Hi I hope you might help regarding, who is just as know or influential as Jakob Nielsen, but disagrees with Jakob Nielsen? Preferably a person who has a scientific academic outlook on usability, perhaps somebody who has written a PhD. with a critique of Jakob Nielsen, and then latter on published books, papers and articles based on the PhD.
I am going to write a thesis on the subject of usability, and basically I need different views on the matter. It seams to me that there is Jakob Nielsen, but no prominent opposition to his views.
Many, many people disagree about Nilesen's views, but you will not
find them collected any where labeled as disagreement with Jakob. Why
would anyone write a PHd on one practitioner? That is giving his role
far more weight than it deserves.
Also, usability is not scientific. It is a business process that uses
some of the same techniques used in scientific research, but it is
largely qualitative in nature, not quantitative. You may be thinking
more of HCI (human-computer interaction) than design usability, which
is more of an engineering/design approach than the study of how
human's interact with computers.
Most debate goes on in the email lists for SigCHI, in professional
journals, and in academic journals. And most disagreement shows up in
what people say in the articles and books they write. And when you say
influential, amongst whom? Academics? Design practitioners? HCI
professionals? Web developers?
You should look at the work of Janice Redish, Jared Spool, Scott Klug,
Constantine and Lockwood, and so forth. If you are considering doing a
Phd on this subject, you need to become far more familiar with the
field and its literature and practices than your question indicates
you are now.
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 19:17:43 -0000, CAH <madsgormlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi
> I hope you might help regarding, who is just as know or influential as
> Jakob Nielsen, but disagrees with Jakob Nielsen?
> Preferably a person who has a scientific academic outlook on usability,
> perhaps somebody who has written a PhD. with a critique of Jakob
> Nielsen, and then latter on published books, papers and articles based
> on the PhD.
> I am going to write a thesis on the subject of usability, and basically
> I need different views on the matter. It seams to me that there is
> Jakob Nielsen, but no prominent opposition to his views.
Thanks for the reply. I am not going to write a PhD, nor I am trying to state any points off view about Jakob Nielsen, I am just looking for literature for a paper on usability. So the list of names is a really good start, I will try to find about more about those persons. When I talk about Jakob Nielsen it is mainly because he seems to be the best know person dealing with usability, and as you state he is at the same time often criticised but sporadically and often in small articles. It would seem naturally to find someone, who is known as the counter piece to JN. Whether usability is scientific, I would imagine that there are opposing views on the matter, I could imagine those who think something qualitative in nature can be treated in a scientific way (ie. literature science) "influential, amongst whom? Academics? Design practitioners? HCI professionals? Web developers?" - well any of the above - is there someone who has made an appealing case for views on usability that differ from the ones of JN.
There are dozens, even hundreds of people who have posited positions
different than Nielsens. They do not state that they are disagreeing
with Nielsen, but if you know the literature in the field, you know
they are disagreeing with him. Nielsen is merely someone who is quoted
by the mass and trade press and gets lots of attention. Most of the
best work in the field goes on without any publicity.
I am not sure what you mean by "small articles." I do not consider
Boxes and Arrows, or A List Apart, or other blogs, e'zines, and sites
where usability is discussed to be "small" in the eyes of most
practitioners in the field.
You should got to two places http://www.planethic.com, which is a blog
aggregator, and to http://usability.gov/guidelines/ for starters to
familliarize yourself with both the places where practitioners are in
constant discussion and the one place where usability guidelines have
been compiled based on the literature and you will see that Nielsen is
not the only person who does significant publishing.
I would also encourage you to go to http://www.usableweb.com. Keith
Instone maintained this resource of links until about two years ago,
but it is still invaluable for newcomers to the field to get their
heads around the who and what of the practice.
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:27:18 -0000, CAH <madsgormlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the reply.
> I am not going to write a PhD, nor I am trying to state any points off
> view about Jakob Nielsen, I am just looking for literature for a paper
> on usability. So the list of names is a really good start, I will try
> to find about more about those persons.
