Skip navigation

Nielsen Norman Group logoNielsen Norman Group

World Leaders in Research-Based User Experience

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Training & Events
  • Consulting
  • Reports & Books
  • About NN/g
  • People
  • History
  • Clients
  • News
  • Contact Us
  • Home
  • Articles
    • Overview
    • UX Conference
    • Series
    • Intranet Symposium
    • Team Training
    • 1-Hour Talks
    • UX Certification
    • Overview
    • User Testing
    • Customized User Research
    • Expert Review
    • Team Training
    • Intensive Applied Workshops
    • Keynote Speaking
  • Reports & Books
    • Overview
    • People
    • History
    • Clients
    • News
    • Contact Us
  • Log in

NN/g History

We have been been practicing, researching, and teaching user experience for over 20 years

  • 1993
  • Don Norman coined the term “User Experience” while at Apple (the words had been used in a phrase by others, but he made it a job title).

  • Jakob Nielsen published Usability Engineering, an early defining text for user research methods and best practices, which has since been cited by over 15,000 scholarly articles.

  • 1994
  • Jakob Nielsen publishes "10 Usability Heuristics”, a usability checklist now referenced and taught around the world as the basic tenets of usability.

  • 1997
  • Jakob Nielsen advocates for Discount Usability -- a fast, inexpensive, iterative approach to user research which brought usability testing out of academia and into business best practices.

  • 1998
  • Nielsen Norman Group founded by Jakob Nielsen and Don Norman.

    Nielsen Norman Group logo
  • 1999
  • Jakob Nielsen publishes Designing Web Usability, a bestseller defining the field of web usability, now translated in 24 languages.

  • 2000
  • User Experience World Tour produced by NN/g brought thought leaders in the burgeoning field of UX to cities around the world, giving unprecedented exposure to UX design and research techniques.

  • Bruce Tognazzini, author of Tog on Interface, joins NN/g as a Principal.

  • 2001
  • The first Intranet Design Annual awards, the world's most prestigious recognition of high-quality intranet UX.

  • 2002
  • Don Norman publishes The Design of Everyday Things, which popularized the term “affordances”. This work has now been cited by over 15,000 scholarly articles. Norman also receives the SIG-CHI Lifetime Achievement Award.

  • NN/g's World Tour evolves into Usability Week, a recurring event with full-day training courses (now known as the NN/g UX Conference).

  • 2003
  • Don Norman speaks to TED about Emotional Design.

  • 2006
  • Watershed research findings about how users read online content — the famous F-shaped pattern for reading text on the web — published in Eyetracking Web Usability, by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice

  • 2013
  • Jakob Nielsen receives the SIG-CHI Lifetime Practice Award, from the foremost academic professional association for the science of Human-Computer Interaction.

  • 2014
  • UX Certification program launched to recognize achievement of UX Conference attendees who dedicate substantive time to intensive learning.

  • 2017
  • Updated world-wide study of user experience revisits and updates web usability guidelines from 2002's watershed Designing Web Usability.

  • 2018
  • NN/g celebrates 20 years and we continue to lead the industry with research-based recommendations for facing today's user experience challenges.

Popular Topics

  • Agile & Lean UX
  • Application Design
  • Design Process
  • Ecommerce Design
  • Eyetracking
  • Information Architecture
  • Interaction Design
  • Intranet Design
  • Mobile & Tablet Design
  • Persuasive Design
  • Research Methods
  • Study Guides
  • User Testing
  • UX Teams
  • Web Usability
  • Writing & Content

About

  • Contact information
  • About Us
  • Why NN/g?
  • Return Policy
  • Cookie Declaration
  • Privacy Policy

Follow us

  • Subscribe to Our Newsletter
  • Follow NN/g on Twitter
  • Subscribe to Our RSS Feed
  • Listen to the NN/g Podcast
  • Visit Don Norman's Website
    www.jnd.org
  • Visit Tog's Website
    www.asktog.com

Copyright © 1998-2021 Nielsen Norman Group, All Rights Reserved.