[Sigia-l] Nielsen: It's the end!

[Karl Fast]

> Incidentally, when I said "arrogantly confident prediction" I meant
> exactly that. 

On the other hand, if everything Nielsen wrote was qualified with
"maybe" and "probably" and "perhaps" and "could happen" and
"suggests" then he would be criticized for not taking a position on
anything. Wishy-washy, they would say.

This is a frequent criticism of academic writing (Nielsen originally
did rigorous empirical research). Research papers frequently use
phrases like "in this paper we suggest that" or "this is probably
true, based on current evidence." Science journalists are more
likely to take this research and make grander, more certain
pronouncements. But the research papers themselves are often more
tentative.

I'm not defending Nielsen's ideas here. I am pointing out that
criticisms of his work are about both his ideas and the certainty
with which he presents those ideas. 

It's this certainty that seems to really bother people. It also
makes him an easy target for criticism. The designer can always say
"Oh, but what about left-handed diabetic carrot farmers from
Lithuania? I built a web site for this community and I did a lot of
user research and I know that <insert strong assertion from Nielsen>
isn't true in this context. Therefore he doesn't know what he's
talking about, all his writings are worthless, and any designer who
follows his advice is a fool."

This attitude actually mirrors Nielsen's approach: skip over the
situation-specific details in favor of making a clear, strong,
easily understood claim. It will be over-generalized, but it's more
likely to be heard. People do the same things on mailing lists.



-- 
Karl Fast
http://www.livingskies.com/