Jakob Nielsen on Newsletter Usability

I think there are some interesting "lessons learned" buried within Nielsen's data...

Nielsen discusses the relationship between newsletters and the sites they represent...but at the same time fails to touch upon the possibility of improving these websites based on the usability successes of newsletters.

"The positive emotional aspect of newsletters is that they can create much more of a bond between user and company than a website can."

I think the a lot can be gleaned if we change the last word of that sentence from "can" to "does currently." Nielsen lines up evidence of the success of newsletters (the emotional attachements users have to them, the personal feelings they invoke, their accountability of design, etc)...and personally, I see this evidence being used to make web site design better.

Imagine if your website gave the same emotional and personal reactions to users that a newsletter does? Imagine how great it would be to accountability of design? I think it's all very do-able...

I just wish that Nielsen had gone into this in a "what do we do with this data" kind of way. Of course, it may or may not be in his $195 downloadable report...but who knows?

:)

Tim
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