What is Digg?91 Comments
- Rekzai, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4712.) Music plays automatically
- panique, on 10/12/2007, -17/+52**FIXED**
11.) Making an ugly, long winded, and hardly informative page about web design. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -19/+5211.) Making an ugly and long winded page about web design.
- icexe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18sometimes PDF files are necessary. For example, you want to make an offical form, brochure or poster available for people to download. Tax forms are a prime example of this. So long as you clearly indicate that it is a PDF and WHY its a PDF file, i see nothing wrong with them when used for the purpose for which they were intended.
- eizooo, on 10/12/2007, -7/+21> 3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links
it's convenient having different colors for visited links but disturbs sometimes the design consistency
> 9. Opening New Browser Windows
sometimes very convenient, see digg - dodd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14#5 has nothing to do with web design. This is IE bug, other browsers do it right.
- ttiwguitar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13Frames.
- codelogic, on 10/12/2007, -4/+16yeah, if you actually think that the page is unreadable, then it's pretty clear who's on crack.
- aliotsy, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12For those of us who have read the article annually, noting an update for 2006 without specifying what has been updated doesn't seem very usable, either.
- mutatron, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13#2 PDF files - agggh! I HATE pdf files, especially if I'm on a machine with a bloated post-5.5 Reader. Readers 6 and 7 take ages to load, and 6 takes ages to unload, at least on my machine when I'm using Firefox.
#5 Fixed Text Size is not right. I can change the text size even on pages that I know use fixed-size CSS styling. - OhJay, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13panique,
Care to list what you find so uninformative about that piece? His advice might sound blatantly obvious, but the fact remains that a ton of sites completely disregard usability and break most of Nielsen's "rules". - OhJay, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Yeah, IE6 and below. What is he thinking?! I mean, that's only about 85-90% of the market. He must be a complete tool thinking that web pages should cater to that audience.
- Sp4nk, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1413.) Continuing to design your Web site like it's 1996.
- dsignr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9"#5 Fixed Text Size is not right. I can change the text size even on pages that I know use fixed-size CSS styling."
Not all browsers are equal. IE 5.5 kept pixel based font sizes. Firefox allows the user to change the font size, regardless if it is pixel-based or em-based.
I completely agree on the PDF files statement. - noisician, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I don't think his page was ugly. And it was very easy to read. You can quickly scan down it and see what it's all about and start reading the details of any section of interest.
But I am happy to see that he has improved his site, for example: adding images. They actually do improve the reading experience by making the page friendlier and more inviting.
Nielsen's pages used to be much more like the "walls of text" he mentions.... look at his 1999 article - no images, no margins so the text goes right up to the left and right edges of the screen making it so you have to read very wide lines of text (hard for the eye to follow)... really, not inviting at all...
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530.html - spoops, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I agree. The best thing about PDF files (I use OSX) are that they're NOT ON the web (plus they're reliable, formatted, scalable, and often vector). I'll take those puppies over a rubbish website any day - that's the whole point...
Incidentally, is it me, or is this website really ugly? You'd think for an expert in usability, the idea of aesthetics might factor into the design :) - celestial, on 10/12/2007, -2/+813) giving myspace users ability to change their page
- schroeder, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Foxit
http://www.download.com/Foxit-PDF-Reader/3000-2079_4-10313206.html
Fast enough that PDF's don't bother me anymore.
(not spam... i know most of you use it already, just letting people who still have PDF issues know) - tendonut, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5EVIL!
- n0va, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7That's Jakob Nielsen for you. If you don't know him, you probably don't know anything about usability.
- noisician, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6remember that DESIGN is not just GRAPHIC DESIGN
i think Nielsen intentionally makes his sites simplistic to stress that point
fancy GRAPHIC DESIGN often hinders the USABILITY aspect of site DESIGN
i hate those frickin clever flash sites with their tricky little navigation schemes
pretty, but annoying as hell - OSDAgent, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Jacob Nielsen's site is a perfect example of the tail wagging the dog.
- NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -7/+11"> 3. Not Changing the Color of Visited Links
it's convenient having different colors for visited links but disturbs sometimes the design consistency"
Usability over design, always.
"> 9. Opening New Browser Windows
sometimes very convenient, see digg"
No, but sometimes very annoying. That's what the middle mouse button is for, what if I want to open the link in the same window, then what? ***** me? - smhill, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6@idlegamer
"Conforming to standards and not expressing artistic flare. Yes, all webpages have to look the same!"
