

Jakob Nielsen responds to responsive mobile criticism - j_c
http://www.netmagazine.com/interviews/nielsen-responds-mobile-criticism

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micheljansen
In the article, Dr. Nielsen has this to say about Responsive Design:

> JN: Because I was writing about user experience, not implementation

This is _exactly_ why so many people took issue with Dr. Nielsen's statements:
he did speak about implementation.

Some examples, straight from the alert box:

1\. "Build a separate mobile-optimized site"

The fact that the mobile-optimized site needs to be separate is clearly about
implementation. If the argument was made that there needs to be a separate
experience for mobile users, I think nobody would have disagreed, but this is
not what it says: it says there need to be two completely distinct sites.

2\. "If mobile users arrive at your full site's URL, auto-redirect them to
your mobile site"

Again, redirection is an implementation detail. Why does the URL for the
mobile-optimized site need to be different from the regular site? Why not
serve different content to different users at the same URL? Why not do this
using CSS or JavaScript? How is having a separate URL beneficial for the user
experience? This is not mentioned.

As it turns out, there _are_ usability issues in having separate URLs for
mobile and regular sites. For example, if I email or bookmark a link from my
phone and later open it on a desktop computer, I get the wrong site. That's
not to say that there is no place for separate mobile sites (especially when
the mobile use case is clearly different from the desktop use case), but this
an entirely different story.

There is plenty of wisdom in Nielsen's words, but the Mobile Site vs. Full
Site is a moot point. The argument should have been "create a separate mobile-
optimized experience" instead.

~~~
jasonlotito
I think you are purposely misreading what he's writing.

What's the difference between building a separate mobile-optimized site and a
separate experience for mobile users? Consider that this shouldn't require you
to change anything on the backend. Your basically saying that a mobile-
optimized experience is good... but only if it's on the same site?

> Why does the URL for the mobile-optimized site need to be different from the
> regular site?

It doesn't. He's saying if a user comes to your site, display him the mobile
site.

> As it turns out, there are usability issues in having separate URLs for
> mobile and regular sites. For example, if I email or bookmark a link from my
> phone and later open it on a desktop computer, I get the wrong site.

That's a site issue. A site can easily render a different display based on the
device.

> "create a separate mobile-optimized experience"

Your essentially arguing that he didn't use those exact words, and be damned
the meaning.

~~~
micheljansen
How about you leave it to me to state my purpose?

What I am saying is that Nielsen deflects questions about responsive design by
saying that he "was writing about user experience, not implementation", while
clearly he does.

> It doesn't. He's saying if a user comes to your site, display him the mobile
> site.

He speaks about a "separate mobile site" and that you should "auto-redirect
them to your mobile site" and provide links between the two sites. He also
warns that Google might not index the separate site. It is pretty hard to read
this other than that that separate mobile site has a separate URL.

> That's a site issue. A site can easily render a different display based on
> the device.

That's also what I am saying.

> Your essentially arguing that he didn't use those exact words, and be damned
> the meaning.

I'll be damned the words he uses, but he ventured into controversial
implementation details, for which he caught some flak and I am suggesting an
alternative formulation that steers clear of implementation details.

~~~
jasonlotito
> How about you leave it to me to state my purpose? Just like you let Nielsen
> state his purpose.

> It is pretty hard to read this other than that that separate mobile site has
> a separate URL.

No, it's pretty easy to read that when you understand what _his_ purpose of
writing is. Use your head! Your just being argumentative because he's actually
backing up what he said with evidence.

In fact, I'll go so far as to say, how can you suggest displaying a different
site without someone being able to twist it into an implementation detail?

Responsive design is an implementation detail (requiring different CSS).

I swear, you are missing the forest for the trees.

You'll disagree of course, because your predisposed to. Nielsen is _wrong_ ,
despite having the evidence to back it up, and you are right, because _OMG he
used this specific wording which an ONLY be interpreted in one way, my way_.
Feel free to respond, but I can't lower myself to discuss this any further.

------
chris_wot
It's funny - he is asked why he doesn't talk about responsive design, and his
answer is that he's not analysing _implementation_. But his specific
recommendations are to design a separate website for each device! If that's
not an implementation recommendation, I don't know what is.

------
jimmar
Before listening to anything Jakob Nielsen says about usability, go look at
his website: <http://www.useit.com/>. Can you honestly tell me that the man is
a usability expert who has a website designed like that?

EDIT: I've read some of his books and agree with what he says most of the time
--I definitely don't write off everything he says. I should have worded my
post differently.

About useit.com, it's hard to be completely terrible since there is not a
functionality. I would argue that the organization of the links is a little
odd, lack of dates on news items is not ideal, and the search bar buried at
the very top right of a page that scales 100% is a little hard to notice
(design & usability intertwined).

~~~
chris_wot
I actually had the same thought..., but actually, I read everything I needed
in a very short space of time. Sure, it doesn't look pretty, but I'd have to
say its extremely _usable_. Kinda like Hacker News actually! :-)

~~~
jimmar
True, the aesthetics are the worst part of the site. I find it odd that there
are two main sections: permanent content and news. The news items don't have
any dates, which I find annoying. And putting things "reports" in the
permanent content section implies that there will never be any new reports.
Does the permanent content really never change? Maybe I'm being too nit-picky.
:)

~~~
chris_wot
Actually, the news thing is pretty good point! Didn't notice that. Definitely
not very user friendly... Which is a bit of a surprise. I don't agree with
everything Neilson says (like this report) but he's actually been pretty good
many times. I guess usability is something that's hard to get 100% right all
the time.

