Web 2.0 vs. Good Design
The BBC has an article covering a recent speech by Jakob Nielsen bemoaning how the rush to make “Web 2.0″ websites is distracting web firms from the basics of good design. Shiny features have trumped usability. One interesting stat in the article: 10% of a website’s users are contributors while 90% are non-contributing readers. Nielsen uses that stat to say that developers should take it easy on tools which few will use and which hurt usability for the majority.
Surprisingly, the BBC article never mentions where Nielsen was giving his talk. I believe it was at the Nielsen Norman Group’s Usability Week 2007 conference last week in London, the third of four week-long conferences. (Wouldn’t that make it “Usability Weeks”???) If you are interested in learning more about putting design and usabilty first, they’ll be hosting a fourth Usability Week 2007 in San Francisco from June 18-23 and tickets are still available.
(Hat tip to Slashdot for the link.)
