He is disparaging about the online creations of most big companies - which he regards as bloated and created without consideration of their users. Nielsen, aged 43, is commanding increasing followers to his doctrine of web design - simplicity, simplicity and simplicity. More than 340 people went to the Theatre Royal in London's West End to hear his uncompromising message. The outspoken Net expert told ITN's Fergus Sheppard why the web world has got it all wrong. Your starting point is that nearly all the world's websites are overpriced junk.
Big companies think they are doing great.
Well, it looks good to them, but to a person at the other end of a phone line, it's going to be slow, and to a person who doesn't know everything about the company, they don't know where to click. It was almost impossible to shop there, it was purely about glamour and glitz, and overblown web design. The better websites are the ones which are targeted, and do one thing, and do it well and simply. Some of the really good ones are google, which is a search engine - just one little search box, which is really easy. Amazon's really great.