I see where you're coming from. You're thinking of tailoring the user experience with a singular audience in mind, but web usability's goal is making it easier for anybody to find what they are looking for, as a whole. It's about architecture, layout, and making things logical and easier to find. (e.g. make buttons look like buttons, not statis text) After you accomplish that then you can add small nuances to make things look prettier to target a specific group or whatever, but without compromising usability. Websites should be designed in that order, not the other way around. Nielsen is all about usability, so I don't think it's appropriate to pick on how ugly his website looks. Most people who go to his website are looking for some info, not just browsing for someone's blog or whatever. They won't be turned off by the ugly colors because they're visiting the site with a specific goal to find some textual information.
Lets take flashing for example: it may be good if you WANT the user to look there, but for a user who is looking for something completely different or is browsing flashing things are just an annoyance. Just try and find me some flashing element on a major website. The goal for many major companies and organizations is to satisfy as large of an audience as possible and to avoid pissing off as large of an audience as possible. With flashing, it may be useful for some, but it will ultimately be an annoyance to many others as well.
Also read the about section on his page about why he has no images.
Too many people are confusing being easy to use and being "pretty" and bitching at Nielsen's website because they don't like the colors or whatever (I don't like them either)--but face it, if you can't find anything on his website easily then you're just a dumbass. The two columns are clearly labelled and all the imformation is stacked in a logical manner.
There are waaay too many pages out there where everything looks nice and smooth but finding information is just a pain in the ass. Maybe Nielsen sucks at graphic design, but at least he knows usability. I'm not saying to completely disregard graphic design--instead, find a way to follow both disciplines at the same time.
I think the concern that people put up with SUV's as a threat to smaller car drivers' safety is compounded by the fact that as the bigger and more numerous SUV's become, the more people want to buy larger SUV's. And as more people want to buy larger SUV's, the bigger the manufacturers will make them... and so on, and so on.
Lets not forget that Alaska has cosmopolitan centers too. I say this because everyone seems to be talking about driving in the wide open tundra of the north or something--The news article reports from Anchorage, and specifically mentions the Seward highway, which is "only" 127 miles long and connects the major cities of Seward (hence the name) and Anchorage.
Just think of it in terms of driving around the DC beltway or some other large city.
-Jim
Well where are they going to get the money for this kind of thing? I'm not spending my own money to buy a comp for that sort of thing. Also, what if the comp breaks... who is to blame and how are they going to replace it?:P
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I see where you're coming from. You're thinking of tailoring the user experience with a singular audience in mind, but web usability's goal is making it easier for anybody to find what they are looking for, as a whole. It's about architecture, layout, and making things logical and easier to find. (e.g. make buttons look like buttons, not statis text) After you accomplish that then you can add small nuances to make things look prettier to target a specific group or whatever, but without compromising usability. Websites should be designed in that order, not the other way around. Nielsen is all about usability, so I don't think it's appropriate to pick on how ugly his website looks. Most people who go to his website are looking for some info, not just browsing for someone's blog or whatever. They won't be turned off by the ugly colors because they're visiting the site with a specific goal to find some textual information.
Lets take flashing for example: it may be good if you WANT the user to look there, but for a user who is looking for something completely different or is browsing flashing things are just an annoyance. Just try and find me some flashing element on a major website. The goal for many major companies and organizations is to satisfy as large of an audience as possible and to avoid pissing off as large of an audience as possible. With flashing, it may be useful for some, but it will ultimately be an annoyance to many others as well.
Also read the about section on his page about why he has no images.
Too many people are confusing being easy to use and being "pretty" and bitching at Nielsen's website because they don't like the colors or whatever (I don't like them either)--but face it, if you can't find anything on his website easily then you're just a dumbass. The two columns are clearly labelled and all the imformation is stacked in a logical manner.
There are waaay too many pages out there where everything looks nice and smooth but finding information is just a pain in the ass. Maybe Nielsen sucks at graphic design, but at least he knows usability. I'm not saying to completely disregard graphic design--instead, find a way to follow both disciplines at the same time.
I think the concern that people put up with SUV's as a threat to smaller car drivers' safety is compounded by the fact that as the bigger and more numerous SUV's become, the more people want to buy larger SUV's. And as more people want to buy larger SUV's, the bigger the manufacturers will make them... and so on, and so on.
Lets not forget that Alaska has cosmopolitan centers too. I say this because everyone seems to be talking about driving in the wide open tundra of the north or something--The news article reports from Anchorage, and specifically mentions the Seward highway, which is "only" 127 miles long and connects the major cities of Seward (hence the name) and Anchorage. Just think of it in terms of driving around the DC beltway or some other large city. -Jim
Well where are they going to get the money for this kind of thing? I'm not spending my own money to buy a comp for that sort of thing. Also, what if the comp breaks... who is to blame and how are they going to replace it? :P