WEB RESOURCES:

Nature of the Content
As indicated by the title, this site is an extensive repository of current and past articles Jakob Nielson has written on Web Usability Issues

Timeliness
Site is current and up-to-date site in terms of news and contents. Frequent Bi-weekly written about usability appear in the alert box column. As well as this a wide range of papers, articles and essays are stored ranging from the past year to 1995. Not only is the site timely, but also time reflective.

Audience
Broad range of audience, covering an array of Web Usability users, such as IT specialist, (heuristic evaluators), E-Commerce management, information and decision makers and website owners (not just E-commerce sites). This is due to the variety of material in terms of professional publications, alertbox articles, and essays.

Relevance
Highly recommended website for E-Commerce managers and specialist. Nielson is highly respected as a forerunner regarding Web Usabiity knowledge. An enormous range of content includes basic usability necessities, specific topics on aspects such as navigation, and content integration. A broad attack of existing problems and emerging features of factors involving technology, security, customer-user perspectives and matters are addressed. The site is not limited to theoretical information on usability but ensures the user can access highly practical content from the study of web usability of commercial sites.

Usability & Design
Simple, plain text format is used, unless in an article requiring to display a graphic site layout but it is overall, very quick to load. Most media is categorised in chronological order with most recent information at the top and earlier, down below. The site is fairly consistent utilising a series of headings, subheadings and bullet points and a large easy to read font on a white background. The search engine feature is particularly user-friendly and customisable indicating time and relevance of information. Heavy Hypertext linking limits the functionality of the page, as it can get confusing and eye-boggling for a reader to find a specific topic unless he or she turns to the search engine. Although the site uses a shallow organization hierarchy of information, which means a user can get to a destination within a few clicks, the enormity and broadness of information links contradicts this ease. Essential information of Jakob Nielson's contact information and details is not found without clicking the alert box column, nor is a simply grouped contents listing available. Aesthetics aren't really captivating.