Good job reading for comprehension! He says nothing about pages looking all the same. He is talking about UI conventions not appearance. And as for "expressing artistic flare", that is fine for your little blog or myspace page, but if you are making a site that actually has a purpose, then you need to design it for usablity first. Not to say you can't be creative, but being creative for creative sake is stupid if you don't have a design goal. There are many examples of sites that are very artistic and creative and are usable.
"Who is this guy and why should we care what he thinks?"
Here is his resume... http://www.useit.com/jakob/index.html
"the king of usability" (Internet Magazine)
"the guru of Web page usability" (The New York Times)
"the next best thing to a true time machine" (USA Today)
"the smartest person on the Web" (ZDNet AnchorDesk)
"the world's leading expert on Web usability" (U.S. News & World Report)
one of the top ten minds in small business (FORTUNE Small Business)
"the world's leading expert on user-friendly design" (Stuttgarter Zeitung, Germany)
"knows more about what makes Web sites work than anyone else on the planet" (Chicago Tribune, March 6, 2000)
"one of the world's foremost experts in Web usability" (Business Week)
"the Web's usability czar" (WebReference.com)
"the reigning guru of Web usability" (FORTUNE)
"eminent Web usability guru" (CNN)
"perhaps the best-known design and usability guru on the Internet" (Financial Times)
"the usability Pope" (Wirtschaftswoche Magazine, Germany)
"new-media pioneer" (Newsweek)
Pretty decent cred I would say. What has CNN, NYT or Fortune said about you lately? - perkonis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4How did he miss resizing the users browser? That annoys me more than pop ups. But not by much.
- scorwitz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Like this guys list or not, he has put into words all of the things that anger me so much about the websites out there that should know better. There are too many Fortune 100-500 companies that still haven't a clue when it comes to hiring someone that knows web design.
- Cbeck527, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4MYSPACE!
- codelogic, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@takamalak
Even though I'm not an old fart, guess what, the fact that EVEN an old fart can use it is what makes a site usable; and that's my point. - jsusanka, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3anybody who writes for one browser only whether it be for an intranet or extranet should consider a career change or be fired. you are not doing you company any favors by writing for one browser.
- wstrucke, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3that's not true for all browsers
- kcpwnsgman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4PDF's are needed for some specific reasons, but when people put a PDF of a document that could have easily been html, such as documentation for software, it gets annoying.
- codelogic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3@aboyd
I agree with you on point 4, regarding the 'wall of text'. However, with respect to the font size, even though it seems a bit large in terms of aesthetics, IMHO, that increase probably helps a small percentage of people read it, as opposed to not. So my guess is, he's traded off the aesthetics for marginal readability. - sweetpapa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Someone please save us from the useless network of web pages with walls of search engine optimized text to suck your search to a useless ad page.
Is it just me or is anyone else finding it harder and harder to find anything relevant for your Google searches? - MachBoy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20.5) web pages that take control of the window and decide they need full screen because the user shouldn't be allowed to manage his/her screen real estate when the 'artistic integrity' of the website is at issue
- codelogic, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5What's annoying about it? That you can actually read it? As opposed to the font size of Digg comments that you're probably accustomed to.
- AriaStar, on 10/12/2007, -8/+10That website to talk about bad web design is a perfect example of what to not do. Too much dead white space, annoying font size.... I didn't even bother reading it.
- bleutuna, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Nielsen's a cocksmoke. He's like Michael Jackson or Howard Stern - a self-appointed GUI God who is nothing of the sort.
Look at his site. Is it easy to read? Yeah. Do you WANT to read it? Hell no. It's boring. And that's something Nielsen has ALWAYS had trouble understanding. - RidinDirty, on 10/12/2007, -0/+211 - Being an old windbag who constantly publishes list of things that are obvious to a 2 year old, but passes them off as expert opinions. This guy has never produced one bit of usable or relevant content.
- smhill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jakob_Nielsen_(usability_consultant)
http://www.useit.com/jakob/index.html - jakepaulus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Pricing really got me. I can't tell you how many times I've spent 20 minutes looking around on a business's site at what looked like a good product to recommend to management only to find no prices listed. I will not spend more time than I've already wasted waiting for a vendor to email me back and I'm not going to management with a suggestion that I don't have a cost for. You just lost business and pissed me off at the same time! That's a double-whammy!
