05 Nov 2003 | b said...

Where is the 37signals version?

05 Nov 2003 | Mike said...

Man, I really like this one.

05 Nov 2003 | mal said...

Hell, yeah - that's the one! :) I doubt JN would take it up, though - those aren't browser-default link colours. ;)

Actually, the only thing I feel lets it down is that the visited links have a different font-weight to fresh ones. That bugs the hell out of me. I find it very jarring when you're trying to scan a bunch of links, as your ability to scan quickly depends on all the things you're looking for being alike (to a certain extent).

Or is it just me? :)

05 Nov 2003 | pk said...

I would start by cutting that hair - geez...

05 Nov 2003 | Brad Hurley said...

I like that one too, except for the fact that they spelled his name wrong in the heading!

The font-weight change for visited links makes some sense to me, as it makes the links you haven't visited yet pop out more. But when you've got a page that's half-full of visited links and half-full of unvisited ones, the overall effect is kinda ugly.

05 Nov 2003 | mephisto said...

I am sorry but the sites seem quite uninspiring and weak. Because they said usable, does not mean it had to be boring (mind you I dont know what I would have done)

05 Nov 2003 | Mike said...

Oh man Brad, you're right! Somebody should email that guy so he can "fix it in the mix" ;)

I actually do like the font-weight change for the link states. I've never seen that effect used like that before, and I'd be interested to see some usability tests done on the subject.

[Cue Matt Oliphant's $.02]

05 Nov 2003 | mal said...

Fair points on the bold/non-bold stuff, but who says I'm less interested in links I've already visited? If anything, I would've thought it would be the other way around.

Most of the time when I go back to useit.com (not often these days, but that's another issue), I'm looking for a pertinent quote from an article I read a while back. Making unread material stand out more might be good for the site owner (if s/he wants more stuff read), but is it good for the visitor?

05 Nov 2003 | mal said...

P.S. I'm not saying I've got the answer! I've just never felt the benefit of changing a link's font-weight. If everyone else likes it, however, maybe I need to think again... :)

05 Nov 2003 | jackie treehorn said...

I am with mephisto - pretty mediocre.

05 Nov 2003 | matthew said...

Overall, I agree that they're lacking but this one is nice.

05 Nov 2003 | Mike said...

Yeah it is, and that's no surprise Mike Pick does some great work.

05 Nov 2003 | Joshua Kaufman said...

Already posted elsewhere, but anyways...

I think the contest should be renamed from "ReUSEIT!" to "The many sides of Jakob Nielsen: usability expert, goth, fisherman"

05 Nov 2003 | SU said...

What would have been very cool is if Jakob Nielsen's site had been recoded with CSS-compliance and then altered via alternative stylesheets la CSS Zen Garden.

06 Nov 2003 | Don Schenck said...

I like them all.

Then again, I am -- hands down no contest -- the WORST designer in the world. Seriously. I can twiddle bits with the best of them ... but visual stuff?

I'd do better to surf up the Susquehanna with one hand tied behind my back ... in January.

06 Nov 2003 | Don Schenck said...

... which is why I hate Jason, Matt, and the rest of you folks.

:-)

06 Nov 2003 | Matthew Oliphant said...

We hate you, too, Don. We hate you, too.

;) :)

06 Nov 2003 | Jonny Roader said...

Not sure if I've understood the brief of the competition, but surely if you're going to attempt to bring beauty to Nielsen's sparse functionality while all the time attempting to prove that said beauty doesn't necessarily sacrifice said functionality, then you have to abide by the rules he sets - such as no images, backwards browser compatibility, etc.?

06 Nov 2003 | Bob Sawyer said...

you have to abide by the rules he sets - such as no images, backwards browser compatibility, etc.?

Backwards browser compatibility is one thing, but images are another entirely. After I received the go-ahead from Dr. Nielsen to run this contest, and after his assertion that while the idea interested him somewhat, he probably wouldn't use any of the redesigns anyway, I decided that I would not restrict contestants to his point of view in terms of images, layout, etc.

Interestingly enough, a number of entrants stated in their comments that they wanted to follow his lead, and thus produced their versions without images (or with just a few tiny ones), maintained a similar layout, etc.

To me, the entire point of the contest was to prove that usability and, to a lesser extent, accessibility, did not have to equate with boring, design-free sites. I'm not sure that all the entrants embraced that idea, but some certainly did.

As for images, the days of waiting forever for an image to download are, by and large, over. Even at 56K speeds, a well-constructed site with a few medium- to large-sized images takes only a few seconds to download. Nielsen's assertion that the page must load instantly or your visitors are outta there is misguided. If your content is engaging enough, I think the majority of web users will wait a moment or two for a few images to download. In addition, if your site is properly constructed, your readers can begin perusing your content even before the images completely load.

Sorry for the extra-long post. I just wanted to explain my position on the subject. :-)

06 Nov 2003 | JF said...

Thanks for chiming in, Bob!

07 Nov 2003 | Jonny Roader said...

Thanks for taking the time to reply, Bob. I certainly agree that examples of good design, usability, and accessibility are always needed - and some of the entries in there certainly provide these.

