Jakob Nielsen on Web 2.0
This BBC article has usability guru Jakob Nielsen talking about the problems with Web 2.0 from a usability perspective. I always find him interesting and insightful, but I’m wondering if he’s missing something this time around. I agree with the general position that Web 2.0 causes some problems - I think people use whizzy flashy bits just because they can. Which is rarely a good reason to add whiz and flash. From a design as well as a technical stance, too much web2.0 is often not good for the soul.
But Jakob is talking about other things:
The idea of community, user generated content and more dynamic web pages are not inherently bad in the same way, they should be secondary to the primary things sites should get right.
On many web2.0 sites, the community is the primary thing. On other more content based sites the community is clearly secondary to the site’s editorial content. His point, though, is on these sites perhaps it would be better to have spent the effort that was used building out the community to have actually improved the usability of the site. I think that that’s a pretty tough sell because increasing usability is a difficult and nebulous thing to achieve.
One other factor is that, even though the vast majority of users may not actually partake in the community, they may still reap benefit from it either via a new way of surfacing content (by user rating) or else by the conversation amongst the users about the editorial content. So I’d guess it’s easier to rationalize something that will add functionality and serve at least a reasonable portion of the user base better than to attempt a UI overhaul that may serve a large majority better, but on the other hand, may not.
Mr Nielsen also questioned championing teenage use of the web as a harbinger of what people will continue to do when they were older.
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“It’s because they are 20 years old that they act differently to 40-year-olds,” said Mr Nielsen.
It’s true that there’s a difference in how people will use the web over time, I suspect that as people age they won’t spend as much time on facebook as they did. But to discount that the experience that people have on the web in there youth will have a significant effect on their use as they get older, I think, is a strange one. I can see the difference on how I use the internet compared to my siblings who are a bit older than I am. And I am sure that the kids younger than me are even more immersed in the culture.
As they get older their specific habits may change, but I find it difficult to doubt that understanding what they do now will give significant insight into what they will do in the future. Comparing typical use of the web by a 40 year old now to a 40 year old in 10 or 20 years, will, I suspect be eye opening.
