Still going strong. This stuff never gets old. The 100's of user tests I've seen where user don't understand the interface, because things are done slightly different. De-facto standard and generel experience is vital - also to any "new" interface.
A someone with a _burning passion_ for interface design, I absolutely *love* Mr Nielsen, and have such tremendous respect for him. I totally agree with all his conclusions! I suppose he's kind of a hero to me, which seems like a funny thing to say, but that's how much I like the man.
You have to be careful when applying Jakob's Law because it might not be true that users spend more time on other sites than yours (maybe you have fanatical users who spend 8+ hours every day on your site) but mainly because there are lots of design patterns that are actually terrible for conversions but are widely used. For instance, up to maybe 2-3 years ago, a majority of e-commerce site used a slider with auto rotating images despite most research indicating just how awful sliders convert. On a side note, the only law in usability that I know of is Fitts's Law ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law ), which says a lot about how difficult it is to base your design on rigorous scientific research. Also, thank you for enabling comments. I understand that the average comment quality on youtube is very low but I'm hopeful that the NNgroup community will prove to be different and enable great discussions about usability and design.
He is meaning it combined. For example if the world only had 6 websites that people used, and one of them is yours. And on average they spend 1 minute on every website, except yours, they spend 2 minutes on your website. Then the total time combined on the other websites (5 other websites, times 1 minute = 5 minutes) is still way more than the 2 minutes of your website.
If that was the case, and we still did things like "others" did - just for the sake of familiarity - then we'd still be in the 90s. At some point someone will produce something different and everyone will follow suit. Don't be afraid to innovate, try new things, see how your users react, adapt and continue. Grow....
i respect the fact that he is a professional and a noticed man on the field of UX. and many "UX Laws" from 15 years ago still count, for sure. but i think that some of his opinions are outdated. maybe people his age don't like new experiences on the web. but i do think that younger people- digital natives, especially the ones that use the web mostly via smartphone or tablet are wide open for innovations in design and UX. hell, they are probably demanding it. i don't like the way he dismisses innovation. i am more of a fan of Krug.
There are many recent UX tests that prove that his opinions are still correct. Young people also get confused when a UI deviates too much from the norm, and most people (including the younger public) struggle to perform complex tasks on computers.
In my opinion Jakob's Law is fine to an extent, but it risks making all websites boring by looking/working all the same. Ya functionality and retention is important, but properly user tested designs, as unique and fancy as they can get, can still be usable. Afterall,weren't "current design conventions" once new?
I wrote about this problem when I came up with the law in 1999: www.nngroup.com/articles/do-interface-standards-stifle-design-creativity/ ("Do Interface Standards Stifle Design Creativity?")
Not once have I used a website because its design is unique or fancy. Nor have I ever abandoned a website that did only what I needed and nothing more. It's exponentially less boring to visit a website, complete a task quickly, and get on with something else.
This is true if you don't have any resources to test the design and your are willing to take zero risk. Snapchat did everything different than the conventions and gained immense success - maybe despite breaking conventions or maybe because they break conventions. The claims of this video need data to be backed up. This view is a narrow and one-solution-fits-all understanding of UX.
Mr Nielsen isn't saying that a non-conventional site can never succeed. It can-especially with a huge marketing budget. But most designers aren't looking to re-invent the wheel, they just want to create a popular, functional site that's effortless to use. In most cases, _communication_ should always come before _innovation._
Seriously, you named a law after yourself that is called 'common sense'? Also showing that you have basically nothing new or useful to teach: just copy what others are doing.
It may be common sense, but sometimes it's important for "common sense" concepts to be stated explicitly and laid out as rules, because it helps to solidify the concepts, even in one's own mind. I actually found Jakob's Law very helpful indeed.
The horrible usability that most of the popular platforms still have today proves that it isn't that much common sense after all. Yeah it seems like plain logic, but yet many popular software ignore the major principles and substitute their own.