- supremacyy, on 10/12/2007, -5/+7I find it weird that he's trying to tell us how to design better websites when his looks like something from the '80s...
- theOster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3coming out of architecture school i was all for the maverick designer throwing convention to the wind and thinking outside the box and all that whatnot. then i started to look at how i use things and interact with objects in my everyday life. if i can't intuitively figure out how to work something (basics, not advanced functionality) i leave it for something else.
seeing products that do both - beautiful design with intuitive (probably standardized) interfaces and workings, just puts a smile on my face. i hate to give the nod to apple, but "iPod". done. perfect.
anyway. to summarize the article, you don't have to (and i think you shoudl *never*) sacrifice usability for design. if you find yourself doing this, step back and get a second opinion on your design. you'll produce a better product. - CmbJo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2would agree I do really hate to listen to any crap music coming from crap sites. And often i'm just unable to turn it off
- gerkin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2This article is nto what I would consider the "top 10" mistakes. Some of what Jakob says makes sense, some doesn't. Take it with a grain of salt and figure out what works and doesn't work for YOUR site.
Some things just plain don't make sense in his terms. Relative font sizes? Does that mean you also use relative graphics to go with them? If your site is plain text (with horribly bad pale yellow background colors) like his, sure that's fine. If your site actually uses graphics and relies on sizing to work, then by all means use fixed font sizes. So what's the REAL answer? Make sure you properly DESIGN your site. This is something that jakob just flat out doesn't get. Get with the 21st century Jakob ... the web has graphics, flash and all kinds of animations, that while you might not like, do NOT take away from the usability of a web site if done correctly -- meaning that your site is friendly for screen readers, people with sight impairments (by turning off the CSS and adjusting to whatever they like), including skipnav and offering keyboard navigation.
THIS is what usabilty is all about, not helping people that can't spell search your site and unless this is really a need for YOUR target audience I'd hardly call this the #1 problem with websites in 2006.
I consider it a much bigger problem when people who are so widely read as Jakob don't actually get with the times and embrace technology and give some good advice on how to have your cake and eat it too, it's quite possible (as long as you don't listen to his ramblings too closely). - donnyburnside, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4I agree with part 2, PDF's are just awful while browsing. I very rarely use them anyway.
- wordsofwisedumb, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@spoops
PDF files are not good for general web content. While they might be vectors and be scallable that is bad for variable monitor sizes. They keep their formatting, there is no automatic word wrap based on screen size. To fit a PDF to your monitor it might end up having the equivalent of a 300 point font or be shrunk down to illegible 8 point font. To make that 8 point font legible you have to zoom to the point where sideways scrolling is inevitable. PDFs are for printing on the paper size they are originally created for, not for reading on monitors that can vary by over 1000% in size. - ferreth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3To all those that are saying "His site is boring. Wall of text. Blah." :
His site isn't about making it pretty and visually interesting - it's about USABILITY - in this case, there is some heavy reading here, it's structured to be online readable, not pretty.
It's not about entertaining you, it's not about selling you something (well, it actually is, but it's more subtle than usual).
He uses big text because older people tend to have problems with smaller text. I see this all the time dealing with staff at big companies who run their 20" monitors at 1024x768, etc. Guess what: older people tend to be decision makers in companies that might buy his services.
He sticks with plain text and a few pictures to break the monotony and help illustrate his points because people out there trying to find out information about something don't give a rat's ass about flash or glitz - they just want to find what they need.
In short, people trying to do work using the internet as a tool appreciate simple design that lets them find what they want. People out to be entertained by using the internet want more eye candy and such. - resplence, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3"> 9. Opening New Browser Windows
sometimes very convenient, see digg"
Ugh, no. I HATE it when I forget to middle-click the article's link and it opens a new window, and I'm sure I'm not alone.
If it wasn't for firefox, I doubt I'd ever become a regular on digg. - Cojawfee, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4What does this guy even do? Does he just release this same exact list every few months and say it is the top ten web design mistakes of the year? This hasn't changed ever since I've seen it.
- chapium, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The most evil in my opinion is embeded files in general. Why cant I just download the pdf/doc/mp3 without loading it in the browser?
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