> When I talk about Jakob Nielsen it is mainly because he seems to be the
> best know person dealing with usability, and as you state he is at the
> same time often criticised but sporadically and often in small
> articles. It would seem naturally to find someone, who is known as the
> counter piece to JN.
> Whether usability is scientific, I would imagine that there are
> opposing views on the matter, I could imagine those who think something
> qualitative in nature can be treated in a scientific way (ie.
> literature science)
> "influential, amongst whom? Academics? Design practitioners? HCI
> professionals? Web developers?" - well any of the above - is
> there someone who has made an appealing case for views on usability
> that differ from the ones of JN.
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:11:33 -0800, Mary Deaton <mmdea...@gmail.com> wrote:
> There are dozens, even hundreds of people who have posited positions
> different than Nielsens. They do not state that they are disagreeing
> with Nielsen, but if you know the literature in the field, you know
> they are disagreeing with him. Nielsen is merely someone who is quoted
> by the mass and trade press and gets lots of attention. Most of the
> best work in the field goes on without any publicity.
> I am not sure what you mean by "small articles." I do not consider
> Boxes and Arrows, or A List Apart, or other blogs, e'zines, and sites
> where usability is discussed to be "small" in the eyes of most
> practitioners in the field.
> You should got to two places http://www.planethic.com, which is a blog
> aggregator, and to http://usability.gov/guidelines/ for starters to
> familliarize yourself with both the places where practitioners are in
> constant discussion and the one place where usability guidelines have
> been compiled based on the literature and you will see that Nielsen is
> not the only person who does significant publishing.
> I would also encourage you to go to http://www.usableweb.com. Keith
> Instone maintained this resource of links until about two years ago,
> but it is still invaluable for newcomers to the field to get their
> heads around the who and what of the practice.
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:27:18 -0000, CAH <madsgormlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thanks for the reply.
> > I am not going to write a PhD, nor I am trying to state any points off
> > view about Jakob Nielsen, I am just looking for literature for a paper
> > on usability. So the list of names is a really good start, I will try
> > to find about more about those persons.
> > When I talk about Jakob Nielsen it is mainly because he seems to be the
> > best know person dealing with usability, and as you state he is at the
> > same time often criticised but sporadically and often in small
> > articles. It would seem naturally to find someone, who is known as the
> > counter piece to JN.
> > Whether usability is scientific, I would imagine that there are
> > opposing views on the matter, I could imagine those who think something
> > qualitative in nature can be treated in a scientific way (ie.
> > literature science)
> > "influential, amongst whom? Academics? Design practitioners? HCI
> > professionals? Web developers?" - well any of the above - is
> > there someone who has made an appealing case for views on usability
> > that differ from the ones of JN.
On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 15:11:33 -0800, Mary Deaton <mmdea...@gmail.com> wrote:
> There are dozens, even hundreds of people who have posited positions
> different than Nielsens. They do not state that they are disagreeing
> with Nielsen, but if you know the literature in the field, you know
> they are disagreeing with him. Nielsen is merely someone who is quoted
> by the mass and trade press and gets lots of attention. Most of the
> best work in the field goes on without any publicity.
> I am not sure what you mean by "small articles." I do not consider
> Boxes and Arrows, or A List Apart, or other blogs, e'zines, and sites
> where usability is discussed to be "small" in the eyes of most
> practitioners in the field.
> You should got to two places http://www.planethic.com, which is a blog
> aggregator, and to http://usability.gov/guidelines/ for starters to
> familliarize yourself with both the places where practitioners are in
> constant discussion and the one place where usability guidelines have
> been compiled based on the literature and you will see that Nielsen is
> not the only person who does significant publishing.
> I would also encourage you to go to http://www.usableweb.com. Keith
> Instone maintained this resource of links until about two years ago,
> but it is still invaluable for newcomers to the field to get their
> heads around the who and what of the practice.
