Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #173601 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 456 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780596528102
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
James Kalbach has a degree in library science from Rutgers University, as well as a master's in music theory and composition. He is currently a Human Factors Engineer with LexisNexis and previously served as head of information architecture with Razorfish Germany. He is an active speaker and author on information architecture and usability in Germany, where he helped co-found an IA community.

Customer Reviews

Rings True
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The title of this book does tend to focus things, doesn't it? A book totally dedicated to working out navigation challenges in Web products means that it is destined to be a one-stop keeper on your shelf. If you work in any capacity on Web front-ends, navigation is often the issue of issues, the source of stimulating and heated team discussions. This book won't end those discussions but the information in it will certainly add calm perspective to them.

_Designing Web Navigation_ seems to have it all in one place, including practice discussion at the end of each chapter and further reading recommendations. The amount of information is impressive. There is not a page without a visual aid of some sort. I certainly like having lots of screenshots of real sites with the commentary of the author.

I also like the practical knowledge of the author which informs his writing -- he emphasizes the variability of the rules in the complex contexts we Web workers tend to work in. Note, for instance, how differently he approaches Amazon's tabbed navigation from how usability guru Jakob Nielsen writes of them. Nielsen never passes up an opportunity to exclaim what is wrong wrong wrong about Amazon's tabs. Kalbach, instead, explains the motivation behind each passing stage in the evolution of those same tabs, giving the dynamic context. This rings true for those of us with daily working knowledge in constructing user interfaces.

I was a bit disappointed that the book did not have more on the specific problems of designing Web *applications* instead of conventional Web sites. However, the book is written is such a way that this is not a problem. The advice and arguments on p.236 "Don't start by designing the navigation on the home page" encapsulates quite well something I have learned working on agile development teams over the years.

I had a few problems with the readability of this book. Page numbers look like squished gnats and all paragraph sub-headings were a pretty but painful light blue. The extremely large line-height weakened the separation of paragraphs.

As I mentioned, this book is chock full of the right material that belongs on your shelf for when you need it...and you will.
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Great Foundation Resource
This handsome volume will help web designers learn how to analyze their business needs and translate them into a workable navigation system for their users. Unlike some other design books, James Kalbach doesn't shove his own design principals down the reader's throat. Instead, he cites use cases and usability studies that will help readers figure out which design approach will best suit their needs.

Lots of screenshots from well-known websites, great layout and good organization make the book a pleasure to read. The book starts by explaining general principles, so even if you're new to the concept of interaction design, you'll quickly get up to speed. More advanced readers could skim the first chapters, and plunge in later, where they'll learn things like visual logic and information design. Each chapter ends with a good summary, thought-provoking questions that either reinforce or expand on the chapter's topics, and suggestions for further reading. Note: I do have one quibble with the layout. The page numbers are so small it made my eyes hurt. But everything else about the book's design is inviting and useful.

Caution, though, this is not a coding book. You won't learn how to make pop-up menus or write clean CSS. It's meant to help readers learn how to make decisions about the look and feel of a website. Even though the book is focused on web navigation, "regular" software designers will benefit, too, since so much interaction design is driven by users' expectations that all software should work like the web.

Good summary on web navigation
This is an exhaustive book that summarizes a lot of aspects of website navigation. I recommend it mostly to information architects of bigger websites. It is more detailed on navigation than the Polar Bear book (Information Architecture for the World Wide Web), though I still find that book the absolute handbook on the topic.

The book consists of three parts:
The first part is about common user behaviours, types of navigation systems, labeling, etc. This part summarizes a lot of things you probably know but maybe it is not as structured in your head as the author makes it.

In the second part, the author presents a framework on how to design web navigation. From the evaluation to the actual visual layout of the navigation system, all relevant phases are discussed with examples.

The third part is about special navigation: search, social tagging and RIAs. A good intro to the topics with some interface patterns.

The book has a lot of screenshots that are quite current. Some chapters are quite self-explaining (ie. what are tag clouds, or what types of pages there are) but that is normal for a book that aims to be a baedeker for all things related to the topic.