Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good to have in your toolbox
Comment: Usability studies are your friend.
I'm somewhat of an old-timer in web years. I've been building sites & frontends for 10 years now & I've absorbed quite a bit from Jakob Neilsen. Or did at one point anyway. He was a bit of a fad, wasn't he? I wrote this review originally in 2000 & since then he's fallen off my radar. I've enjoyed Cooper, Krug, Raskin & Norman in the meantime.
When I first started following Neilsen on his site (late 90s?), I was a bit wary. I wanted to protect my design, as most would. Incorporating his material, learning from it, wanted me to make my projects that much better. It armed me with the facts behind proper usability design (well, at the time anyway), which can be a great thing when it comes time to defend your work to the Execusphere.
But like most of this kinda stuff, it's really up to you to pick & choose. Read everything. Try to find bits from everyone & make them your own.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A very, very good basis for a constructive web site
Comment: There are a LOT of books that take you through the dos and don'ts of web site design. As a web designer I tend to take these with a grain of salt - one guy's opinion may not necesarily translate into good web strategy.But this book seems to know common sense from personal opinion. Nielson goes through tried and true design and architecture practices, in a relatively structured and logical fashion. At times a little wordy, but helpful. This is definitely a good book to accompany Siegel's "Killer Web Sites". With these two on your shelf you're definitely a step ahead of the rest.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Kicks some serious Booty!
Comment: This book kicks some serious booty! After having only read the first 100 pages of the book I'm starting to see what he's talking about when he discusses web usability and how it relates to sites that are developed today.I think this book is perfect for any web developer. However, the only bad thing I would have to mention about this book are the amount of pictures...which aren't bad...but I'd rather sacrifice the pictures with more content...that's just me. Anyways...the book rocks (so far) and is definently worth getting your mits on.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading for Professionals and Hopefuls
Comment: Following Nielsen's suggestions to the letter, one would end up with the Web equivalent of the McDonald's cheeseburger...mushy and bland. But--also like that ubiquitous cheeseburger--always predictable, accessible and non-threatening. It's just an unfortuante truth that this is what it takes for a high-volume, low-maintenance commercial site, trying to support and attract existing and would-be customers or readers...every awkward point in a site's design is another potential to lose the customer's interest and/or loyalty. Go with the safe bet and they won't be disappointed.If you're building the next UPS, CNN or Amazon.com, read this book and make it your Bible. If, on the other hand, you just design personal web sites for fun, read what Nielsen has to say, but pick and choose as you like. Several places in the book, the author points out that his suggestions aren't optimal (such as using default link colors, or the use of a 'shopping cart' paradigm), but are simply the safe implementations that the user has always come to expect. It's only by bending The Rules now that we'll find new and better paradigms that will become the standard safe bet designs of the future.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Layout left much to be desired
Comment: The content of the book was very useful, but the paragraphs were often broken up by up to five pages of graphics which really made it hard for the book to flow correctly. It seemed that Jakob Nielsen did a lot of finger pointing without suggesting any solutions.
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