I just had the thought “Jakob Nielsen is dead to me.” It’s only about half true, though.
I’m thinking a lot about web design and usability, and while he absolutely understands usability, he wouldn’t see design if it came up and bit him in the face.
[Postscript: It looks like better designers have prevailed: The highly usable but horribly ugly UseIt.com now redirects to the Nielsen Norman Group website, which has an actual aesthetic.]
Have you ever read this book: Don’t Make Me Think?
I like it 🙂
I’ve decided that “Jakob Nielsen is dead to me” is a geek badge. It’s not that all of his advice is bad. Some of it is good. But he has fallen off the guru-pedestal I had him on. So maybe “Jakob Nielsen is a mere mortal” would be more accurate.
Just got a tip from Laura Quinn to check out Adaptive Path and User Interface Engineering. Neither inspired instantaneous brainwashing, which is what I look for in a guru, but they’ve both got potential as sources of actual learning.
(Interesting. I’ve just discovered a big well of guru-suspicion. Something to explore later.)