Customer Rating: 
Summary: If web design were a religion... this would be the bible
Comment: Cover to cover this book is crammed full of good stuff. I started learning about the internet from the search engine optimmization side of the web. I was always told that good seo was good usability and vice versa.As I turned the pages I kept saying "good idea" and "I never though of that." The intranet chaper was so convincing that I thought about calling coorporate headquarters and chewing them out about the site desing. A+++
Customer Rating: 
Summary: New Century, New Book
Comment: Jakob Nielsen is well known for his reports on usability and I really enjoyed his book "Homepage Usability." I figured that this would be a more in-depth exploration of how to design with the user in mind. Most of the points were on the ball, and very common sense, but nice to see it in writing from someone else. The examples in "Designing Web Usability," though ancient, fit well with the points. I kept getting lost, in a way, because I kept getting distracted by the prehistoric examples and data. For example, what do I design for? 640? 770? What is in use today? 1997 was a long time ago in web years. I suppose it's difficult to have a book with such current data in it, but I'm thinking it's definitely time for a new version of this book. There is also a tendency for redundancy. I suppose this is inevitable since whether you're a search results page or an intranet site, you're still dealing with the same topics of design. I do like that even though this book is ancient, it touches on accessibility issues. So many places are only now thinking of that. I also like that testing is mentioned, though again, it is peppered with out-of-date technology which makes all the information seem invalid. I think this book would be much stronger with new examples, updates here and there to technology and re-released. I think that that was one of the strengths of his other book, "Homepage Usability," was the freshness of the examples and problems designers are facing. If, and when, there is a new and more concise version of this book, I will buy it.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Hedda Gabler by Henrik Ibsen
Comment: this play must be read at least twice in order to get
a real sense of whats going on.Ibsen created a timeless work of art when he wrote Hedda Gabler.Here we have a simple plot,A woman who feels that she is trapped in a loveless marriage,discovers that her old love is back in town. To make things more complicated for Hedda, this old lover is a rival of her husband.To add insult to injury,her old lover is being helped by the woman she hates.But I wouldn't fell too sorry for our Hedda, from the very opening of the play we get a chance to see who Hedda really is.In this scene we see George Tessman, Hedda's husband admiring the new bonnet of his aunt Miss Juliana Tessman,who has just placed it on a chair.Hedda enters.
Hedda-
Tessman, this servant will never do.
Miss Tessman-
Berta will never do ?
Tessman-
Whatever put that in your head, dear?
Hedda-
Look at that! She has left her old hat lying around on a chair.
Tessman-
Why, Hedda--
Hedda-
Suppose anyone had come in and had seen it!
Tessman-
But Hedda! That bonnet's Aunt Julia's
Hedda-
It is ?
Miss Tessman(picking up the hat)
Yes, indeed. And what's more,it;s not old.
Hedda knew that the hat belonged to Miss Tessman,and that it wasn't old.This is where the reader get a sense of what Hedda is about.We see the woman full of jealousy,needing always to be the center of attention.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Lesson Learned; Lesson Forgotten
Comment: This book did not resonate with me. Perhaps it is because I recently completed reading a great book on web design, "The Design of Sites."It is not that the book is without merit. There are nuggets of wisdom buried in every chapter. Jakob Nielsen is an acknowledged web design expert. This book summarizes much of his thinking. Simplicity and usability should rule the web, according to the author. He is right. Users, or perhaps the term, surfers is more appropriate, are never more than one click from moving on to the next site. There are some great chapters - the one on content design springs to mind. However, the book is like reading a W. E. B. Griffin novel. By the time you finish it, you realize it does not contain much new material. Topics and introductions are continually re-served and rehashed. At these prices, the author ought to credit his readers with enough intelligence to remember lessons taught in previous chapters. The author's mantra is to know your user. This book would have been better if he accepted his own advice.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Top book by a top guy
Comment: Anybody who says that Nielson does not back up his "opinions" with research didn't read the book. The whole idea of the book is quite the opposite. Nielson does an outstanding job using hard statistics and data to prove his theories. These are not opinions, ladies and gentlemen. These are serious ideas with powerful and well researched facts backing them up.Though the book is kind of expensive, the whole thing is in color and makes the price worth while. I use this book all of the time to show clients how exactly their site will impact most average users. It is a serious book for serious advocates of web design, and to a Web Master like myself, it is the perfect weapon to create a beautiful and completly usable web page.
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