usability professionals share.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Careers>Usability

Beyond Accessibility: Treating Users with Disabilities as People

With current Web design practices, users without disabilities experience three times higher usability than users who are blind or have low vision. Usability guidelines can substantially improve the matter by making websites and intranets support task performance for users with disabilities.

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

Beyond the Buy Button in E-Commerce

The best way for e-commerce sites to increase subsequent orders is to treat customers well after they place their initial order.

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

Blah-Blah Text: Keep, Cut, or Kill?

Introductory text on Web pages is usually too long, so users skip it. But short intros can increase usability by explaining the remaining content's purpose.

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

Breadcrumb Navigation Increasingly Useful

Breadcrumbs use a single line of text to show a page's location in the site hierarchy. While secondary, this navigation technique is increasingly beneficial to users.

Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Design>Web Design>Information Design