[CLUE-Talk] Books on software usability

[Chris K. Chew]

You are right, sites like Nielsen's definitely have their place, especially
for people like us looking for information not as consumers of products.
But at the same time, there is also a place in the web for multimedia and
artistic expression.  These can be used to attract certain people to a
website and improve their experience while there.  Of course, these visitors
will mainly be targeted consumers.

Granted, I would prefer a business system where advertisement is about facts
and no flash, but my business has to compete in a quite different world.  It
sounds like Sean has to also, and Nielsen's websites probably won't be very
effective for us.

Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: clue-talk-admin at clue.denver.co.us
[mailto:clue-talk-admin at clue.denver.co.us]On Behalf Of
jbrockmeier at earthlink.net
Sent: Sunday, April 21, 2002 11:28 AM
To: clue-talk at clue.denver.co.us
Subject: RE: [CLUE-Talk] Books on software usability


On Sun, 21 Apr 2002, Chris K. Chew wrote:

> We also read Jacob Nielsen's book, and were very disappointed.  He is
> extremely critical, and wants very boring website designs.  You can see
for
> yourself his own website, www.useit.com, which he considers to be
absolutely
> perfect.  True it is usable, but it definitely lacks in the "user
> experience" department.  He shuns any fancy thing that might possibly
> obstruct a users navigation.

You say that like it's a bad thing. :) I admit, the page is dull, but
I prefer it to sites that take forever to load (even on cable, not
because my connection is slow - but because their server is struggling
to deliver all the dynamic content/images and crap that makes up
one page...Best Buy is an example of this - of course, it'd help if they
were using a "real OS." :)

You can go too far trying to remove all distractions, but I'd rather
see hundreds of sites like this instead of all the over-complicated
sites that try to mimic magazine layout.

Take care,

Zonker
--
Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier -=- jbrockmeier at earthlink.net
http://www.DissociatedPress.net/
ymessenger: jbrockmeier / AIM: ZonkerJoe
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"A common mistake that people make when trying to design something
completely foolproof was to underestimate the ingenuity of complete
fools." -- Douglas Adams

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