> On Wed, 30 Mar 2005 22:27:18 -0000, CAH <madsgormlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Thanks for the reply.
> > I am not going to write a PhD, nor I am trying to state any points off
> > view about Jakob Nielsen, I am just looking for literature for a paper
> > on usability. So the list of names is a really good start, I will try
> > to find about more about those persons.
> > When I talk about Jakob Nielsen it is mainly because he seems to be the
> > best know person dealing with usability, and as you state he is at the
> > same time often criticised but sporadically and often in small
> > articles. It would seem naturally to find someone, who is known as the
> > counter piece to JN.
> > Whether usability is scientific, I would imagine that there are
> > opposing views on the matter, I could imagine those who think something
> > qualitative in nature can be treated in a scientific way (ie.
> > literature science)
> > "influential, amongst whom? Academics? Design practitioners? HCI
> > professionals? Web developers?" - well any of the above - is
> > there someone who has made an appealing case for views on usability
> > that differ from the ones of JN.
I am not so interrested in usability guidelines, I am more interessed in the theory by wich you argument for your guidelines. JN often seams a little dogmatic, and he focused on details. So I was looking for someone trying to look at the broader perspective, but in a pragmatic way, looking to make resultats that can be used when evaluating usability guidelines.
But I will look at the links you have given, and try to find informamtion from the names you have given.
Scott wrote Don't Make Me Think! Look for it on Amazon.
If you want to know what underlies most guidelines, you have to go
into cognitive psychology, eye movement theory, and tons of other
fields where research has been done that has helped shape visual and
interactive design practice over the years. That is why I referred you
to usability.gov. They reference the research that underlays many of
the defacto standards.
You might also look for the special issue of Technical Communications,
the journal of the Society for Technical Communication, on Web design
hueristics. this was done probably in late 2000.
Usability IS focused on details. That is what we are looking for when
we do usability research.
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 01:19:54 -0800, CAH <madsgormlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am not so interrested in usability guidelines, I am more interessed
> in the theory by wich you argument for your guidelines. JN often seams
> a little dogmatic, and he focused on details. So I was looking for
> someone trying to look at the broader perspective, but in a pragmatic
> way, looking to make resultats that can be used when evaluating
> usability guidelines.
> But I will look at the links you have given, and try to find
> informamtion from the names you have given.
Oh you mean "Steve Krug" I have read the book, I must say I think of Krug as a student of JN, and disagreement is minor. But I wiil look in to the other names and links.
Why is it important to find disagreement with Nielsen?
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 09:22:25 -0800, CAH <madsgormlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Oh you mean "Steve Krug" I have read the book, I must say I think of
> Krug as a student of JN, and disagreement is minor. But I wiil look in
> to the other names and links.
-----Original Message-----
From: CAH [mailto:madsgormlar...@gmail.com]
Sent: Thu 31-3-2005 19:22
To: usability-hci@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Who is just as know or influential as Jakob Nielsen, but disagrees with Jakob Nielsen?
Oh you mean "Steve Krug" I have read the book, I must say I think of
Krug as a student of JN, and disagreement is minor. But I wiil look in
to the other names and links.
Well, first of I have to admit I am about to start reading Jakob Nielsen, so far I am just looking for literature, and I think JN is in many ways brilliant. But I belive you often learn a lot from oposing views, and it is in my understanding that the general criticism of JN is that he underestimates the power of the "look and feel" of a web site, in particular in regards sites were the goal is experience and not so much information (http://www.davidbowie.com/). Further more he focuses on details, and does not take a look at the broader perspective of a site.
I think people who think Jakob is rigid do not read him closely. I
have interviewed him and spoken with him at conferences and he very
much believes that what he says are guidelines. Just read us useit.com
on When Bad Design Becomes the Standard.
It is critical to remember that part of usability is user expectation.