However, I don't quite see the point of a contest that says 'redesign Nielsen' but then bypasses what he's all about: uncompromising usability. The gist of the argument for me has never been 'is it possible' to produce decent usability within a pleasing design (because there are enough examples of that these days), but whether or not it's possible to combine excellent aesthetics while remaining 100% commited to the maximisation of usability and accessibility (the latter of which you somewhat disappointingly relegate to a side-point it seems).

I think this statement encapsulates a telling blindspot:

"As for images, the days of waiting forever for an image to download are, by and large, over."

That just ain't true I'm afraid. Vast swathes of the UK still do not even have the option of broadband and have to make do with dodgy 56k connections that, believe me, do not always render even "well-constructed" sites quickly. I think people who've got used to broadband connections easily forget just how slow things can be. Besides, even if you are willing to wait those few seconds you talk about, the usability of the site is affected if you *have* to.

And if you're thinking at this point 'so what', the government over here is increasingly concerned that economic growth in rural areas (already hit hard by various crises over the past decade) is being drastically put back by poor internet access. Again, it's easy to take the benefits of fast connections and new equipment for granted.

On a local level, the cost of the bandwidth consumed by the hospital I work for is subject to scrutiny at the moment. Indeed, haven't many of the people involved in the CSS/standards movement trumpeted its superiority in terms of bandwidth? What's the point if it's just making space for jpeg eye-candy?

And, of course, the situation in the UK doesn't even come close to the situation in countries where the national IT infrastructure is poor. I was recently asked to give advice about a web-based project for a third-world hospital where the entire emergency department shares one PC with a dial-up connection. Given that access to the internet now forms a crucial part of medicine, usability was quite literally a life-and-death matter in this instance.

But then, personally, I think the whole usability/design argument is a luxurious distraction from something more important. Unfortunately, apart from a few good souls like Joe Clark it seems that the web design world as a whole is unconcerned with its politics, and designing to bridge the 'digital divide' just ain't as sexy as good ol' aesthetics. But web design doesn't exist in a vacuum. We're already beginning to hear more and more about the social costs of our network usage (with debates about spam and internet 'pollution' hitting the mainstream media over here) and while web usability is a relatively esoteric subject in that realm, it's still part of an overall debate that needs to be heard.

07 Nov 2003 | Matthew Oliphant said...

[Cue Matt Oliphant's $.02]

Well... There was a study presented at HFES last year on The Effects of Bold Text on Visual Search of Form Fields. (Gotta love those social scientist titles.) It was done by Kurt Joseph, Benjamin Knott, and Rebecca Grier at SBC Technology Resources in Austin.

They used tabular data, not exactly similar to the case here, but the found that participants spent about 4 times as long looking (used eye tracking) at the bold text versus the non-bold text (pdesign guidelines that state to only use bold text to "call attention to important items."

Our close, personal friends at usability.gov, in their recently updated and expanded guidelines note information similar to NASAs guidelines on pages 77, 100 (which shows examples of bolded hyperlinks), 101, 111 (which suggests bolded text be used for required fields instead of other indicators), and 147 (which states, "Do not use [bold] for showing emphasis for more than one or two words or a short phrase because [it] slow[s] reading performance when used for extended prose.) Sourced from the PDF version of the guidelines as I think the Web site has yet to be updated.

Too much information as usual, I suppose. And it doesn't really answer the question. Guess it is another opportunity for a study. :)

What I would like to see is some usability done on the top 3 (because all good things come in 3's) winners from the contest go tte--tte with Yakob's site. Send all of them through 3 to 5 different labs independently and consolidate the reports for all to see. Anyone want to try this? I might be able to use our lab, and certainly we would have to get people who regularly read useit.com. I would come at it from the view of, how many usability issues are found, not necessarily which one if most usable. And hopefully there would be at least a bit of agreement as to what a usability issue actually is between the separate labs.

07 Nov 2003 | Matthew Oliphant said...

This paragraph got garbled:

They used tabular data, not exactly similar to the case here, but the found that participants spent about 4 times as long looking (used eye tracking) at the bold text versus the non-bold text (pdesign guidelines that state to only use bold text to "call attention to important items."

It should have read:

They used tabular data, not exactly similar to the case here, but they found that participants spent about 4 times as long looking (used eye tracking) at the bold text versus the non-bold text (p<.001).

You could extrapolate the concept that if you want to slow down a reader, or draw their eye to a certain spot on the page, use bold text.

NASA (if you trust such things) has some design guidelines that state to only use bold text to "call attention to important items."
blockquote>

07 Nov 2003 | Matthew Oliphant said...

*sigh* not my day to try and use HTML.

13 Nov 2003 | Scrivs said...

This was my take on the whole matter. I believe he is just trying to cram too much information on to one page.

14 Nov 2003 | Don Schenck said...

Okay, this is depressing to a design-challenged developer like me. I HATE YOU ALL, ALL YOU ARTISTIC AND DESIGN-ABLED PEOPLE! HATE YOU, I SAY!

:-)

14 Nov 2003 | Scrivs said...

Come on now Don, hatred gets you no where. Everybody is good at something in this world...maybe you just haven't found you niche yet ;)

17 Nov 2003 | Tom Sherman said...

The saddest bit of all this is that all of the redesigns are far superior to Nielsen's original site. That this so-called "usability guru" can put forth such a pathetic website and not be laughed out of town (and out of business) says something about how low we set the bar. For shame.