Customization of UIs and Products

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for August 17 is now online at:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/customization.html
	
Summary:
Websites that let users customize the UI have the same measured
usability as regular sites. Sites for customizing products, however,
score substantially worse due to complex workflow.
	
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Usability Week 2009 conference

  > Edinburgh, Scotland: September 14-18
  > Las Vegas, NV: October 11-17
  > Berlin, Germany: November 15-20

Full program:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

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GERMANY AND VEGAS - OUR NEXT VENUES

I am pleased to announce that Las Vegas and Berlin will host our biggest
usability conferences of the year. This our first-ever event in Berlin
(I've spoken in Munich and Hamburg in earlier years), and we have one of
the city's best hotels, one block from the Kurfürstendamm - one of
Europe's most fashionable shopping areas.

In Las Vegas, the usability curtain raises at Caesars Palace again this
year: we were so successful last time that I decided on a reprise - and
expanded the program by 6%.

Caesars is a classic Vegas destination, complete with a full-size replica
"David" marble statue and the "Roman Army" patrolling the main floor.
We're in the conference center, which is a separate wing with one of the
most modern and professionally-run meeting venues I have ever spoken at.

Both cities offer great nightlife and networking opportunities, and we
have an intense program for the daytime.

The conference has several new seminars, but the one I am most excited
about covers a topic that's at least 15,000 years old: THE HUMAN MIND.
Most user experience professionals don't have the benefit of a university
degree in psychology, and yet they have to design for the way people think
and behave. The new seminar bridges this gap:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/usability_mind.html

Other new topics include:

  * Integrating Social Features on Mainstream Websites:
    User-Generated Content, Social Media, Collaboration
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/social_features.html

  * Wireframing
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/rapid_iterative.html

  * Advances in Card Sorting
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/card_sorting.html

  * Research Beyond User Testing:
    Methods That Complement Usability Studies
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/ethnography.html

  * Guerilla Usability: User-Centered Design Without a Budget
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/guerilla_usability.html

  * Brand Tone-of-Voice Online
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/brand_voice.html

This year's Research Update seminar has 100% new content, summarizing the
most useful recent academic research for those of us who don't have time
to attend dozens of scientific conferences and read thousands of journal
papers every year:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/research_update.html

The full program lists 33 full-day seminars, including many updated
best-sellers from last year, such as IA1+2, writing for the Web, designing
complex applications, and Agile development and usability:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events

Two keynotes cover how college students use the Web and how websites
resemble inter-human relations:
  > http://www.nngroup.com/events/main_event.html

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JOB OPENINGS

Nielsen Norman Group is hiring usability specialists (both experienced and
entry-level). For more information, please see the complete job
description:

  > http://www.nngroup.com/about/jobs.html

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STUDENTS: BING "IS COOL"

We're doing extensive testing with university students (in preparation for
this year's conference keynote), and one interesting finding is that some
of them go to Microsoft's new search engine, Bing, when we give them open
tasks where they can use any site they want.

When asked why, these test participants claim that Bing is cool.

In past studies, we've certainly observed a few people using minority
search engines from time to time, but previously, the only time this was
based on a stated reason (beyond force of habit) comes from people using
Ask when they specifically wanted to search for a question.

We don't do market research, and we only care *how* people search, not
whether they employ search engine A or B. We do behavioral research in
order to discover the usability guidelines for regular websites, not to
give free advice to multi-billionaires. Thus, we can't say what percentage
of students use Bing, since we employ qualitative methods. But it's still
a notable finding: the first time in 10 years that a search engine besides
Google has succeeded in capturing (a few) users' admiration.
	
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TWITTER PARTICIPATION INEQUALITY

Study of Twitter postings shows that the 10% most active contributors
account for 86% of Tweets:
  > http://tr.im/vH7J
	
No big surprise, because it's only to be expected that Twitter would
follow some variant of the same fundamental 90-9-1 behavior as all the
earlier Internet communities that have ever been studied:
  > http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html

I am not sure that excessive posting is the best use of Twitter, however.
We're running a series of studies of Twitter users and many of them
complain about companies that tweet too often. This research is still
ongoing, and I can't give you the official guideline yet, but I think
there's a great risk of losing followers if you post too much.