Jakob Nielsen is off this planet

Filed in archive Newsdesk 2.0 on May 18, 2007

Just a few days back I wrote about Jakob Nielsens unexplainable tirade against web 2.0. Quite some people said to me they did not agree because Jabkob Nielsen is supposed to be a usability guru, claiming web sites should be simple and not feature-rich.

I still stand by my earlier comments on this person, and I see with me. Besides that, Mr Nielsen's website, useit.com is a mess. I think he tried to keep it simple as that is his trademark, but seriously, we're not in the eighties anymore. And there are so many links on it, it is unclear and a big mess. Not something to be proud of, especially if you have a big mouth about the web. He also mentioned Web 2.0 is comparable to the rise and fall of the dotcom era. And that's where he is dead wrong.

You see what he's done there? By broadly comparing web 2.0 sites to one of the worst offenders in the dot com era (boo.com), he's basically saying that web 2.0 = dot com. But he doesn't mention a single web 2.0 site as evidence. Frankly, I fail to see any similarity between YouTube's easy to use, user content-focused design (for example) and the bloated, interactive-before-its-time design of boo.com. Nielsen may have a point if we used MySpace as an example, because it is true that MySpace is not overly usable - its design is crowded and cluttered. But it works... unlike boo.com! ()

I am sorry, but I have had it with this "guru".

Jakob Nielsen, shut up and go home. You are an old man.