Expectation is built upon what users see on all of the sites they
visit or televisions they use, and so on. When they see something that
is not familiar - regardless of how well it tested in a lab - they are
going to perceive it as less usable than what they are used to.
I also know that the Web world is full of visual designers who do not
have training in usability or human factors and who believe that they
should decide what is good for users. Jakob disagrees with that view,
as do I. Users are not designers, but users know what they need to do
and how they feel when they do it and designers must listen to that
and let it influence their design.
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:41:15 +0200, Stefan Wobben [Concept7]
> -----Original Message-----
> From: CAH [mailto:madsgormlar...@gmail.com]
> Sent: Thu 31-3-2005 19:22
> To: usability-hci@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: Who is just as know or influential as Jakob Nielsen, but disagrees with Jakob Nielsen?
> Oh you mean "Steve Krug" I have read the book, I must say I think of
> Krug as a student of JN, and disagreement is minor. But I wiil look in
> to the other names and links.
Can visual desing not be a part of usability, making something that is either easy to use or beutiful, could be considred half the solution, - "form follows function" - one could say that we do not want the visual design to be iceing on the cake, the two should be integrated. Further more one might seek ways to test for the experience of the visual desing, and the impact it has on the ease of use of a webdesign. The Apple iPod in connections to iTunes might be an exsample of such an integration, the whole experience should be not only easy but also pleasent.
Please bear in mind, I am in the begining of a projeckt, so I am just blaping away at the top of my head.
Of course visual design is part of usability. In a software product, a
great deal of the usability is in the visual design. But being a
visual designer does not make a person a usability expert and the vast
majority of Web designers are either visual designers who came from
print or developers with no design training.
My point was that many people who disagree with Nilesen or any other
usability expert are not doing so from a position of equal knowledge,
experience, or credentials.
On Thu, 31 Mar 2005 13:04:24 -0800, CAH <madsgormlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Can visual desing not be a part of usability, making something that is
> either easy to use or beutiful, could be considred half the solution, -
> "form follows function" - one could say that we do not want the visual
> design to be iceing on the cake, the two should be integrated. Further
> more one might seek ways to test for the experience of the visual
> desing, and the impact it has on the ease of use of a webdesign. The
> Apple iPod in connections to iTunes might be an exsample of such an
> integration, the whole experience should be not only easy but also
> pleasent.
> Please bear in mind, I am in the begining of a projeckt, so I am just
> blaping away at the top of my head.
Again as you say I speak without equal knowledge. But from what I have read of JN, he writes nothing about evaluating the visual experience - the aesthetics' - of a site, and connecting this with the usability of a site. For example testing whether a site is better of being a experience site - such as dawidbowie.com or a information site such as useit.com. I have actually not seen anybody making a compelling case for being apple to use user testing for evaluating the aesthetics of a site, let alone in connection to the usability of a site. Perhaps because this is simply just not a good idea... I would say that I believe the Mac operating system is an example of a ongoing project to do just this, combine aesthetics and usability - where as windows focus is entirely on functions and second on usability (and perhaps third a failed attempt on making it look good).
Why test aesthetics separately? What you are testing on any site is
whether the user can complete some task that is associated with what
the site offers and what the user wants to find or do on that site.
As you observe a user, you note everything about the site that impedes
the user in completing their task. If it is aesthetics, you note that.
If it is something else, you note that.
Usability testing ought not to ever happen, outside of the context of
a user completing a task. You cannot compare the results on one site
to another site unless the two have the same user population, the same
purpose, and the same user goals.
You can, however, look at results over many tests that are associated
with a particular aspect common to many sites in a genre, or about one
page widget or element (button size, menu behavior, location of
navigation links and so on) common to many sites across genre, and
posit a general pattern or trend based on that data that you believe
would be found on any site in the genre or any widget/element if a
user test were done. This is how guidelines are developed.
