SitePoint Interviews Jacob Nielsen!

**georgina** · Sep 18, 2002, 19:39

He's the Father Of Usability... and though he may also be the Bane of Web Designers, there's no denying that Jakob Nielsen has had a huge impact on the Web.

With his regular alertbox column, and having published book after book on the subject, Jakob Nielsen is literally a household name.

SitePoint has secured a rare interview with the revered Mr. Nielsen! So post those questions you've always wanted to ask the Usability Guru, and we'll be sure to get the answers!

georgina

**Smarky** · Sep 19, 2002, 08:33

Woah!

1) You recently signed a deal with Macromedia to help improve Flash, what work have you done here so far and how do you feel Flash needs to be improved to be more usable, do you still dislike it?

2) How do you think the best way to balance a good looking design with something that is usable?

3) Which sites do you think offer a great level of usability and still keep a good looking design?

4) Do you think good design needs to be sacrificed so that a site is usable? Should the designers even care about the site looking good and just concentrate on usability like your own personal site(useit.com)?

5) What do you think of the stick you get from many designers?

and if you don't want him to ever talk to Sitepoint again ask him...

6) Why does your site look like it was designed by a five year old? :P

7) Does this flash movie have good usability http://www.urbanev.com/jakob/

8) Can I borrow some money?

9) How many people that attend your speeches play the Jakob Nielsen drinking Game http://www.rc3.org/clips/nielsen_drinking_game.html

**Smarky** · Sep 19, 2002, 08:38

Isn't usability just one persons opinion?

How do you rate Sitepoint in terms of usability?

How do you think usability has changed on webpages over the years. Is it better or worse now than it was a few years ago and why?

**Hierophant** · Sep 19, 2002, 09:12

What happens when usability and accessibility collide? Do they both use the same techniques to make the Internet available to all?

What is your view on the current usability of the Internet when accessed by new devices such as PDAs, cell phones, game consoles and Internet Access Devices?

**Winged Spider** · Sep 19, 2002, 09:59

How can resource limited web designer run usability tests on their website without a huge cost in time and resources?

**tdev** · Sep 19, 2002, 14:13

a very open-ended question I know but here goes ...

Will usability issues put the small design shop (10 employees or less) out of business or make them more competitive?

**pony** · Sep 20, 2002, 05:21

What are your favourite sites that in your opinion do a good job of combining usability and visual attractiveness?

**randem** · Sep 20, 2002, 05:44

1) Boxers or briefs, and why?

2) Do you put your pants on one-leg-at-a-time, like the rest of us? Or is there a more usable method we're missing?

3) What changes would you make to the NFL to make the game of football easier to understand?

4) You're at Denny's with your family when a waiter drops his tray, a blueberry pie landing on your brand new white shirt. What is your reaction?

5) Seriously... as input devices, the keyboard and the mouse are both hard-to-use and lead to repetitive-motion ailments. Speech recognitions aside, what ideas do you have that could make computers more "usable" devices?

**thmz** · Sep 20, 2002, 21:57

1)what do you think of macromedia's site in terms of usability?

2)which one is more usable in your POV, adobe's site or macromedia's site?

**mattjacob** · Sep 21, 2002, 00:14

Originally posted by georgina
Jacob Neilsen is literally a household name.

Yes, but so is Jakob Nielsen--you should interview him instead! :snicker:

**choazart** · Sep 21, 2002, 20:48

How much money have you made selling books and opinions which are really nothing more than common sense?

Seriously though...

Did I mention that I am a usability expert too? Here's some advice....

1) Make sure your site maintains a consistent look so your visitors won't be confused (a good idea is to make sure you have your logo on all pages so visitors don't think that they are at the Wal Mart site...

2) Label your navigation sensibly (eg. If you have an employment page call it "jobs" instead of "login"...

3) Don't use any graphics because you should really be concerned that 1 visitor in a million has a 14.4 modem...

Next week I will deconstruct Jakob Nielsen's lame site and will publish my findings in a book entitled "Self-important experts guide to 1996 web standards: making the web a boring exercise in academia"

I'll only charge $49.99

Rock on, Jakob Nielsen!

**Wavelan** · Sep 22, 2002, 21:28

how come your books are too tall to fit with the rest of mine

**Mike** · Sep 22, 2002, 21:32

~~nm, dumb question ~~

**Mike** · Sep 22, 2002, 21:32

Originally posted by Wavelan
how come your books are too tall to fit with the rest of mine

Hmm... not to usable, eh?

**georgina** · Sep 22, 2002, 21:44

Woah! Talk about defensive! Calm down: we're just interviewing the man, not asking him to redesign the SitePoint Forums

And mattjacob - thanks for pointing out the misspelling of Jakob's name

Meanwhile, we need to send the interview off within the next few days, so if you have questions to add, be sure to post 'em!

Thanks!

georgina

**TheBlueBoy** · Sep 22, 2002, 23:27

In your book "Homepage Usability" you berate websites for having a link (image or text) to the homepage, on the homepage. With this fast becoming the norm, and with no public outcries from accessibility groups, isn't this just a case of being 'too niggly'?

**M. Johansson** · Sep 23, 2002, 02:20

I have one. You sell an excellent PDF with 200+ tips for usability studies, and post Alertbox columns about how 5 users is enough for usability testing, but I'm personally yet to find a good "step-by-step" tutorial on how to actually conduct usability studies. Can you point out any good resources on this topic?

**Hierophant** · Sep 23, 2002, 03:22

Out of the following websites how would you score their usability and briefly what could be done to make them more usable:

www.yahoo.com
www.microsoft.com
www.aol.com
www.amazon.com
www.walmart.com
www.cnn.com
www.msnbc.com
www.sitepoint.com

**Utopia** · Sep 23, 2002, 05:17

How important should the site in questions target audience be when identifying specific usability problems. - Is there a broad "usability-blanket" that can be thrown over any website in terms of usability? - or, should each site be completely unique in terms of judgement and criticisms, based on who the target audience is.

When you conduct a usability report on any particular internet site, is it pitched at "the average person"? - if so, how would you describe an average internet user, in terms of what you think they're looking for.

Big me up if you use these!!!

**georgina** · Oct 6, 2002, 23:55

Thanks everyone

We've sent the questions off to Jakob - I'll let you know when the Interview is published!
georgina

**mmj** · Oct 7, 2002, 08:58

Oh no I missed this one! I was down here in the web page design forum and I overlooked it

Interviewing Jakob Neilsen! That's amazing!

I can't wait to see an interview of him at SitePoint

I wanted to know what he thinks about the use of tables for layout. His own site, useit, uses tables for layout purposes, and I wanted to know...

Anyway, maybe he's got something in his alertbox columns about it... I'll have another look.

**georgina** · Nov 5, 2002, 21:43

It's UP!

Jakob answers your questions at www.webmasterbase.com/article/922

Hope you enjoy it!

georgina

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