I’m not going to write another 1,000 word dissertation like I did from last week, but here’s a few great quotes from the article, which was titled, “Building Respect for Usability Expertise.”

The first malady here is that content owners are relying on their own opinions and preferences. The primary cure is to point out that these subject-matter experts are completely unrepresentative of the target audience on almost every possible dimension

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard “Well, you’re not a subject-matter expert so you don’t understand how this data should be displayed…” I’d be able to buy everyone on my team lunch at McDonalds for two days.  I can recall an incident just a few months ago where that exact phrase was spouted at me, in front of my boss, by a client on site.  I was taken aback by the comment at the time but decide to simply let it slide and let the client do their own thing instead of rocking the boat.  Just gotta do that sometimes when contracting for the Fed.  Here’s another great quote from the article:

It’s true that “there’s always evidence to support any opinion,” but that doesn’t mean you should ignore data. After all, some data is clearly better than others.The main facts about how people read on the Web are extremely well established, and literally hundreds of studies have reproduced our original findings over the past 12 years.

The same is true for all of our usability guidelines: most have been confirmed by other independent studies. Anyone who bothers to run a study will discover the same thing, because there are no usability secrets — it’s simply a matter of looking.

Still, while most usability evidence strongly aligns, there are deviant results to be found. People who don’t know any better will stumble across such findings in a Web search and proclaim that “the experts disagree.” However true, this is not a license to ignore usability data and follow any random path.

Instead, you should weigh the evidence. On one scale, you have hundreds of studies from experts across industries and countries; they all agree on the big picture, and often document their findings with substantial reports. On the other scale, you have a few deviant postings (plus many guesses, but as previously discussed, you should disregard pundits who don’t test their theories with real people). This simple weighing exercise usually tips the scales in favor of the consensus.

I tell you, when Jakob Nielsen gets it right, he hits the nail right on the head.  This is the kind of stuff I wait on baited breaths to read more of from him.

Anyhow, enough of my babbling.  Head on over to UseIt.com now and read the article for yourself.  And hey, by the way, do you use Twitter?  If you do, you can follow me @mexijew!

Technorati Tags: Alertbox, Best Practices, Jakob Nielsen, Research, Respect, Testing, Usability, Useit.com