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Andrew Plato reports: <<Dan Emory is back! After being banished from just
about every tech writing board there is, he's back and trashin' people just
like old times. This time its respected Sun Microsystems scientist and
usability expert Jacob Nielsen who had the unmitigated gall to speak poorly
of an Adobe product. See: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20010610.html for
full text of his article. While the article may be a bit harsh, it is also
right about a lot of things.>>
I had only two real problems with the article, both of which Dan expressed
quite nicely and at greater length. First, the article was based purely on
personal opinion unsupported by any fact--and if memory serves, Neilsen
admitted this. Neilsen is usually much better at supporting his opinions;
this one was a rant. Second, his points still seem reasonably valid if you
make one large change to the article: "Please note, gentle reader, that I'm
referring to PDFs formatted for printing, not onscreen use--so when you see
'PDF' in this essay, please substitute 'PDF designed for print' ". What he
said also applies to onscreen use of PDF, but given that he's defined his
argument in the terms "something not designed for use on screen will not
work well on screen", he's arguing a tautology--and a not particularly
interesting one at that.
When I read the article, I wrote to Neilsen and made the second point,
suggesting that he come up with a sequel to the original article in which he
discussed PDF files designed specifically to support onscreen use. I got a
curt reply from one of his colleagues, and we'll see whether the respected
expert has the balls to back down, admit he didn't live up to his own
standards, and issue a fairer sequel to the original article. But on the
whole, it doesn't really matter to me whether he's learned the humility that
comes with being someone people listen to; Jakob still does some great work,
and the vast majority of what he writes makes good sense.
This article serves as a great example of why you should never accept
everything an expert says blindly, without thinking it through carefully,
and another reason not to make blanket assertions without carefully
qualifying what you're saying.
--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
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