[thelist] Jakob Nielsen [was Anti-aliasing]

[Paul Cowan]

Hi all,

Sorry to prolong this discussion any further, but I *do* feel kinda guilty
about helping to kick off this argument and then buggering off home early
yesterday (well.. I would if I hadn't had to get up at 5:15 yesterday... but
anyway).

Just a couple of points I'd like to address:

1) I think that it's easy to forget, when flaming Nielsen's stance on flash,
that he's talking about it *from a usability point of view*. He's NOT saying
it's "bad", full stop. He's saying it's bad FOR USABILITY. All the
pronouncements on his site are usability-related, not design-related or
marketing-related. If you want design or marketing points of view, consult a
design or marketing guru. "Flash 99% Bad" = Flash 99% Bad for USABILITY. He
doesn't care about anything else, and nor should he. He's a published
usability guy: he's not the head of Saatchi & Saatchi, or a graphic
designer, or ...

For some reaosn, when dealing with Jake, people seem to think that he should
acknowledge that "it's good for building brand among mtv-kids" or "It's good
for displaying vector-based images" (to pick 2 arguments at random from this
debate). Yeah, it might be. That doesn't mean that that it doesn't suck from
a usability point of view. Choosing a navigation mechanism (or whatever) is
based on a lot of factors:
	Suitability  = (a x simplicity) + (b x usability) +
	(c x attractiveness) + (d x branding) + (e x accessibility) +
	(f x download time) + ...

a, b, c, d, e, f... all need to be filled in on a per-project basis. For
some projects, "d" might be the highest number; for others, "d" will be 0.
Depending on your target market, "f" might be 100 or it might be 0. All
Nielsen does is to help you increase the "usability" score. If your
weighting for "b" is very low, he won't help you -- and don't expect him to
agree with you. The weight you place on his arguments is tied to the number
attached to "b".


2) Anyway, I don't think he vilifies flash. He vilifies the bad use of
flash. Yes, flash might be able to use the back button, the scroll wheel,
open links in a new window, whatever... but people don't. And the vast
majority don't (in my experience, Your Mileage May Vary, I Am Not A Lawyer,
etc. etc.). Yes, Flash can be appropriate and useful. He's not arguing the
technology, he's arguing against inappropriate use (hence "99%", not
"100%"). And, of course, that's "inappropriate" as in "inappropriate *from a
usability point of view*" (see 1). Perhaps the article is poorly worded in
parts, but I think he's criticising the use, not the technology.


3) It WAS written a long time ago (2 years = what, 14 Internet-years?).
Maybe it needs a revisit. At the time, I think it was stunningly accurate.
I'm unconvinced it's changed much: but that's me, not Nielsen.


As I said, sorry to prolong the discussion further for those who couldn't
give two hoots, but anyway: there's my
2-cents-US-divided-by-whatever-godforsaken-abysmal-exchange-rate-the-poor-ol
d-Aussie-dollar-is-sitting-at-now.

Cheers,

Paul