Every section demonstrates how management on the strategic level as well as public relations professionals, designers and marketers can all be inspired to think or re-think their entire e-business approach.

Full of experience and wisdom, not to mention the vast amount of illustrative examples that accompany Dr. Nielsen's guided tour through dos and don'ts in the world of web design and usability.

By the way, due to it's super logical structure, the book is also an excellent handbook to return to for pieces of good advice at later stages. And believe it or not, even as bedtime reading Jakob Nielsen's book is in a class by itself...

My conclusion: A must for management and a gold mine for everybody else seeking to improve the presence and the results of their organization on the net.

"Designing Web Usability" offers a comprehensive overview of the practical problems to be solved in Web site design. He goes at the "what" and the "how." He explains in clear prose, and describes using current examples of what is right and what is wrong with Web sites seen by millions.

If you follow Nielsen's instructions carefully, you will be rewarded with faster Web projects and satisfied Web customers. There is no reason to make the same mistakes others have made, and no reason to make your users frustrated by your Web site's design. "Designing Web Usability" goes a long way toward soving today's problems.

The book is especially good for those new to Web site design and usability. I have seen all too often how graphic designers or especially marketing types and executives new to the Web insist on designing a Web page THEY like instead of one usable for the intended audience.

Overall you may not agree with everything Dr. Nielsen says but if you take the basic principles to heart your Web pages will be much better. A key principle is that just because a page looks good does not mean it functions well. Dr. Nielsen will show you how to do that.

column. I was hoping for more of a step by step, a to z process for developing site architecture and usability testing.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Quite Usable
Comment: I already was familiar with Nielsen's views from his Web site. I am an enthusiastic supporter of most of his opinions.

There are one or two ideas with which I disagree. For example, I believe that there should be comment forms on sites, and that these should go to high-level executives (I personally answer comment forms for my business). If you are getting overwhelmed with dumb questions, take that as actionable information.

Also, Nielsen believes in treating your home page as an orientation page. Because the majority of links to our site do not point to our home page, we cannot assume that the consumer ever will go to that page during a site visit.

Those are nits. Everything else in this book is advice that we either have taken or have compromised on taking (not necessarily the right compromises, either).

This book is more usable than Nielsen's web site in three ways.

1. Screen shots. Having the screen shots on the pages is like having Nielsen sitting next to you, jabbing you in the ribs and saying, "See what I mean?"

2. Time to absorb. Reading his advice in book format, I have more time to absorb it. I picked up on little details (like using Link Titles) and I became more motivated to implement some of his other ideas.

3. Bookmarks. I don't use bookmarks much on the Web (I can't keep them organized), but I have some of his pages marked, which makes it easy to refer to them.

Because of these usability advantages, the book is value added relative to Nielsen's web site.

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