Customer Rating: 
Summary: Design Director appreciates simplicity by example
Comment: How does one use a static medium (print) to describe dynamic concepts (interactive information)? Jakob Nielsen pulls it off in his best-designed book yet. The information design and clarity of organization are very apparent in this volume. Some of the concepts weigh on the elementary side, but this is a good all-around reference manual for anyone designing information for the internet.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A fantasic non-techie look at how great websites shoud look
Comment: One of the of most valuable guides to web design available. Actually, I would go further and call this the most valuable design book I know of. Following just a handful of the dozens and dozens of proven approaches in this book will get more people to use your site, get people to stay at your site longer, and get people to come back to your site more often. This book offers an unbeatable return on your investment.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: An excellent starting point!
Comment: This work is largely common sense, which means you should already know it. But honestly, most common sense only comes after making mistakes. This book can prevent you from making many of those mistakes. As a programmer, this book was helpful for me in making the transition to the web.Mr. Nielsen's book is lucid. It is well thought-out. He has studies to back up his conclusions. Even though you shouldn't treat it as gospel, you would do well to consider his reasoning before making your design decisions.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Function + appearance = e-commerce success
Comment: As a programmer, I have a difficult time recognizing any limitations on what web functionality that I can code. However, I will push people aside to be the first in line to admit my inherent weaknesses in making it esthetically correct. According to some sources, that is a common problem in web design. This book is not about the coding, but is an extensive treatment of how to improve the user experience. In that sense, all web developers should read it.
Web users have a level of impatience that will put a cranky two year old child in second place. Even what may appear to be relatively minor adjustments can and does lead to a higher rate of users returning to the site, which is the true currency of success in the e-commerce environment. The author uses an extensive number of figures to explain the rights and wrongs of page design. While some of the problems would require an extensive reworking of the site design, many are near the area of tweaks that could be done rather quickly.
Generally, in the area of aesthetics, there is a great deal of room for interpretation, but it is hard to argue with the points that the author makes. If there is a negative side to what is done, it is that many points are repeated. A judicious elimination of 20-40 pages would not have sacrificed a great deal of quality. However, in his defense, these are points that tend to be ignored, so pounding it in may be necessary.
I came away from reading this book with an enhanced understanding of the need for cleaner and smoother user interfaces in my design. In the future, I will incorporate some of the examples into my teaching of web development.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Physician heal thy self!
Comment: First the bad news: This book was obviously not tested for usability. Jakob, you may find this hard to believe but some, perhaps many, people would like to use a highlighter on your book. Did anyone try to highlight a sentence on the left page? There's almost no gutter. It's very difficult. The glossy paper is difficult to read due to the high glare and should have been limited to the screen capture pages. People may scan web pages but they READ books. The numerous asides in garish colors were a constant visual distraction and made reading more difficult. If it's worth printing it should be worth reading. The notes should have been incorporated in the discussion contained in the main text.Now the good news: Content rules and this book is loaded. Although Nielsen failed to apply his principles to his book he certainly knows what he's talking about. I'll give him the benefit of a doubt and blame some faceless/nameless marketing type at the publisher for insisting on "livening it up with some cool colors and layout". One word of caution after reading this book you'll become even more impatient with poorly designed web sites. Nielsen's content is so good that it easily compensates for it's minor physical shortcomings. I highly recommend this book to any and every webmaster.
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