Web Usability Articles & Videos

  • Predictions for the Web in Year 2000

    Micropayments will start with value-added content; mobile access; advice and sales become unbundled and physical experience environments may launch.

  • 10 Good Deeds in Web Design

    Ten design elements that would increase the usability of virtually all websites if only they were employed more widely.

  • User-Supportive Internet Architecture

    The basic ideology of the Internet is bit transport; we need a utility-focused human-centered ideology for its fundamental architecture and protocols.

  • Do Interface Standards Stifle Design Creativity?

    Standards ensure a consistent vocabulary, but don't limit designers' freedom (and responsibility) in deeper design issues. Also: Guidelines for writing design standards.

  • Metcalfe's Law in Reverse

    Partitioning the Web into N unlinked or otherwise isolated parts will reduce its overall value by a factor of N. A proprietary AOL instant messaging system will be worth only 4% of the full potential, and 1/3 will be completely lost.

  • The Top 10 Web Design Mistakes of 1999

    New technology and conventions have led to several new classes of usability problems in Web design.

  • Who Commits The "Top Ten Mistakes" of Web Design?

    Major websites violate on average 16% of the top ten mistakes in Web design; huge corporate sites have many more design mistakes than the most popular sites.

  • "Top Ten Mistakes" Revisited Three Years Later

    9 of 10 mistakes in Web design identified in May 1996 continued to cause severe usability problems years later and should be avoided in modern websites.

  • URL as UI

    Users continue to type and guess URLs and domain names, so Web usability can be improved by better URLs. In the long term this machine-level addressing scheme must be hidden.

  • Why People Shop on the Web

    A survey of 1,780 people who have bought something on the Web found that convenience and ease of use are the main reasons to shop on the Web. Non-buying visits (product research) are important to shoppers.

  • Predictions for the Web in 1999

    Mobile access becomes 3rd Killer App for the Internet, Web standards rebound, customer service is automated, e-commerce patents are issued, and the Web has its own Y2K problems

  • Why Yahoo is Good (But May Get Worse)

    Yahoo has great usability and huge traffic because it embraces the characteristics of the Internet medium: minimalist design and many structured links. But Yahoo may not scale to keep up with the growth of the net.

  • Failure of Corporate Websites

    Most corporate sites are so bad that Web usability problems cost a large company millions of dollars per year. On average, users fail when they try to accomplish tasks on the Web.

  • Internet World 2008: Two Talks I Might Present in Ten Years

    Jakob Nielsen's 1998 predictions of sessions he might present ten years later, at the 2008 Internet World conference.

  • Nielsen's Law of Internet Bandwidth

    Users' bandwidth grows by 50% per year (10% less than Moore's Law for computer speed). The new law fits data from 1983 to 2023.

  • Sun Microsystem's 1997 Web Design

    The 1997 redesign of the Sun Microsystems' Web site aimed to improve the visual appearance, ease of navigation, and performance of the Web site.

  • Changes in Web Usability Since 1994

    Most findings about Web usability from 1994 continue to hold. Scrolling pages and imagemaps are less of a problem; users now demand comprehensive sites.

  • Effective Use of Style Sheets

    CSS promotes site consistency and improved usability if linked (not embedded), centrally designed (not by page authors), and actively evangelized with example-rich style manuals. Respect user preferences.

  • The Telephone is the Best Metaphor for the Web

    The telephone is a better metaphor than television for thinking about the Web and its potential: the Web is a 1-to-1, narrowcast, low bandwidth medium that is user-driven and where everybody can publish content.

  • TV Meets the Web

    Comparing the nature of the Web as a medium when accessed through television sets and when accessed through computers, concluding that the level of user engagement is a main differentiator