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

[Listera]

Karl Fast:

> 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.

If you have to issue edicts/predictions that require a mile-long list of
exceptions, conditionalities and contextualized caveats or that are so
abstract to be guaranteed to be wrong for most specific applications, logic
dictates that perhaps you shouldn't be dispensing them. Find another line of
work.

That's like saying if an app designer hasn't managed to stuff every
imaginable functionality he can think of into endless menus and buttonbars,
he'd be criticized for creating a limp app. Fortunately, (except for MSFT
:-) we don't design like that.

> I'm not defending Nielsen's ideas here.

You fooled me. :-)

> I am pointing out that criticisms of his work are about both his ideas and the
> certainty with which he presents those ideas.

They are often intertwined.
 
> It's this certainty that seems to really bother people.

So you blame the people?

> It also makes him an easy target for criticism.

It's his choice. Not that he seems to be bothered by any 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."

Designers can always say that, but they don't!
 
> 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.

And either misunderstood or, worse yet, followed.

> People do the same things on mailing lists.

Except a mailing list like this is built for discussion. We can get very
specific and exchange ideas. God forbid, even learn from each other. The
person you are defending isn't here (or anywhere else) to engage in a
debate. Unless, of course, you pay $339.95 for the generic report, which
seems to be the real cause behind the edicts/predictions.

---- 
Ziya

Best Practices,
For when you've run out of your own ideas and context.