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Designing Web Usability

** By Jakob Nielson. I borrowed this book from a friend, and I'm glad I did for two reasons: one, it was good for me to look at some of Nielson's relatively currently thinking in book form; two, I didn't have to pay for it. If you're a web designer, you have to at least be aware of Jakob Nielson, if not obey his edicts. This book is his call to arms to make your web site usable, for crying out loud. While that's an admirable and desirable goal, his inflammatory tone and holier-than-thou attitude is off-putting to many. Much of what he says, however, is valuable if you've never really thought much about usability. There are a great many web sites out there that could really use the help of the principles he outlines. This book is full of the bullet-point kind of statements that make for easy implementation: observe someone using your site, use link titles, make your web site look like everyone else's so the users will have an easy time, and so forth. He claims to have a lot of research that backs up his statements as "good things", but there are few footnotes and even fewer citations; I guess it's expected that we'll find those in other, older books of his (a couple of which I've read or perused). Regardless, much of what he says can be considered hot-air-inflated common sense, so as long as you take his words with a nice chunk of salt, you can learn a lot of Jakob. I pretty much knew where he stood before I read this book, but I do feel a little more responsible having read it. You may too.

Posted by Joe on November 25, 2001 08:45 PM