A JoelOnSoftware post from a few days ago led me to a recent Jakob Nielson piece on weblog usability. Jakob, as you probably know, is considered a usability expert, and his works are often used to buttress and justify design and user interface choices (such as what Joel did for his redesign). Of course Jakob has his detractors too: Those who believe that he's preaching the obvious, doing so from a pretty shoddy soapboax no less.

Personally I've enjoyed reading Jakob's work. Even when they're painfully obvious it helps bring usability to forefront.

One of his weblog usability points I'm not so sure about, though - 2. No Author Photo (I'd link to the specific point but Jakob doesn't use internal anchors). The reason I'm on the fence about it isn't that I fear my ghastly image getting out (in fact I've posted it before. That one is a couple of years old), but rather that I think it is too vulnerable to people's innate tendency to stereotype - I can say firsthand that I've gone to a couple of blogs and have put the author's words into the voice of a certain strata of society and personality types based upon their picture, usually based on former coworkers or schoolmates. I know I should be reading the words for what they are, along with the proven history of the author, but instead I'm subconsciously imagining someone abrasively going against the grain just to be trouble, because that's what I remember about someone they resemble.

It just seems like an irrelevant piece of information that does more harm than good.

So I put it to you, fair readers: Are pictures-of-the-author on blogs beneficial or detrimental?