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Jakob “Flash” Neilsen

So Macromedia signed a deal with Jakob Neilsen… Get over it.

Jakob will make his set of best use guidelines, some of which will be valuable, some of which we can all pitch along with blue underlined text links. Obviously, both sides benefit financially from this arrangement. Macromedia gets the stamp of approval from from the usability GOD himself, and Jakob gets a big fat check. Big deal.

Just because Jakob has given usability a bad name doesn’t mean that it is bad. On the contrary, usability is a very good thing. Usability doesn’t mean complete homogenization of design; it means that designers need to take into consideration the user’s frame of reference when designing an interface. Like anything that has meaning, interfaces do not exist within a vacuum; they take meaning from the context within which they are presented. And the context within which they exist is constantly changing in subtle, and not so subtle, ways—constantly shifting the meaning.

My point is that usability is relative. It’s relative to your target audience. It’s relative to accepted interface standards. The thing about Jakob is that he states usability as absolute, as hard scientific fact. But, we all know that science isn’t absolute; long-standing theories are disproved and revised constantly. The same goes for the Science of Usability. Jakob’s rules don’t necessarily work the same way within the current context, within the current user’s frame of reference, as they did 3 or 4 years ago.

So, there’s really nothing to worry about. We’ll get a set of absolutes from on high, but in a few years, will they even bear any relevence at all?

06/05/02 09:35AM Accessibility and Usability Geekiness