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Two Words Is a Minute Description of a Human Need Famous for citing website design mistakes, Jakob Nielsen, the web’’s original usability guru (指导者) , explains why search has taken over, why adverts aren’’t working, and how to make browsing better. Technology Guardian: The hype is everywhere about Web 2. 0. How do things like Ajax fit into the guidelines you’’ve been espousing (支持) Jakob Nielsen: It’’s always been good usability to make interfaces reactive, to have as fast response times as possible. Many of these Web 2. 0 things are tricks to provide it in a faster way. In that sense it works well, it’’s just a programming technique for achieving these goals. I used to say that I don’’t like a lot of functionality inside a web browser, but now you can view the browser more like a programming system or a programming language almost, and therefore your browser can become a support platform. The question then becomes "is that the best way of doing these applications" , or is it still best to download them and use them as a full-featured application which sucks in small amounts of data. But it’’s all a continuum (统一体): at one end you have pure data and information on the web, and on the other the full applications. Most things exist in the middle. Information-only websites have are still useful, and then something like Microsoft Office has rich interaction styles that are still easier to do on the desktop. TG: Are there problems with the way people approach web businesses JN: There is a misunderstanding of internet advertising. There is some advertising that is working and funneling money back to the search engines. But because most advertisements work so poorly on the web, the advertisers are yelling more and more loudly and they are getting more garish(俗气的) and being deceptive. Those are really big problems, and they cause users to feel like the internet is a less welcoming place. It’’s like being in the bad part of town, with people insulting you. It backfires because it damages credibility; they assign the blame partly to the advertiser and partly to the website. TG: How irritating is it that people still aren’’t getting your message JN: It’’s very annoying. There are many new and interesting things to talk about, but it’’s baffling that we have to continue talking about these old findings. But we have to. Business-to-business websites still live in the 90s in terms of interacting with customers online. The sites may look good, but there’’s no clear-cut information — just slogans. TG: Have you seen any significant changes in the way people use the web JN: General behavior is very search-dominated. You go to your favorite search engine, type in two words and click on the first few results. Users spend one or two minutes and then decide where to do their business. That has been a big change. Search has changed from being something that’’s somewhat useful to being something that works surprisingly well. People do tend to only type in two words, and two words is a very minute and impoverished description of a human need. But search engines can — most of the time—pick four or five sites that you actually want. Because people have experienced that it works, this has become their number one behavior. TG: People either love or hate you. Have your methods helped you JN: There probably are some people who are beyond reach because they don’’t want to listen. It’’s kind of like being an astronomer and you’’re looking up at the sky and saying that it looks like the earth is revolving around the sun, not the sun revolving around the earth. You can report it and the Pope can like it or not, but it doesn’’t change what’’s going on. It’’s the same here: I’’m reporting what average people find when they visit a website. If you don’’t listen your users will suffer and your business will suffer. You have to fight for the people. These new technologies aren’’t just for the technological elite. Remember that the average user is not there when a company or design team has a meeting about what to do on our website. TG: There’’s a perception that you are the guy who comes to the party and tells them to turn the music down. Do you enjoy that reaction JN: I have my own techno-enthusiasm, I like advanced fancy stuff too. If you’’re only doing something that’’s targeting a few thousand web designers, then you can make it challenging because those users would find it engaging and fun. But the average user doesn’’t find it engaging and fun to struggle against technology. You have to acknowledge the way the real world works. You shouldn’’t design for designers, or design for your boss. Good design is about problem-solving under constraints—design has to have a goal of achieving some purpose. TG: Sites like MySpace are hugely populated by savvy younger people still developing a sense of design. Do you feel that sites directed towards young users are failing to teach them best practice JN: If a teenager is just making a page for their three best friends, then these guidelines aren’’t relevant. You can put a pulsating heart on the page, make it play your favorite song — these atrocities would be the kiss of death for a mainstream website, but here it’’s a case of personal expression. It is OK for somebody’’s MySpace pages to contradict everything we know about usability because they’’re purely self-expression. We have to get through to them that the way you communicate among yourselves is different from the way you communicate with other people. This goes back to the school system, which needs to explain the different ways of communicating in different media. If you wrote a job application like your MySpace pages, you’’d be out of work. TG: So is there room for talking about these issues in the classroom JN: There was a study done at the Open University found that in elementary schools, for every ￡ 100 spent on books, students grades improved by 1. 5%—and for every ￡ 100 spent on computers, grades improved by 0. 7%. So books are twice as good as computers for this, so it’’s not necessarily that I should study history by clicking on some web pages, but that we should teach about these electronic media forms and how to use them. The value of that education would be immense. Web 2.0 is the best way to function as both a browser and a programming system.