How Usable is Jakob Nielsen?
A critique of Jacob Nielson's usability work. We have a great deal of respect for Jacob Nielson. You have to decied about the efficacy of the points being made ...
"So what’s the problem with Jakob Nielsen?
Jakob Nielsen is still very popular outside the usability community. Amongst his colleagues however, his popularity has been eroding steadily. Why? There are a couple of reasons for this.
1) Guru role. Nielsen plays up the guru role and gloats in the press coverage of being called a “king” a “guru” and “almost as big as Elvis”. Gurus seem to fall into two categories: the silent and humble type or the boisterous and arrogant type. Nielsen has been perceived by many as falling into the later category. However, I think the real gurus are his public relations firm, the Antenna Group, who are responsible for his glamorous international media coverage.
2) Professional ethics. A few years ago (circa 2000), Nielsen posted on his home page that his fees were roughly $35,000 for a half day high level strategy consulting session. This is where the credibility started to erode for me. If anybody thought usability was expensive, Nielsen certainly contributed to that perception (despite his current claims that usability is cheap: “Usability for $200″and “ROI for Usability”)." continued ... (Via Steven.Liu and Frank Spillers)
"So what’s the problem with Jakob Nielsen?
Jakob Nielsen is still very popular outside the usability community. Amongst his colleagues however, his popularity has been eroding steadily. Why? There are a couple of reasons for this.
1) Guru role. Nielsen plays up the guru role and gloats in the press coverage of being called a “king” a “guru” and “almost as big as Elvis”. Gurus seem to fall into two categories: the silent and humble type or the boisterous and arrogant type. Nielsen has been perceived by many as falling into the later category. However, I think the real gurus are his public relations firm, the Antenna Group, who are responsible for his glamorous international media coverage.
2) Professional ethics. A few years ago (circa 2000), Nielsen posted on his home page that his fees were roughly $35,000 for a half day high level strategy consulting session. This is where the credibility started to erode for me. If anybody thought usability was expensive, Nielsen certainly contributed to that perception (despite his current claims that usability is cheap: “Usability for $200″and “ROI for Usability”)." continued ... (Via Steven.Liu and Frank Spillers)
Even gurus get challenged.
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