Customer Rating: 
Summary: THE handbok for sensible web design!
Comment: Designing Web Usability is full of great insight into how the web is REALLY used by users, that most users want information, not entertainment. So, we must design web sites for the intended audience. Is it to be information based, entertainment based, or a mixture of both? The best web sites get this balance right. This book shows YOU how to get it right.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good points, well illustrated
Comment: This is a book more about the why than the how of web page design. I found it invaluable (though, at times, it made me feel rueful about my own design errors). Those reviewers who carped about the lack of proof of the principles stated here must not have noticed that Nielsen wrote that a second (still forthcoming) volume will contain it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A great book on web usability... and management science
Comment: The other commenters have it spot-on. A delight to read, don't forget some jazz, a must-have if you plan to do web sites yourself, explanatory text as to why you love/hate certain web sites, blasted flap.One aspect is missing in the reviews IMHO: it is also very much so a 'management science' book (Amazon: you might want to add this book to such a category). Although usability is the argument (and well made it is), the real grist is on putting the user central to all you do. That's a philosophy one should take to heart in this networked world, where 'power' is shifting from producers (1850-1950) through retailes (1950-about now) to the consumers. That's us, by the way. To be able to put customers central requires a 'net-centric' frame of mind. And that's a very difficult thing to do for (established) organisations. My favourite quote is thus (page 353): "Most companies are severely deficient when it comes to strategic thinking about the impact of the Internet. Accelerating change means that the future will happen sooner than you think, so you have to start thinking about it now." Indeed, and that is why to me this is ultimo a management science book. Thanks, Jakob.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Only a tiny part of bigger picture
Comment: Nielsen relies completely on usability testing as a panacea to address all problems with bad site design. As always with him (and most other usability preachers), he fails to address a far more fundamental problem: How do we create usable designs in the first place, so that we achieve good usability results in the end? For the answer to this question, you'll have to wait for the far superior book, tentatively titled "Getting the User Experience Right". It addresses the ten or so other processes designers need to go through, besides usability testing, to create great, easy-to-use designs. It shows the steps to take to enable designers to make important design and information architecture decisions, rather than trying to make those decisions for you (as Nielsen does--which is ridiculous, as every project is unique). In the end, usability testing is the easy part.One more thing: Have you ever noticed how the websites of usability gurus and companies are all really, really ugly!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Talk about a waste of time!
Comment: Three points to illustrate why you should not buy this book:1) Jakob Nielsen does not understand frames. Plain and simple. Few people do. Frames are not the answer to everything, or even to most things, but they are an incredibly useful addition to the web designer's arsenal if used well. It is easy to use frames poorly. Hard to use does NOT equal bad. 2) Jakob Nielsen's opinions are held WAY too strongly for him to be even the remotest bit convincing as a guru. Gurus are about helping you to find yourself. Jakob just shouts at you and hopes you'll find him by the noise. 3) In amongst all the b.s. statistics, it would have been nice to see some nuts and bolts. If you want useful, buy some other book.
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