#13611
Sometimes technological progress backfires, and the 'better' technology turns out to be worse for users. The Web is no stranger to this problem, and has experienced many innovations that would have been best avoided. Examples include frames, changing the color of browser scrollbars, and scrolling text. Another example of harmful Web technology comes with the increasing use of style sheets, which let web designers specify the exact size of text down to the pixel. Unfortunately, many designers are using this ability, leading to reduced readability of an increasing number of websites.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Design>Accessibility>Web Design>Typography
#28698
Schools should teach deep, strategic computer insights that can't be learned from reading a manual.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Education>Technology
#31908
Lists of links are an intermediate case between content-embedded links and menu items. Showing listed links in blue or in the site's main link color is the recommended design — and the one most intranets follow.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Color
#30194
Long vs. Short Articles as Content Strategy
Information foraging shows how to calculate your content strategy's costs and benefits. A mixed diet that combines brief overviews and comprehensive coverage is often best.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2007). Articles>Web Design>Usability>Writing
#19123
Low-End Media for User Empowerment
Fancy media on websites typically fails user testing. Simple text and clear photos not only communicate better with users, they also enhance users' feeling of control and thus support the Web's mission as an instant gratification environment.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Design>Web Design>Multimedia>Usability
#25253
Lower-literacy users exhibit very different reading behaviors than higher-literacy users: they plow text rather than scan it, and they miss page elements due to a narrower field of view.
#10165
E-mail lists are an e-marketers dream: mailing lists provide a highly targeted way of reaching people; email doesn't require you to wait until the customer remembers to go visit your site. Mailing lists allow you to extend the footprint of your website. In the literal sense (get space in the user's inbox and not just in the browser). And in the more interesting metaphorical sense: More services become possible when you can reach out to users and provide them with time-dependent information. Just remember the push fiasco: it is not the goal to lay claim to ever-increasing amounts of the users time; prompt them just enough to be useful but not so much that the email becomes a burden. Users will unsubscribe faster than you can say 'information overload.'
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2000). Articles>Usability>Email
#14185
Making Flash Usable for Users With Disabilities
Flash designs are easier for users with disabilities to use when designers combine visual and textual presentations, minimize incessant movement, decrease spacing between related objects, and simplify features.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Design>Web Design>Interactive>Flash
#13612
Making the Physical Environment Interactive
Microsoft's most innovative product of the 1990s was Interactive Barney: a plush toy containing a computer that lets it interact with kids. When you squeeze Barney's toe, for example, he sings a song; when you cover his eyes, he plays peek-a-boo. Soon, many more physical objects may become interactive, and they're likely to contain much more broadly defined and subtle user interfaces than the primitive toe squeezing that Interactive Barney pioneered.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2002). Design>Human Computer Interaction
#19121
Making Web Advertisements Work
There are many reasons why advertisements don't work well on the Web, but it is most unsettling when an ad actually portrays something relevant to users and still fails. Why would this occur? Well, to start, we must consider why text ads work so well on search engines. Each user has a goal -- perhaps it is to learn about digital cameras, perhaps to purchase a book. In either case, users' attention is focused on whatever gets them to their goal; they ignore everything else. When users enter search queries, the targeted ads that the engine returns relate directly to what users are after. Hence, they look at and follow the ads. Indeed, such advertisements probably have an advantage over the plain search results because they show both that the advertiser is competent and has a direct interest in serving consumers.
Nielsen, Jakob and Donald A. Norman. Alertbox (2003). Design>Web Design>Marketing>Usability
#20857
Some details less profound than disabled access, international usability, and site structure, but still important for Web usability.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (1996). Design>Web Design>Usability
#24464
Mastery, Mystery, and Misery: The Ideologies of Web Design
Behind a website's superficial appearance lies its fundamental understanding of user behavior in an interactive service. Choices such as whether the "buy" button is red or orange or whether the navigation menu runs across the top or down the left side are much debated, but make at most a few percent difference in usability. In contrast, the design ideology can make or break a site. I see three contrasting approaches to design, which I have dubbed mastery, mystery, and misery.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2004). Design>Web Design
#25778
Medical Usability: How to Kill Patients Through Bad Design
A field study identified twenty-two ways that automated hospital systems can result in the wrong medication being dispensed to patients. Most of these flaws are classic usability problems that have been understood for decades.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Usability>Biomedical
#25776
Mental Models For Search Are Getting Firmer
Users now have precise expectations for the behavior of search. Designs that invoke this mental model but work differently are confusing.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2005). Articles>Usability>Search>Cognitive Psychology
#31913
Middle-Aged Users' Declining Web Performance
Between the ages of 25 and 60, people's ability to use websites declines by 0.8% per year — mostly because they spend more time per page, but also because of navigation difficulties.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2008). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Elderly
#20181
Misconceptions About Usability
Misconceptions about usability's expense, the time it involves, and its creative impact prevent companies from getting crucial user data, as does the erroneous belief that existing customer-feedback methods are a valid driver for interface design.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Usability
#21017
Mobile Devices Will Soon Be Useful
New mobile devices and services are more realistic and useful than last year's models, and will likely expand mobile device adoption. Design usability and simplicity are key, particularly for the automotive market where complexity can be dangerous.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2001). Articles>Usability>Technology>PDA
#21008
Mobile Devices: One Generation From Useful
New mobile devices show a huge improvement over previous generations, but they're still not good enough to score a real win. To get there, we need both PC-integrated applications and specialized mobile services rather than repurposed website content.
Nielsen, Jakob. Alertbox (2003). Articles>Usability>Technology>PDA
#10159
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
#25085
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
#30198
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
#28952
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
#20865
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
#24462
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
#20818
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
