Jakob Nielsen wrote a good review of the Kindle usability. All his comments match my experience.
I haven’t been bothered too much by the shortcomings that Jakob found on the Kindle, probably because my expectations are low in the area of non-linear navigation and I’m fully aware of the current limitations of electrophoretic displays. Still, Amazon should take note of these comments and try to improve the overall UI experience for the next version.
Having said that, I still find Jakob Nielsen’s web site pretty ugly. Functional, yes, pleasant to read, no. Which is paradoxical for someone who takes web usability so seriously. The most offending aspect of his articles are the frequent bold face uses.
Here is an excerpt of Nielsen’s article:
To me, these highlighted words are like high-pitch screams in the middle of a soft-spoken speech. They make me feel like I’m opening a brand new book and finding random words highlighted in yellow marker. It’s not just distracting, it actually goes against my reading because my eyes can’t help being attracted toward the emphasized words despite all my efforts to force them to follow the natural flow of the text.
If you want to communicate some kind of synthesis of your articles to your readers, take the time to write a real conclusion (or introduction) instead of resorting to this lazy word highlighting.
Overall, Nielsen’s Kindle article is still reasonably readable compared to some of the other web defiling atrocities that he usually commits on his web site (take a look at the useit.com landing page to see a good example of a web page that is functional but ugly).
Another major web offender is, of course, Paul Graham, who persists writing his columns with a hard formatting at 70 columns. Check it out, he actually inserts <br> tags manually. It’s quite comical.
The problem with this is not just that it shows utter disrespect to your readers (try resizing your window horizontally or reading his articles on your iPhone) but that it shows that Graham just doesn’t understand the underpinnings of the presentation layer of the web. On the web, you are supposed to write the content, provide a default presentation (ideally specified in CSS) and then let the consumer of your text ultimately decide what it will look like.
That consumer can be a human on a big, medium or small screen. It can be an RSS feed or a phone with a twenty column display . You just can’t know ahead of time, which is why you should perform as little formatting (especially line formatting) in your text as possible. Paragraph breaks should be your only formatting instructions, and then you leave it up to your readers to interpret what these breaks mean and how they want them formatted.
The same remark applies to emails, by the way: you should not use the return key to end your lines. Just type your text continously and when you are done with your paragraph, type return twice. If you insist on providing your own formatting, people who read your email on, say, a phone, will see it completely mangled.
#1 by Matthias on March 10, 2009 - 10:33 am
Hehe. Another example of a website that does not quite live up to its owner is edwardtufte.com .
#2 by Paul Graham on March 10, 2009 - 10:42 pm
I don’t insert br tags manually. They’re generated by software. The reason my site is so restrictive is simply that this software was written in 1996.
#3 by lumpynose on March 11, 2009 - 10:21 am
I guess I would have rather heard that he’s inserting br tags manually. The idea of a software venture capitalist using 13 year old software is “interesting”.
#4 by bornonjuly4 on March 12, 2009 - 6:07 am
That was an interesting piece of advice regarding the usability of email messages in Cell phone screens. Nice point Cedric.
#5 by Michael on March 13, 2009 - 10:48 pm
Way back in high school, my English professor taught us that using bold or italics when you write is a very bad practice. You are basically admitting that you cannot communicate your point effectively through your writing, so you must resort to gimmicks. A good point will always stand out, if it is well stated. An important statement never needs emphasis, if it is clearly constructed. A good writer only needs language, not markup.
#6 by Colas Nahaboo on March 15, 2009 - 3:59 pm
I always give the advice to put in bold the most important word in paragraphs for presentations, and people are pleased with this advice. Why? because it is the way text is accented in (US) comic books, which I guess a lot of us read as kids, so most people by now should be used to it. Funny you find it intrusive, I guess it is thus a cultural thing and you didnt read comic books as a kid? (“native” European ones do not resort to this trick I must say).
#7 by Cedric on March 15, 2009 - 4:04 pm
I read a lot of comic books as a kid.
Bold words are fine in comic books but not welcome in technical articles for the aforementioned reasons.
#8 by Anonymous on March 24, 2009 - 6:45 am
You work at Google? Should be obvious why people add emphasis to keywords in pages. They think they will get ranked higher.
#9 by Waddy on March 29, 2009 - 10:11 am
Paul Graham’s page you linked to displays perfectly well on the iPhone. In fact, it displays much better than your own blog does. It’s “quite comical” when you make unjustified claims only to be proven wrong. Do your homework next time.