Think your Website is doing all it can for your business? Listen to Jakob Nielsen, and you might think differently. The mistake many companies make, Nielsen argues, is assuming that if their Website appears to look good and work well, that the customer will think so too. Most sites, in fact, are far too difficult to use. "Customers get lost, employees on intranets get confused, help lines light up--companies have huge expenses for tech and customer support," says Nielsen. "That's the cost of bad usability."
With a Ph.D. in user interface design from the Technical University of Denmark, Nielsen moved from his native country to the U.S. in 1990 to take prestigious research positions at Bell Communications Research and Sun Microsystems. Now he runs the Nielsen Norman Group in Fremont, Calif., a consulting firm focused entirely on making business Websites easier to use.
And what has he learned about good design? Simplicity is always a virtue. Jazzy animated intros and elaborate graphics may be aesthetically pleasing, but they can distract or prevent people from quickly accessing the information they seek. What do your users want that they're not finding? Nielsen's bottom-line advice: Watch them.
Sit down with several of your customers, advises Nielsen, and watch them browse your site. "Look at what they do, what they do not do, and where they fail," says Nielsen. "They often have a completely different understanding than you do. Watch their body language, tone of voice. Do they hesitate, feel confident? Listen to what the users are saying and how they behave." After you've tested five users, he says, you've gathered 80% of the information you need to succeed.
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