Second this. From my perspective this is the smartest of the 20 ideas (though clearly not the most interesting and probably the least innovative), but there are needs to be filled in this area (especially with regard to efficiency) and there is a large market already established.
It strikes me that designers are like interior decorators, good at making things look pleasing or stylish, but otherwise completely vacuous, while usability engineers like Mr Nielsen are perhaps more like architects or structural engineers, good at making things that do their job, but you would not hire one to choose your furniture.
If you want to create something memorable you need both, but if you were having a house built (or a power plant or a shopping complex, since Mr Nielsen clearly has an industrial/commercial focus) and could only hire one or the other, only a fool would go for the interior decorator. (Assuming that it is better to have a shopping complex that looks ugly than one that is structurally unsound). Obviously there are limits to this analogy.
Some companies, such as Apple, seem to be good at both (aesthetic) design and usability, while others such as Microsoft don't appear to be particularly good at either (or good at structural engineering for that matter)
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Second this. From my perspective this is the smartest of the 20 ideas (though clearly not the most interesting and probably the least innovative), but there are needs to be filled in this area (especially with regard to efficiency) and there is a large market already established.
It strikes me that designers are like interior decorators, good at making things look pleasing or stylish, but otherwise completely vacuous, while usability engineers like Mr Nielsen are perhaps more like architects or structural engineers, good at making things that do their job, but you would not hire one to choose your furniture. If you want to create something memorable you need both, but if you were having a house built (or a power plant or a shopping complex, since Mr Nielsen clearly has an industrial/commercial focus) and could only hire one or the other, only a fool would go for the interior decorator. (Assuming that it is better to have a shopping complex that looks ugly than one that is structurally unsound). Obviously there are limits to this analogy. Some companies, such as Apple, seem to be good at both (aesthetic) design and usability, while others such as Microsoft don't appear to be particularly good at either (or good at structural engineering for that matter)