Posting Date: December 24, 2002

Top Ten Web-Design Mistakes of 2002 -- "Every year brings new mistakes. In 2002, several of the worst mistakes in Web design related to poor email integration. The number one mistake, however, was lack of pricing information, followed by overly literal search engines." (Comments: I wasn't going to post this but too many people submitted it to me.)

Reader Comments...

Are the days of the fire spewing Jakob a thing of the past? It's the first time in the past seven years that he has used comic illustrations to make his point.

Remember the exuberance of last week's "In the Future, We'll All Be Harry Potter." He’s also been using the "joy of use" phrase quite frequently in his articles recently. Is this his way of celebrating the holidays or is there a real, deliberate shift in Alertbox's tone and direction? Maybe he’s simply borrowing the skills of Steve Krug.

Anyway, I love the cartoons (even though the ALT text exceeds Nielsen’s own guideline for the maximum number of characters :-).

Posted by: Manu Sharma on December 24, 2002 08:43 PM

It makes a lot of sense to me.

Posted by: Morris Cox on December 24, 2002 09:32 PM

11. Credulously believing information on the web
Especially information doled out by those with obvious conflicts of interest.

Posted by: Ron Zeno on December 25, 2002 12:41 PM

I loved his recoommendation against new browser windows: that users can always right-click to open a new window if they want. I don't think I ever saw that level of sophistication in usability labs.

Posted by: Frank on December 25, 2002 11:53 PM

For your info, this content was produced as a poster that was mailed out to nngroup customers about six months ago, so I wouldn't expect more illustrations in the future.

These oversimplistic 'Mistakes' actually raise a lot of questions that actually need discussion rather than a check box.

On No Prices. Why can't we see the prices for the nngroup reports on the reports page ?

On FAQ. Why don't nngroup explain why they don't have any returns policy?

If NNGroup aren't going to take these things seriously, why should anyone else?

Posted by: Mac on December 26, 2002 07:29 AM

This is great. Important topic, authoritative, clear text and a graphic kicker!
That's meaning and memorability with impact.
But why so rare? How much does it cost to make cartoons like these?

Posted by: Gary Ames on December 28, 2002 11:43 AM

What makes it "authoritative"? I'd suggest reading with a healthy dose of skepticism.

There is no definition or explaination of how a mistake makes it into the top ten. There is no reference to research of any kind to support the claims.

Once again it's Jake tossing rice to the hungry, but we need some meat.

Posted by: on December 29, 2002 01:29 PM

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