

The web design guru web designers love to hate. - rokhayakebe
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/09/guardianweeklytechnologysection.interviews

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dmix
I read all the new posts on UseIt.

I see it as the base that keeps me, as a designer, grounded to what really
matters. I value usability above almost everything because it allows your
users to get from point A to B in the most effective way possible.

At the end of the day thats all that really matters, especially when 90% of
internet users couldn't tell a bad design (graphically) from a good design.

One of the best ways I found to approach this is to design with HTML in mind
at every step. Photoshop really makes you lose focus and end up perfecting the
layout and not the presentation of the content.

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jrockway
Yeah, people confuse "pretty" with "good design". Sure, sometimes pretty
things are designed well; but they are not different words for the same thing.
Personally, I think the best design is <h1>My site</h1> <h2>Foo</h2>
<ul><li>Foo 1</li>... anything else is pretty, not useful. Note that this is
how I've designed <http://jrock.us>. It's very easy to find content, and it
looks the same in any browser. And, it took me all of 30 seconds to implement,
sparing my time for sleeping or watching TV :)

~~~
bprater
And in all honesty, if I stumbled on your site in the middle of the night, I'd
immediately hit the back button.

I would have no idea it's a personal site, or even what the point is. The
biggest words I see are 'jrock.us' which has no meaning in the English
language.

You have 3 seconds to make an impression and sincerely, I think you fail with
this minimalist design. Put up a photo of yourself and the words, "Perl makes
me horny." and suddenly, I get it. Well, sorta. :)

~~~
jrockway
But I don't need to make an impression. You are there because you want
something I have, that I am giving away for free. So I get to take the easy
way out when it comes to design.

If you are randomly viewing my website... well... you need a hobby ;)

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dominik
I think HN strikes the appropriate balance between good looks and good
usability.

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ojbyrne
I have always liked his stuff, and I read and liked Designing Web Usability,
but the enterprise-ish pricing on the real meat of his research annoys me
immensely.

E.g.

"Usability of Intranet Portals A Report from the Trenches: Experiences From
Real-Life Portal Projects 3rd Edition 343 pages PDF format

$348 for a single report, $698 for the report and a site license to make
copies within your organization and place on your intranet. (No
shipping/handling fees will be added: it's a download.)"

The parenthetical statement is hilarious. Site Licenses for books are
hilarious.

~~~
bprater
I know folks in the business of selling educational material to corporate
customers and it's a huge business. If you have a corporate credit card and
have to spend so much for education each year that kind of money is a no
brainer.

~~~
curiousgeorge
if you trust the relevance of his research its far, far cheaper to just
purchase the report than hire someone to do the same research yourself. I'd
suspect most developers with niche products have niche usability needs that
make it lesson relevant. If you're building a giant web portal, it seems
relatively inexpensive for access to decent comparative stats.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_its far, far cheaper to just purchase the report than hire someone to do the
same research yourself_

Amen to that. You think $350 is expensive? That's like three hours of
consultant time. For someone with Nielsen's resume, more like 1-2 hours.

But, hey -- if you think it'll improve the situation, I might be willing to
support your effort to give Nielsen a government grant that pays for his
salary and his lab and lets him release all of his research for free.

~~~
ojbyrne
And PCs used to cost $3000. Now they cost $500 (other than Macs). Operating
systems used to require consultants and were priced for enterprises, until
Windows came along and completely changed the market.

There's lot of instances where a dramatic cut in price opened a new market for
products, and it sure seems like this is the case here.

I also find the whole "site licensing" of PDFs (which obviously means DRM)
kind of obnoxious.

Finally I find that the useit.com approach of putting up short parts of
reports, followed by a link to the paid report, to be borderline sleazy.

Perhaps I'm influenced by the "free" culture that is so pervasive these days.

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sprice
Where's the alertbox RSS feed?

~~~
dominik
There isn't one.

All there is an email newsletter that just sends an e-mail every time he posts
a new Alertbox. You can subscribe here: <http://www.useit.com/alertbox/>

Theoretically you could use email2rss to convert the newsletter into a feed.

Nielsen's views on email newsletters and RSS feeds (scroll down to the bottom
for his analysis of RSS feeds):
<http://www.useit.com/alertbox/newsletters.html>

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dgabriel
I thought he was a self-styled usability expert, not a "designer."

I much, much prefer Steve Krug, when it comes to self-styled usability
experts.

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radley
he's the design equivalent of a Fox News "in-house liberal."

yes, designers _hate_ him. he could drop dead and the world would easily be a
brighter, more lovely place.

(I'll gladly accept neg votes for this comment. I flat out don't respect the
guy ^_^)

~~~
mechanical_fish
_I'll gladly accept neg votes for this comment._

No problem. I'm happy to downvote someone who thinks that publicly wishing
someone dead is appropriate, let alone a valuable contribution to the
conversation.

Is Craig Newmark also on your little list? Jimmy Wales? Are there any other
messengers you'd like to shoot today?

~~~
radley
You misread; I didn't wish for his death.

He's also not just a messenger - he's the source for many attacks on the
design community, particularly Flash.

I could consider his views if he had any fairness to them. But he doesn't. His
views are lazy and incomplete.

It's like a guy who "publishes a song" which is nothing but the C scale played
over and over and then spends the next 10 years criticizing Rock & Roll. He
might be considered a conceptual artist. But would you really call him a music
guru?

