And as far as I recall, he only reports on actual results of tests with people using websites, so they are not opinions you can disagree with. If you think his tests were wrong, then you should run your own tests to prove it.

I found your article as I was writing mine about Nielsen’s Useit.com. I agree with you about trying to have a balance between usability and design. In defense of his website, Nielsen has referred to Don Norman’s book “Emotional Design”, which states designs work at 3 levels: visceral (the initial impact/appearance), behavioural (look and feel; total experience of using the object) and reflective (the prestige or how people feel about it afterward). Nielsen says his website works really well at the reflective level and quite well at the behavioural level. He admits it sometimes annoy people at the visceral level. What I don’t understand is why he doesn’t try to make it work at the visceral level as well? Norman’s book does have a chapter about how attractive things are perceived to work better by users. But it seems Nielsen chooses to ignore this.

Anyway, in my article, I also mention a few elements I feel are usability issues: the lack of a menu, questionable terminology and content organization, no real site identity, and some hard-to-scan pages. You can read my arguments here: http://www.webandgadgets.com/w.....useit-com/

As for tables, haven’t you heard? It was determined in 2009 that you can now use them, see rule #10 here: http://www.webdesignerdepot.co.....can-break/

Mary

The site doesn't meet many of Nielsen's own principles, which is quite ridiculous. The site is hard to read, and not really scannable. The individual article pages, but the front page, the main navigational method, is a mess. The clashing color scheme makes matters worse.

I have nothing against Nielsen's writings, but he could do to follow them himself.

Oh, and tables?

The information that Jakob Nielsen and others bring us as web designers is invaluable. He should be mandatory reading for any serious web designer, and having read him, he does indeed encourage web designers to take of his information and make the Web a much more comfortable place. Aesthetics are not being undermined here.

Thinking it does is a sign that one has not read his texts clearly enough – I'd recommend seeking a career in print rather than web design because it is an entirely different form of design.

You make a valid point though between practitioner and researcher. Once we recognise that Jacob Nielsen is a researcher it should become pretty obvious that his site would be crap from the web design stance. So I tend not to expect it of him. I’m more interested in the book coming out in a few months about eye tracking research.

In my typical usage, design = aesthetics + usability. While useit.com certainly does poorly on the aesthetics front, it does so well on the usability front that I’d still call it good design. In fact, it bears a rather striking resemblance to 37Signals blog design (svn.37signals.com).

Regarding hiring another designer to design your site, I don’t find that problematic in the least. A lot of people have trouble writing/designing for themselves because of a perfectionist streak, but put out amazing work for others.

I recall one of his books saying that the reason the site hasn’t ever had a redesign is because of branding. It’s recognizable, so it’s stayed the same. I think that’s a big mistake. A web site such as Nielsen’s (and don’t get me stated on the W3C, Steven…) should be built to follow the guidelines they’re preaching.

I know that Nielsen is one of the ones behind much important research, and I agree with plenty of his theories, and disagree with others. But his books seem to recommend overzealous usability design with no regard for aesthetics at all.