[Mik]

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html

""I view it as a personal failure that Flash collected the bronze medal for annoyance. It's been three years since I launched a major effort to remedy Flash problems and published the guidelines for using Flash appropriately.""

he loves it.

[Mik]

http://www.nngroup.com/events/london/prices.html


how much?

[finbarr]

Originally Posted by Mr Mik

http://www.nngroup.com/events/london/prices.html


how much?

too much!

[menace]

Flash is a programming environment and should be used to offer users additional power and features that are unavailable from a static page. Flash should not be used to jazz up a page. If your content is boring

Oh Mr Nielsen. You're the most famous and well-respected remedial I know. All you have to do is point out the bleeding obvious and you STILL get it wrong. So Flash should be used for additional power and features and not to jazz up your page, eh? Well that's odd because I usually DO use Flash to jazz up the page. In fact, any complex and critical funtionality that I need to employ in the site I usually try to develop it outside of Flash in order to make it as accessible as possible.

Jakob Nielsen is a clueless fucktard. The only good points he makes are blatantly obvious ones that we're all aware of. And quite often he punches above his weight and talks utter codshite. You want to see annoying, Nielsen? Try reading this - http://www.useit.com/alertbox/designmistakes.html

I wouldn't mind this fat, baldy dinosaur except people seem to take him seriously. I wish he'd just disappear and let the rest of us take this industry forward. If he wants to educate bedroom web designers about not using Flash intros, pixel fonts or hiding links on their pages, fine. But do it out of the public eye and stop making idiotic assertions as to how to do certain things - such as using Flash. Tosser.

[pgo]

More bitching. Geez.

I think he's hit the nail on the head with regard to Flash. First, he's talking about big sites - corporate sites, business sites, services sites - that need the accessibility and usability that he evangelizes.

Second, he's railing on bad use of Flash. For instance - intros, navigation, etc. Flash used to jazz things up is bad design. Period. It brings up images of splash pages, sites that resize my browser, sites that screech awful noises out of my speakers when I'm trying to listen to music - all examples of bad design.

Things that should either not be there or be done with text. He's given good examples of the use of Flash. For instance, the New York Times does little statistical applications - visual representations of data, slideshows with audio commentary, and the like. He points those out as good uses of Flash and I, frankly, agree.

If it can be done without Flash, don't use Flash.

Nielsen's not always right, but he's worth listening to with an open mind and taking from his ideas what you will and ignoring what isn't relevant.

You may very well be aware of many of his points, but that doesn't mean the people he's writing for - web designers stuck in the 1990s, marketers, etc. - know those things. You are not everyone else.

[menace]

Originally Posted by pgo

More bitching. Geez.

I think he's hit the nail on the head with regard to Flash. First, he's talking about big sites - corporate sites, business sites, services sites - that need the accessibility and usability that he evangelizes.

Second, he's railing on bad use of Flash. For instance - intros, navigation, etc. Flash used to jazz things up is bad design. Period. It brings up images of splash pages, sites that resize my browser, sites that screech awful noises out of my speakers when I'm trying to listen to music - all examples of bad design.

Things that should either not be there or be done with text. He's given good examples of the use of Flash. For instance, the New York Times does little statistical applications - visual representations of data, slideshows with audio commentary, and the like. He points those out as good uses of Flash and I, frankly, agree.

If it can be done without Flash, don't use Flash.

Nielsen's not always right, but he's worth listening to with an open mind and taking from his ideas what you will and ignoring what isn't relevant.

You may very well be aware of many of his points, but that doesn't mean the people he's writing for - web designers stuck in the 1990s, marketers, etc. - know those things. You are not everyone else.

The only problem is that he's constantly contradicting himself, he's arrogant and all he ever does is point out the obvious. If clients were savvy enough to hire professionals to do the job for them, there'd be no need for his pontification and bizarre double-standards. He's a liability. Simple as that.

[pgo]

Originally Posted by menace

If clients were savvy enough to hire professionals to do the job for them, there'd be no need for his pontification and bizarre double-standards. He's a liability. Simple as that.