One of the values Nielsen brings to the table is the fact he can
conduct user testing on hundreds of users, something every few of the
rest of us can do. The other value is that he talks about what he
finds. Microsoft also tests hundreds of users about thousands of
things, but they rarely publish their results because it is
proprietary, competitive information.
I would never published the usability results of a test I do for a
client without that client's permission and 9 times out of 10, I will
not get it. The usability of a company's Web site is directly related
to their competitive advantage and so is not information they want
made public.
There are people who do experimental research about aspects of
usability and human-computer interaction, in which they hope to be
able to infer statistical significance to the result that allows them
to generalize their findings to a population. This is information you
find in academic journals.
I know of at least one research project that is on-going that looks at
whether the design principles regarding object placement on a printed
page can be validated on a computer screen by using eye-tracking. But
this type of pure research is seldom done in industry practice because
it is simply too expensive for most usability groups to carry-out. The
results of this study would certainly influence Web aesthetics, since
most visual designers on the Web are designing based on the design
principals for the printed page.
On Mar 31, 2005 10:34 PM, CAH <madsgormlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Again as you say I speak without equal knowledge. But from what I have
> read of JN, he writes nothing about evaluating the visual experience -
> the aesthetics' - of a site, and connecting this with the usability
> of a site. For example testing whether a site is better of being a
> experience site - such as dawidbowie.com or a information site such as
> useit.com. I have actually not seen anybody making a compelling case
> for being apple to use user testing for evaluating the aesthetics of a
> site, let alone in connection to the usability of a site. Perhaps
> because this is simply just not a good idea...
> I would say that I believe the Mac operating system is an example of a
> ongoing project to do just this, combine aesthetics and usability -
> where as windows focus is entirely on functions and second on usability
> (and perhaps third a failed attempt on making it look good).
I did not mean to imply that aestics should necesarily be tested seperatly, acually it might be neccesary to do the oposite. When you say that "What you are testing on any site is whether the user can complete some task that is associated with what the site offers and what the user wants to find or do on that site." Well, what if the user does not want to complete tasks, but came for a experience - you do not watch art to complete a task, lets say you want to test usability on dawidbowie.com - and it takes an arm and a leg for the user to figure out the navigation, should we just conclude this is a bad from a usability point of view, or should we test to see wheter the user likes the chalenge in a surden context - the experience of the site, and how would we way one aganist the other.
The user does have a task in your example, the task is to have the experience.
On Apr 1, 2005 1:05 PM, CAH <madsgormlar...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I did not mean to imply that aestics should necesarily be tested
> seperatly, acually it might be neccesary to do the oposite. When you
> say that "What you are testing on any site is
> whether the user can complete some task that is associated with what
> the site offers and what the user wants to find or do on that site."
> Well, what if the user does not want to complete tasks, but came for a
> experience - you do not watch art to complete a task, lets say you want
> to test usability on dawidbowie.com - and it takes an arm and a leg for
> the user to figure out the navigation, should we just conclude this is
> a bad from a usability point of view, or should we test to see wheter
> the user likes the chalenge in a surden context - the experience of the
> site, and how would we way one aganist the other.
If we test davidbowie.com by the 10 Heuristics set forth by JN, would it score high or low, and more importantly should it score high or low. Should we always aim at things such as minimalist design, consistency and efficiency of use?
I would like to append a sort of follow up question, can anybody think of a site that is a success, but clearly does not live up to the requirements set fort by Jakob Nilsen. If nobody can do that, I would say that JN is defiantly called guru for a very good reason. Personally I find it difficult to come up with an example, I think that site's that does not live up to the requirement set fort by JN, are mostly experiments and branding sites, like davidbowie.com. But it is difficult to claim that such a site is a success for any other reason than the music of David Bowie. The same is probably true of a lot of branding site's, so my question is, can anybody think of such sites?
Just to clarify something, I think JN makes a lot of sense, I am just trying to learn something in order to write a paper, and I find that to find opposing views is a good exercise in testing JN views on usability.
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