Nielsen Norman Group
While conducting usability research for Rowan University’s website, I decided to explore the concept and the ‘usability’of usability testing itself. First I read some background information on one of the fellow’s who generated a lot of media attention for the topic of web usability, Jakob Nielsen, a Danish web usability consultant. It’s rather amusing that, considering this guy has made a name for himself through criticizing other websites’ designs, that his own seems rather stark. Indeed, Nielsen’s website useit.com, although accessible for disabled and other under-served users, was not that visually appealing to me. In fact, I rather hate the site, it’s so bland. Nielsen defends his choice to strip his own webpage down to the bare basics by stating:
- “Download times rule the Web, and since many users still don’t have broadband, Web pages can be no more than 6 KB if they are to download in one second which is the required response time for hypertext navigation. Users do not keep their attention on the page if downloading exceeds 10 seconds, corresponding to 60 KB at modem speed. Keeping below these size limits rules out most graphics.
- I am not a visual designer, so my graphics would look crummy anyway. Since this website is created by myself (and not by a multidisciplinary team as I always recommend for large sites) I didn’t want to spend money to hire an artist. “
The second excuse is rather Freudian; I hear defensiveness riddled with rationalization in every word. I cannot help but feel a little cheated that the supposed guru of web design is not actually very adept at designing web-pages at all. Of course, one could argue that usability and design are not the same thing. True, but design elements are imperative to the success of a web-page and they influence a users propensity to return to the site – the simple rule of advertising: if you like what you see, you’ll buy it. And I’m just not buying Nielsen’s own web-page. The man has some fascinating ideas and when they’re applied to other websites they seem justified, but I don’t know how well Nielsen’s own virtual forays would hold up against his often overly emphatic usability standards.
Pettiness aside, I have to applaud the overall concept of usability, not only for it’s relevance to the Web, but also in the way it can be diversified into other academic pursuits. If we take the concept of usability and apply it to another writing or technolgy avenue, oh let’s say… an academic textbook, some of the testing characteristics could be used effectively. For instance, I’ve been trying to chug my way through what I consider rather dry reading material; Writing Strategies: Reaching Diverse Audiences (Qualitative Research Methods) by Richardson. When I looked at this book and the way it is presented as I read it, I tried to discover what it was that stopped me from being able to ‘use’ the book properly. Lets put aside that this is supposed to be an advanced academic book and strip things down to the simple facts, ego aside. Usability goggles on, why am I having a hard time understanding Richardson’s book?
The first thing from the usability theory I thought about was the content of Richardson’s book. If I could have put this book through TxReadability(a tool which examines the grade level of writing the text is written for) I’d bet my last dime that it would be miles above university level. This makes it more of a task for the average reader to comprehend. The next thing I thought about was jargon – although I come from a sociology/psychology background, I still find the terminology difficult – another reason this book’s usability was low for me. Design would be hard to apply for a book, considering there needs to be an academic format for work such as Richardson’s, but still, there are many other sections of Nielsen’s usability tests that could be applied, not only to books but other interactive mediums such as gaming, cell phones and iPods. Overall, I have to say that I am quite impressed with the concept of usability, but I’ll have to wait and see how my research unfolds before I can give it a thumbs up.
