San Helifino, CA /DenounceNewswire/ -- December 29, 2000 -- The web world was shocked Friday as word spread that the home page of Jakob Nielsen, a notable web design guru, now contained a graphic image. Nielsen, until today, had a reputation for abhorring the use of graphics on his very popular website, known as www.UseIt.com.

Investigators were called in to verify whether the graphic was indeed the work of Dr. Nielsen, or evil hackers who might have broken into his site to cause shame and damage to his reputation. All indications at this point, however, are that the graphic is the work of Dr. Nielsen himself.

"We are stunned, we feel betrayed," said Tanya Trent, spokesperson for the Save the Bandwidth Society, a San Francisco group most known for its continued promotion of telnet, gopher, and archie, three text-based tools popular before graphical browers came on the scene in the mid 1990s.

Trent's group joined thousands of other protesters in front of city hall in downtown San Francisco, calling for an explanation and apology from Nielsen.

The image, an 80x78 pixel stylized red-and-orange tilted globe, appears halfway down Nielsen's page. Even more shocking, agreed many experts, was that the image was clickable, having a link behind it. The link points to a page that promotes a set of "world tour" conferences Nielsen's company is currently selling.

"It's like hell hath frozen over," continued Trent. "It's bad enough that he's put a graphic on his homepage, but now we find out it's actually a banner ad in disguise, to promote his own commercial enterprise! The nerve!"

"This reminds me of the time Dylan came onstage at Newport with an electric guitar," mused Indu Strypundit, an industry pundit.

Experts fear that Shockwave Flash or Java applets may be the next "heavy bits" that land on Nielsen's page. "Jakob, if you read this, we should talk," said a spokesperson for Concerned Designers for Nielsen, a group of rabid Neilsen supporters based in San Helifino, CA. "We worry that we're going to wake up and hit your homepage only to see the dreaded "Skip Intro" text link as some movie begins."

Nielsen, whose consulting fee begins at $20,000 for four hours of web usability advice for corporate clients, could not be reached for comment, although sources close to Nielsen claim to have spotted him leaving Fry's with a copies of Photoshop, Illustrator, and a graphics tablet, and wearing an evil grin.

Posted by denounce on December 29, 2000 05:55 PM