Jakob Nielsen (usability consultant)

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Jakob Nielsen

Jakob Nielsen (born 1957 in Copenhagen, Denmark) is a writer, speaker, and consultant on software and web-design usability. He earned a Ph.D. in user interface design and computer science from the Technical University of Denmark. Nielsen worked at Bellcore, IBM, and as a senior researcher at computer company Sun Microsystems. In 1991, when the Web was new, Nielsen correctly predicted that hypertext was the future of user interface design and jumped on the bandwagon by writing a comprehensive book about it. He updated his book in 1995 to take into account the success of the Web.

After his regular articles on his Web site about usability research attracted media attention, he subsequently co-founded usability consulting company Nielsen Norman Group with fellow usability expert Donald Norman.

Nielsen is generally regarded as the leading authority on web usability. He is noted for his (often stern) criticisms of popular websites, pointing out how he feels many concentrate too heavily on gimmicky features such as animation, Flash, and graphics at the expense of usability, particularly for disabled visitors. Nielsen continues to write a fortnightly newsletter on web design matters and has published several books on the subject of web design.

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