Jakob Nielsen responds to responsive mobile criticism

http://www.netmagazine.com/interviews/nielsen-responds-mobile-criticism

by j_c • 14 years ago

12 12 14 years ago

netmagazine.com

micheljansen2• 14 years ago

In the article, Dr. Nielsen has this to say about Responsive Design:

> JN: Because I was writing about user experience, not implementation

This is exactly why so many people took issue with Dr. Nielsen's statements: he did speak about implementation.

Some examples, straight from the alert box:

1. "Build a separate mobile-optimized site"

The fact that the mobile-optimized site needs to be separate is clearly about implementation. If the argument was made that there needs to be a separate experience for mobile users, I think nobody would have disagreed, but this is not what it says: it says there need to be two completely distinct sites.

2. "If mobile users arrive at your full site's URL, auto-redirect them to your mobile site"

Again, redirection is an implementation detail. Why does the URL for the mobile-optimized site need to be different from the regular site? Why not serve different content to different users at the same URL? Why not do this using CSS or JavaScript? How is having a separate URL beneficial for the user experience? This is not mentioned.

As it turns out, there are usability issues in having separate URLs for mobile and regular sites. For example, if I email or bookmark a link from my phone and later open it on a desktop computer, I get the wrong site. That's not to say that there is no place for separate mobile sites (especially when the mobile use case is clearly different from the desktop use case), but this an entirely different story.

There is plenty of wisdom in Nielsen's words, but the Mobile Site vs. Full Site is a moot point. The argument should have been "create a separate mobile-optimized experience" instead.

jasonlotito2• 14 years ago

I think you are purposely misreading what he's writing.

What's the difference between building a separate mobile-optimized site and a separate experience for mobile users? Consider that this shouldn't require you to change anything on the backend. Your basically saying that a mobile-optimized experience is good... but only if it's on the same site?

> Why does the URL for the mobile-optimized site need to be different from the regular site?

It doesn't. He's saying if a user comes to your site, display him the mobile site.

> As it turns out, there are usability issues in having separate URLs for mobile and regular sites. For example, if I email or bookmark a link from my phone and later open it on a desktop computer, I get the wrong site.

That's a site issue. A site can easily render a different display based on the device.

> "create a separate mobile-optimized experience"

Your essentially arguing that he didn't use those exact words, and be damned the meaning.

micheljansen2• 14 years ago

How about you leave it to me to state my purpose?

What I am saying is that Nielsen deflects questions about responsive design by saying that he "was writing about user experience, not implementation", while clearly he does.

> It doesn't. He's saying if a user comes to your site, display him the mobile site.

He speaks about a "separate mobile site" and that you should "auto-redirect them to your mobile site" and provide links between the two sites. He also warns that Google might not index the separate site. It is pretty hard to read this other than that that separate mobile site has a separate URL.

> That's a site issue. A site can easily render a different display based on the device.

That's also what I am saying.

> Your essentially arguing that he didn't use those exact words, and be damned the meaning.

I'll be damned the words he uses, but he ventured into controversial implementation details, for which he caught some flak and I am suggesting an alternative formulation that steers clear of implementation details.

chris_wot3• 14 years ago

It's funny - he is asked why he doesn't talk about responsive design, and his answer is that he's not analysing implementation. But his specific recommendations are to design a separate website for each device! If that's not an implementation recommendation, I don't know what is.

jimmar2• 14 years ago

Before listening to anything Jakob Nielsen says about usability, go look at his website: http://www.useit.com/. Can you honestly tell me that the man is a usability expert who has a website designed like that?

EDIT: I've read some of his books and agree with what he says most of the time--I definitely don't write off everything he says. I should have worded my post differently.

About useit.com, it's hard to be completely terrible since there is not a functionality. I would argue that the organization of the links is a little odd, lack of dates on news items is not ideal, and the search bar buried at the very top right of a page that scales 100% is a little hard to notice (design & usability intertwined).

chris_wot3• 14 years ago

I actually had the same thought..., but actually, I read everything I needed in a very short space of time. Sure, it doesn't look pretty, but I'd have to say its extremely usable. Kinda like Hacker News actually! :-)

jimmar2• 14 years ago

True, the aesthetics are the worst part of the site. I find it odd that there are two main sections: permanent content and news. The news items don't have any dates, which I find annoying. And putting things "reports" in the permanent content section implies that there will never be any new reports. Does the permanent content really never change? Maybe I'm being too nit-picky. :)

andybak• 14 years ago

Can you provide a bit more detail to convince me that you understand the difference between visual design and usability?

hej• 14 years ago

It's possible to do valuable empirical usability research, develop theories and imterpret data without having an aesthatically pleasing website. Useit.com is not very pretty, nor modern or fashionable – but that's visual design. I don't think it's a bad website from a usability perspective, but even if there are some problems with it, Nielsen has done too much important work to just ignore him.

(I think he is wrong when it comes to this particular issue, I see no reason to generally ignore him, though.)

MortenK• 14 years ago

I agree with this, though it is not a popular opinion. There are many issues with the site. You have to read the entire site to find whatever you are looking for. Under news is listed news, then courses, then more news. While visual design is a different discipline as others have pointed out, this design is so bad that it impairs usability simply by being hard to read. It's just a really bad site, and I think it's fair for the op to put a serious questionmark to Jakob Nielsens authority on the subject, based on it.

Jakob Nielsen responds to responsive mobile criticism

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