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useit.com: usable information technology

useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Website

Permanent Content

Alertbox

Jakob's bi-weekly column on Web usability

Poor Code Quality Contaminates Users' Conceptual Models (October 28)
Software bugs and system crashes result in huge productivity losses and undermine users' ability to form good models of how computers work. Website designers can help improve user confidence by prioritizing quality and robustness over features and the latest technology.

The End of Homemade Websites (October 14)
Deferred Hypertext: The Virtues of Delayed Gratification (September 30)
Mobile Devices Will Soon Be Useful (September 16)

All Alertbox columns from 1995 to 2001

Reports

Beyond ALT text: designing for users with disabilities New since Oct. 25
How to design the PR section of your site to optimize usability for journalists
E-Commerce Design Guidelines (207 rules for e-commerce user experience)
230 tips to improve user testing
Locator usability: helping users find a company's physical locations

More reports and usability guidelines

Web Usability Books

Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed

Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity

"the most important book on web publishing yet to appear" (SlashDot)

"should [...] be read by any executive with responsibility for managing online operations" (Business Week)

Products and Services

Nielsen Norman Group offers usability reviews, keynote speeches, workshops and seminars, international usability studies, directions for redesign

About Jakob Nielsen

Biography and photos
Public appearances
Papers and essays by Jakob Nielsen

Jakob's Picks of Other Stuff

Recommended books about Web design and usability
Hotlist of recommended other sites

About This Site

Why this site has almost no graphics
Portal traffic referral statistics
Copyright and reprint rules

Frivolous Bottom-of-Page Photo

Photo of copies of 'Homepage Usability' book on the assembly line at the book binder's
My new book rolling off the assembly line
(in bookstores November 5)

News

I can't believe this: XP has a huge productivity benefit that Microsoft neglects to trumpet in its advertising and promotions. We are finally getting anti-aliased text in the operating system. Back in the mid-1980s IBM research found that anti-aliased text increases reading performance by 10-20%. The annual productivity gain for a business professional will be $1,600, or about the price of buying a nice PC with XP on it. (I discovered this major selling argument for XP, not from Microsoft's mighty marketing machine, but through a small link on Dave Winer's site.)

Somebody hire Bill Gates a tech writer: The Windows XP "upgrade advisor" will check your existing PC to see if it can be upgraded to XP. As stated on the web page for the advisor, "some of the language in the tool may imply that you are actually installing Windows XP" because they are reusing the same software that scans your system in the initial phase of an actual installation. Come on, what would it cost Bill to have a writer edit the messages for this tool? He is imposing a cost to the world economy of $3 million in lost productivity by causing confusion among the millions of people who will use the tool.

User Experience 2001/2002 Conference
> Washington, DC: October 21-24, 2001
> London, UK: November 4-7, 2001
> Sydney, Australia: mid-2002

Washington conference now successfully concluded
Read Washington Post's conference report
Now in London -- looks to be even bigger than Washington

I will speak on Web Usability Today, including a session on "Calculating Web Usability Return on Investment"

Invited Speaker
> Dan Rosenberg, Oracle Vice President of Development, Usability & Interface Design

Special Full-Day Seminars
> Tog on Interaction Design
> Beyond ALT Text: Designing Accessible Websites

Tutorials
> Introduction to User Testing
> Content Usability: Writing for the Web
> Paper Prototypes
> Competitive Usability Evaluation
> Field Studies
> Information Architecture (I & II)
> Web Design (I & II)
> E-commerce Usability (I & II)

Archive of news items

Recent Interviews

Darwin Magazine: What intranet metrics should companies pay attention to? (Nov. 1)
Federal Computer Week: Web usability obstacles abound (Oct. 22)
Sunday Times (London): Why the web drives you mad (Oct. 21)
The Register: Jakob Nielsen on how Apple blew it, how Linux will blow it, and the Next Big Thing (Oct. 16)
WebReference: Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir on Homepage Usability (Oct. 11)
Internet Magazine: Web is 'evil, lazy and stupid' (Oct. 8)
Computerworld: Technology Visionaries Scope the Future (Oct. 8)
Orange County Register: Tech companies target the disabled (Oct. 8)
San Jose Mercury News: Tech devices leave many befuddled (Sept. 30)
USA Today: Demo show rounds up the latest in wireless wonders (Sept. 12)
San Jose Mercury News: Instant messengers pick up speed (Sept. 1)
The Guardian: Usability Guru (Aug. 16)
Credit Suisse Bulletin: The man with the mouse is king (July 31)
National Public Radio: Tech Nation with Moira Gunn - The Art of Design (radio interview with Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman; RealAudio format) (July 10)
QualityOfExperience.org: Use it or Lose it: Improving the Online Experience (July 2)
Internet Magazine: The future's bright! (What will the Internet be like in 20 years?) (July 1)
Silicon Valley Business Journal: The evangelist of online usability (June 8)
The Economist: Scents and sensibility (Apr. 26)
New York Times: Corporate Sites Seem to Skimp on the Facts

Full list of interviews

Mail: Dr. Jakob Nielsen, Nielsen Norman Group, 48921 Warm Springs Blvd., Fremont, CA 94539, USA
Contact: nielsen@nngroup.com; Luice Hwang, hwang@nngroup.com, tel. (650) 938-9188
PR agency: Darcy Provo, Antenna Group, darcy@antennapr.com, tel. (415) 977-1920