How does that make him a liability? If he's merely spouting the same things we call common sense, then he's doing us a favor by educating the business types about what is and is not good usable, accessible, web design (not graphic design, he obviously knows fuck all about that - just look at his site).

So, I think from that angle he's doing us a favor.

The problem I have with him and I'm sure most web designers and developers share is that his solutions aren't always practical in the real world. Not all links can be blue and underlined without ruining a design. Same goes with Flash - there's a time and a place.

For a good, thoughful response to Nielsen, see - http://jeffcroft.com/blog/archives/2...s_ten_mist.php

As he says, it's not that he's wrong exactly - it's that he says things in absolutes - he's a sensationalist.

[menace]

Er, well you've kind of contradicted yourself there so I'll concur.

[pgo]

Have I? I won't bother to check because I'm tired of this subject. If so, my mistake.

[aspiramedia]

here we go...

[pgo]

What do you mean, I'm done.

[d*d]

Originally Posted by menace

Er, well you've kind of contradicted yourself there so I'll concur.

how?

[menace]

Originally Posted by pgo

How does that make him a liability? If he's merely spouting the same things we call common sense, then he's doing us a favor by educating the business types

Originally Posted by pgo

The problem I have with him and I'm sure most web designers and developers share is that his solutions aren't always practical in the real world. Not all links can be blue and underlined without ruining a design. Same goes with Flash - there's a time and a place.

He's not a liability, he is a liablility.

[pgo]

Fine. I'll bite.

That's not a contradiction as I see it. I don't think the fact that his suggestions are sometimes unpractical makes him a liability - unless you (the designer) base your decisions on what he says. No one has to listen to him (well, he might not agree with that, but who cares).

All I'm saying is that he makes valid points, but he should be taken with a grain of salt simply because he's such an absolutist.

He's only a liability if you take everything he says as the absolute truth.

[menace]

True, we don't have to listen to him. Unfortunately he's been elevated to the status of God by many clueless type in industry and, as such, he could prove to be a liability. Granted, I've never had anyone approach me and say 'Ooooh, Jakob says you should do this so can you change your design?' so he's not really a bugbear.

However, he does make some fucking idiotic points in my opinion. For example, as I pointed out above, his problem with Flash being used to jazz up a site is completely wrong. He claims that Flash shouldn't be used for window dressing and it should only be used to add extended core functionality to a site. Er, well what about accessibility? Generally I tend NOT to use Flash to create critical content/functionality and ONLY to jazz the site up! Shouldn't functionality be extended using accessibile technology and not Flash? Obviously Flash intros are out but why not using Flash for, say, a masthead image where critical content and functionality are all present and accessible in the XHTML document?

Personally, I just find Neilson very remedial.

[pgo]

I don't disagree with you at all.

I think, though, on the Flash thing, he's talking about special extra applications. For example, and I think I may have mentioned this, NYTimes' little informational Flash clips and audio slideshows.

Surely those are the things Flash was made for. The content is still there, but the Flash adds supplemental content that, while not central to the core concept - adds to the core concept.

Flash mastheads are fine as far as I'm concerned. So long as they don't contain much (if any) core content. As I'm sure we can all agree.

I also think Flash is fine for the sorts of things top_buzz does (shameless endorsement!) - the "e-flyers" for electronic music shows and clubs and whatnot. That sort of thing is fine with me.

Now, it'd be interesting to see if there's a method for, say, having a navigation list in the markup and using JavaScript and/or CSS to hide the text from non-Flash-enabled browsers and give a Flash animation instead. That would be great.

[oli]

Originally Posted by pgo

Now, it'd be interesting to see if there's a method for, say, having a navigation list in the markup and using JavaScript and/or CSS to hide the text from non-Flash-enabled browsers and give a Flash animation instead. That would be great.

http://web.burza.hr/

[menace]

Originally Posted by pgo

Now, it'd be interesting to see if there's a method for, say, having a navigation list in the markup and using JavaScript and/or CSS to hide the text from non-Flash-enabled browsers and give a Flash animation instead. That would be great.

I varioation of sIFR could probably be used - http://www.mikeindustries.com/sifr/