Usability is a moving target

Posted on February 6, 2008 
Filed Under Usability

They are two of the Big Names in online usability—Jakob Nielsen and Steve Krug.

I wrote that sentence and then asked myself if there were others who should be considered on the same level. I wasn’t sure. I went to Amazon.com and searched for books on “usability”. The top two results:

I’ve read Krug’s book at least twice, maybe three times. It’s not just informative and packed with good advice; it’s easy and actually fun to read. I’ve learned a great deal from Nielsen’s website over the years, and I’m sure there’s still an awful lot I’ve missed. These guys are real experts and argue persistently for techniques of keeping websites easy to use. Because… a site that’s easy to use is an effective site.

I won’t argue with that.

But then it just so happened that I visited their websites on the same day. Go ahead, take a quick look (but don’t forget to come back):

Those are two butt-ugly sites. You have to ask yourself—does an effective site have to look like that? Or have users evolved over the past decade to the point where we can identify a link even if it’s not blue and underlined? Further, could it be that an attractive design actually makes a site more usable? Let’s say you have a user who doesn’t know who these guys are and this user opens one of these sites. Do you suppose that user might just think, “Whoa, what a crude and ugly site. So 1990s. Can I really count on good advice from someone who can’t do a better job than this?”

Nowadays you can expect visitors to your site to be more sophisticated, and probably more demanding when it comes to design. Usability evolves with the users and we have to keep up.

Comments

One Response to “Usability is a moving target”

  1. jenny on February 21st, 2008 10:04 pm

    Funny you ask this question, because I was actually doing some research on trends in web development and what makes a good site. In the process, I came across Nielsen’s site. And had to look closely to determine whether or not it was current. There was good information in there, but I almost dismissed it for the very reason you suggested. It looked like a site from the late ’90s.

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