Bruce 'Tog' Tognazzini and Brenda Laurel Join Nielsen Norman Group; Renowned Usability Experts to Advocate for Human-Centered Web and Product Design

Business Wire, August 2, 2000

Business Editors/High-Tech Writers

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 2, 2000

Four of the world's leading experts in the fields of usability and user-interface design are teaming-up to evangelize the critical and growing need to bridge the gap between humans and technology. Web-usability expert Jakob Nielsen and user-interface expert Donald Norman announced today that fellow usability gurus Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini and Brenda Laurel have joined as principals in their company, Nielsen Norman Group. The company specializes in user-advocacy, providing wide-ranging consulting services that support the goal of "making things easy-to-use," things such as websites, intranets, Internet services, consumer products and software designs.

"It's a good thing anti-trust laws don't apply here, as we unquestionably have assembled in one company the most prestigious group of usability experts in the world," remarked Jakob Nielsen, co-founder and principal of Nielsen Norman Group. "When we started Nielsen Norman Group two years ago, only the most clued-in companies paid attention to usability. Since then, we've succeeded in getting many companies to recognize the necessity of usability for survival on the Internet. This new united front of usability gurus gains us a powerful enough voice to penetrate the skulls of the holdouts. Victory will be ours! The world will become an easier place."

While sharing a passionate commitment to users' rights and to a future in which humans rule over technology -- rather than the opposite -- each of the four principals applies a different methodology to the field of usability. Tognazzini brings an approach that places emphasis on the design of the applications, both traditional graphical user interface (GUI), as well as Web. Laurel strongly considers the cultural contexts in which products and services are developed. Nielsen's approach centers squarely on delivering exactly and only what "the customer wants to do." Norman advises that the achievement of usable design can only occur when a company builds an internal structure and cultural commitment that places the needs of the customer first.

Bruce "Tog" Tognazzini was most recently the lead designer at Healtheon/WebMD. Joining the company in its infancy, he designed a series of sophisticated Web-based applications, ensuring they were fast to learn and highly productive. Prior to that, he was a colleague of Jakob Nielsen's at Sun Microsystems, serving as its Distinguished Engineer for Strategic Technology, inventing next-generation user interfaces that earned him 30 United States patents. He spent 14 years at Apple Computer, founding the Macintosh Human Interface Group, and acting as Apple's chief design troubleshooter, helping key clients swiftly and dramatically improve their products and processes. Tog has published two books, "Tog On Interface," and "Tog On Software Design."

"Pinch me -- I'm on the Dream Team, and returning to my first love, helping development teams achieve fast success," said Tog. "Of course, coming off four years designing complex web applications, I expect to spend as much time helping people with their 'weblications' as with traditional GUIs. Regardless, I get to work with the backing of the strongest group of user-experience designers in history."

Brenda Laurel, a usability expert specializing in interactive entertainment for the last 25 years, is best known as co-founder and chief designer of Purple Moon, a company formed to develop interactive products for girls. Purple Moon arose from Laurel's work at Interval Research Corporation, where she coordinated research activities exploring gender, culture and technology. Laurel is the editor of "The Art of Human-Computer Interface Design," and author of "Computers as Theatre" and numerous other seminal papers and articles on interactive narrative, virtual environments and experience design.

"The over-40s strike back! The last quarter-century with computers has been a long, strange trip, but I think the most exciting times are just ahead," commented Laurel. "It's immensely satisfying to be working with three top-flight people with whom I share several decades of experience and core values in the world of usability and design."

Fierce user-advocates, Nielsen Norman Group founders Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman formed their company in 1998 to provide strategies to enhance the user experience throughout a company's products and services. Jakob was formerly a Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer and the company's Web-usability guru. He holds 49 United States patents, mainly on ways of making the Internet easier to use, and is the author of several books on usability including the best-selling "Designing Web Usability" which was released seven months ago. Don Norman is also the author of several important books on usability, most notably "The Design of Everyday Things" and "The Invisible Computer." He is professor emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, and has served as president of UNext Learning Systems since 1999. Previously, he was vice president and Apple Fellow in the Advanced Technology Group from 1993-1997 at Apple Computer. Prior to co-founding Nielsen Norman Group, he was head of the Appliance Design Center, Consumer Products Group at Hewlett-Packard.