Life is too short to click on an unknown
October 17, 2005 
“Life is too short to click on an unknown.” — Jakob Nielsen
Take Jakob Nielsen’s advice about the web (and the value of life itself) seriously. Afterall, he has been called both “the usability Pope” and “the next best thing to a true time machine.”
Don’t mess with Jakob Nielsen.
Now that we have the standard warning out of the way, let’s take a look at Dr. Nielsen’s latest column about bloggers’ common design faux paus:
Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes:
- No Author Biographies
- No Author Photo
- Nondescript Posting Titles
- Links Don’t Say Where They Go
- Classic Hits are Buried
- The Calendar is the Only Navigation
- Irregular Publishing Frequency
- Mixing Topics
- Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
- Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service
There are very many, even millions of blogs that do more than one of the common mistakes on Jakob’s list. And no, not all of them are LiveJournals! Maybe even your blog contains some of these problems.
If you write a blog, take pride in it. Making it easier to use and understand will encourage readers to stick around and check back regularly. Weblog usability is a good thing.
So take Jakob Nielsen’s advice and apply it to your blog and also yourself: Life is too short to click on an unknown.
October 19th, 2005 at 2:47 PM
I tend to take anything he writes with a huge grain of salt. While he’s the “usability guru”, a lot of the stuff he writes tends to be over-the-top like Dvorak’s writing, although perhaps less egotistical.
Its pretty obvious that things like good cross-linking between stories, a friendly layout, well-written stories and descriptive titles are a must.
I would say #10 is his way of saying “I couldn’t come up with anything reasonable and had to throw something in”. Typepad domains are pretty well-trusted, and the service is definitely reputable enough that I doubt they’ll succumb to the evils he writes about.
And #7 - Irregular publishing frequency?! I would rather read fewer blog entries from most people, but have them be interesting. Nobody wants to read “Oh, yes, its the day I usually post, but I have nothing to say” blah-blah.