Customer Rating:      Summary: Usability IS your most effective competitive advantage. Comment: Jakob Nielsen's latest title will most likely become THE most influential book on web design for the next twelve to eighteen months.This is a bible for web developers who are serious about business results. After four years of building and rebuilding a major Australian sport site I quickly learnt the importance of usability. Usability IS your number one competitive advantage because users ARE driven by tasks, have little patience and if your site delivers, they will come back again and again and they will spread the word. Reasons to get this book; Because you want your customers to come back! Because you already know usability is the key and need a solid reference based on REAL research. Because you currently have to KEEP spending big dollars on marketing just to maintain traffic and want to find a way to halve your budget. Because you want to say NO to that 100% Flash site your colleagues are proposing. Because you want to crush your competitors with it's knowledge. Because you want to know WHY your competitor (with that simple site with seemingly no production standards) is crushing you. Because you can't help but feel that the design team with only six months experience is a LONG way off the game. Because the money is running out, the investors are getting edgy and you need to start getting some REAL business results soon. Because you want to build a site you can be proud of. I have bought umpteen books on Internet design, strategy and marketing - my web site dominates it's market by an order of magnitude and has done so for three years (and I have spent less than $2000 in that time on advertising). Designing Web Usability is the single most valuable volume of information I have come across to date. If you have quality content - all you have to do is make it usable and your site will become a success. Designing a usable web site is no easy task even for those who have been building for years. You know you need this book.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Over Priced and Overly Cautious Comment: A good, solid, GUIDEBOOK for anyone who is just starting out in wed design, but certainly not gospel. Seasoned professionals will appreciate it for what its worth: an enlighten collection of tips and opinions on the subject of web usability. It would have been nice if the book was more advice and here are your options/possible consequences, and less absolutism. I've been a fan of Nielsen's alert box for years and was excited at the prospect of this book. True it is nicely illustrated and full of good tips to keep in mind, but in general the Nielsen's advice is overly cautious times and down right extremist at others. Tighter editing would have cut back on the exhausting over analysis of some points as well as corrected the numerous other gramatical and typographical errors.
Customer Rating:      Summary: WOW, what a great web design book! Comment: Wow, this book does it all. It tells you what to do and what not to do when designing a web site. Get this book if you are having trouble designing the layout of web sites and the usability of web sites. The book is easy to read and keeps you turning the pages for more. This book is well worth your hard earn money.
Customer Rating:      Summary: I get it. I get it ... stop hitting me over the head! Comment: Great book on keeping your site clean and efficent. With countless tips on delievering a relevent site backed up by website reviews. The book itself is designed and laid out very well; it has a very nice feel and size to it. The problem I had with the book is after reading the first 100 pages or so I was hoping he would move on to a new topic. Much to my dismay 300 more pages of :this is not relevent ... less is more. Regardless the most through book on this topic.
Customer Rating:      Summary: Nielsen Answers The Plight of the Disappointed Web Developer Comment: Let me start by saying, WOW! It is hard to imagine that one could go wrong with such a well researched book. As a developer, I have often wondered exactly what people like and dislike, and more importantly what confuses them. In this incredible tome, Nielsen has laid the groundwork for truly USEABLE and MEANINGFUL websites. Those of you looking for HTML tricks, and the latest JAVA SCRIPT's need to go elsewhere. This book is for those who want to know how to create successful sites that actually HELP customers achieve their goals online. The section on "How to write online" is especially interesting. This should be a must read for anyone remotely involved in web design processes... READ THIS BOOK, READ IT AGAIN, and PRACTICE WHAT IT PREACHES...the www will love you for IT... Well done Jakob!
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