The Internet is a friendlier place because of Dr. Jakob Nielsen. The good Dr. holds a Ph.D. in human-computer interaction and focuses on making websites user friendly. He has been called “the guru of Web page usability” (The New York Times).
Dr. Neilsen worked for Bellcore, the Technical University of Denmark, and IBM before going to Sun Microsystems in 1994, where he focused on defining Web usability. He left Sun Microsystems in 1998 to form, with partner Don Norman, Nielsen Norman Group, which offers usability reviews, training, user testing, and a conference about Web usability. Dr. Neilsen stresses that websites should be tested by end users to determine their effectiveness. According to Neilsen Norman research, visitors to a new site average about 30 seconds on the homepage and less than two minutes on the entire site. If they spend 15 of their 30 seconds determining which link to click on, they’ll probably leave.
Dr. Neilsen has 11 books to his credit, the latest being Prioritizing Web Usability (New Riders Press, 2006), and he maintains the following website:
http://www.useit.com/
For a recently written article about Jakob Nielsen (August 2007) go to
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/09/guardianweeklytechnologysection.interviews
