Why Usability & Usefulness Are Cool Again

Not a lot of people know this, but 2002 I did my Masters Thesis on the topic of web usability. It was the "appfication trend" of its day ... a topic that every business was talking about and spending more and more money to get right. Jakob Nielsen was a household name in web development teams - and "Information Architect" and "Usability Expert" were considered careers for the future. Then one day usability started to fade into the background. It became more of an afterthought. When is the la...