ReUSEIT
Visitors to Rainy Day don?t need much reminding of our admiration (adoration?) of Jakob Nielsen. He's simply the most honest and intelligent voice in the web usability field, in our opinion. Newcomers to Nielsen are often shocked by the Spartan look of his own site, Useit.com, but before they flee in horror, they should stick around long enough to read the statement, "Why This Site Has Almost No Graphics". In the words of the Great Dane:
"Download times rule the Web, and since most users have access speeds on the order of 28.8 kbps, Web pages can be no more than 3 KB if they are to download in one second which is the required response time for hypertext navigation. Users do not keep their attention on the page if downloading exceeds 10 seconds, corresponding to 30 KB at modem speed. Keeping below these size limits rules out most graphics." Objectors to Nielsen's argument might point to the growth in broadband access, but they're forgetting much of the developed world and almost the entire developing world, where dial-up access is and will be the standard for years to come. And, Jakob adds, "I am not a visual designer, so my graphics would look crummy anyway."
Although Nielsen's minimalism is appreciated by millions, it is ridiculed by web designers and this prompted a group of bright minds to come together this year and stage a ReUSEIT competition. The brief: "Design a usable, intuitive layout and navigation, organize the content with usability in mind, and create a work of art which still reflects the importance and influence of Nielsen?s work." Fifty-three submissions to the competition are now on display and they're all very attractive looking. Which one will Jakob implement? He has given the competition his blessing "You are certainly welcome to try; it will be interesting to see what people come up with." But he's also said " But it is highly unlikely that I will use the results."
Diarist of the day: Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, 6 November 1930"[Lord] Beaverbrook told good story of Lloyd George coming back late at night from Criccieth. His car broke down outside Horton Asylum. Knocked up porter.
'Who are you?'
'I'm the Prime Minister.'
'Come inside. We've seven here already.' "
Comments
My personal style, as of write now is to keep everything compliant with the standards (W3C XHTML) and strive for accessibility, and usability. However I do use some graphics, not many, but whenever I feel that a graphic is appropriate for the page I will use it. If the image is coded correctly, and the browser does it right then the text will load before the graphic. Also the majority of browsers can be configured to turn off graphics so it becomes a moot point.
One thing that should be made clearer is common sense must prevail.
Posted by: Blaine Hilton | November 6, 2003 8:05 AM