You know, I've never understood why Jakob has a such an anti-following.
I mean he's a bit of a zealot, but I don't see what's wrong with that, and it's the kind of position you end up in when you have to bang your head against a wall of of steaming shit all your life. It's what happens when you spend a few years trying to build websites that interface with parliament, or government, to pick an example close to home.
The only explanation I can come up with is that he makes you feel stupid, particularly if you're a designer who just turned out some piece of flashtastic dogcrap for the client^H^H^H^H^H your portfolio, and hurtfully for your ego, the client suddenly comes in shouting and waving a copy of Designing Web Usability.
But he only makes you feel stupid because you know, in your heart of hearts, that he's right. He never says anything radical, or offensive, simply right. Get over it.
## 2 Comments ยป
-
### Matt Said,
August 13, 2003 @ 6:26 pm
He's not even that inflexible or zealot like actually - jared spool is far worse! Jakob just seems to have become the poster child for the offended design community
-
### Matt Robinson Said,
August 14, 2003 @ 2:25 am
I guess what galls us designers is that Jakob's idea of usable design is so visually unappealing. No one likes to compromise their creativity to attain intangible benefits, especially if a well designed, but ugly site design means the client turns your bid down in favour of someone else's flashy, harder-to-use site. This is of course, not Jakob's fault, but he's a handy target for the designer's own inadequacies, as you suggest.
Trying to satisfy the needs of your client (pretty pictures) at the same time as satisfying the needs of their clients (usability) is what being a good designer is all about. Good site design is about more than just graphic layout, it's about structuring information, and writing clear English, as Jakob is right to point out. However, Jakob's line seems very much on the usability side with little concession that really, there's usually some compromise involved if you want to get paid.
:However:
Obviously open-government sites and their kin (including, I suppose, Jakob's own eye-itching, gaudy site) are an exception: no one expects these sites to look lovely, but they do expect to want to find what they want without hassle.
I'll also cheerfully admit that most web designers apparently don't listen to Jakob enough, given the state of most sites these days.