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

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

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

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

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

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

Does User Annoyance Matter?

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

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

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

DVD Menu Design: The Failures of Web Design Recreated Yet Again

Designers of DVDs have failed to profit from the lessons of previous media: Computer software, Internet web pages, and even WAP phones. As a result, the DVD menu structure is getting more and more baroque, less and less usable, less pleasurable, less effective. It is time to take DVD design as seriously as we do web design. The field needs some discipline some attention to the User Experience, and some standardization of control and display formats.

Norman, Donald A. Alertbox (2001). Design>User Interface>Multimedia>DVD

Effective Use of Style Sheets

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

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

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

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

The End of Homemade Websites

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

The End of Web Design

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

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

Enterprise Usability

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

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

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

F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content

Eyetracking visualizations show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe.

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

Fancy Formatting, Fancy Words = Looks Like a Promotion = Ignored

One site did most things right, but still had a miserable 14% success rate for its most important task. The reason? Users ignored a key area because it resembled a promotion.

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

Fast, Cheap, and Good: Yes, You Can Have It All

The sooner you complete a usability study, the higher its impact on the design process. Slower methods should be deferred to an annual usability checkup.

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

Fast, Cheap, and Good: Yes, You Can Have It All

The sooner you complete a usability study, the higher its impact on the design process. Slower methods should be deferred to an annual usability checkup.

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

Feature Richness and User Engagement

The more engaged users are, the more features an application can sustain. But most users have low commitment--especially to websites, which must focus on simplicity, rather than features.

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