Usability expert behind Nielsen Norman Group (NN/G) and Alertbox, Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D., is a User Advocate and principal of the Nielsen Norman Group which he co-founded with Dr. Donald A. Norman (former VP of research at Apple Computer). Dr. Nielsen established the “discount usability engineering” movement for fast and cheap improvements of user interfaces and has invented several usability methods, including heuristic evaluation. He holds 79 United States patents, mainly on ways of making the Internet easier to use.
Articles by Jakob Nielsen at NN/G:
- Jakob Nielsen’s Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design
A short list of egregious offenses against users, such as Bad Search, PDF files for online reading, not changing the color of visited links, non-scannable text (the “wall of text”), fixed font sizes, poor page titles, anything that looks like an ad, violating design conventions, opening new browser windows, and not answering user questions. - Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Good Deeds in Web Design
Ten design elements that would increase the usability of all websites if they were employed more widely. List includes things such as placing your name and logo on every page and make the logo a link to the home page, providing search if the site has more than 100 pages, and writing straightforward and simple headlines and page titles. - Jakob Nielsen’s Top 10 Information Architecture (IA) Mistakes
Structure and navigation must support each other and integrate with search and across subsites. Complexity, inconsistency, hidden options, and clumsy UI mechanics prevent users from finding what they need. - Jakob Nielsen’s Usability 101: Introduction to Usability
Usability is a quality attribute that assesses how easy user interfaces are to use. The word “usability” also refers to methods for improving ease-of-use during the design process. Usability is defined by 5 quality components: Learnability, Efficiency, Memorability, Errors, and Satisfaction. - Jakob Nielsen’s Top 10 Guidelines for Homepage Usability
The homepage is often times the starting point for user visits. Improving the homepage multiplies the entire website’s value, so following key guidelines for homepage usability is important. - Jakob Nielsen’s 10 Most Violated Homepage Design Guidelines
A short list of ten usability mistakes that about two-thirds of corporate websites make, according to Nielsen Norman Group. The prevalence of these errors alone warrants attention.