Neilsen's book is a factual look at why highly 'designed' web pages often fail and simple ones succeed. Don't let design get in the way of selling, teaching or entertaining your site visitors.

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Product Description

Users experience the usability of a web site before they have committed to using it and before making any purchase decisions. The web is the ultimate environment for empowerment, and he or she who clicks the mouse decides everything. Designing Web Usability is the definitive guide to usability from Jakob Nielsen, the world's leading authority. Over 250,000 Internet professionals around the world have turned to this landmark book, in which Nielsen shares the full weight of his wisdom and experience. From content and page design to designing for ease of navigation and users with disabilities, he delivers complete direction on how to connect with any web user, in any situation. Nielsen has arrived at a series of principles that work in support of his findings: 1. That web users want to find what they're after quickly; 2. If they don't know what they're after, they nevertheless want to browse quickly and access information they come across in a logical manner. This book is a must-have for anyone who thinks seriously about the web.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #34307 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-30
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Amazon.com
Creating Web sites is easy. Creating sites that truly meet the needs and expectations of the wide range of online users is quite another story. In Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity, renowned Web usability guru Jakob Nielsen shares his insightful thoughts on the subject. Packed with annotated examples of actual Web sites, this book sets out many of the design precepts all Web developers should follow.

This guide segments discussions of Web usability into page, content, site, and intranet design. This breakdown skillfully isolates for the reader many subtly different challenges that are often mixed together in other discussions. For example, Nielsen addresses the requirements of viewing pages on varying monitor sizes separately from writing concise text for "scanability." Along the way, the author pulls no punches with his opinions, using phrases like "frames: just say no" to immediately make his feelings known. Fortunately, his advise is some of the best you'll find.

One of the unique aspects of this title is the use of actual statistics to buttress the author's opinions on various techniques and technologies. He includes survey results on sizes of screens, types of queries submitted to search portals, response times by connection type and more. This book is intended as the first of two volumes--focusing on the "what." The author promises a follow-up title that will show the "hows" and, based on this installation, we can't wait. --Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered: Cross-platform design, response time considerations, writing for the Web, multimedia implementation, navigation strategies, search boxes, corporate intranet design, accessibility for disabled users, international considerations, and future predictions.

From Library Journal
While everyone wants to design cool web sites, no one wants to think simple and consider whether the design actually accomplishes its goal, which is usually to sell, teach, or entertain. The sole exception is Nielsen, who has made a living speaking and writing about what works and what doesn't work in interactive media. His simple, well-written, and well-illustrated book discusses web usability, page design, content design, site design, intranet design, accessibility for users with disabilities, international use, future directions, and simplicity. Buy more than one copy.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Tom Peters, Management expert, Author (In Search of Excellence, The Circle of Innovation, et al)
"Eighty gajillion things have been written about the Web. Do we need one more? Answer: Yes! If it's from Jakob Nielsen. Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity is a masterpiece. Jakob knows his stuff like, literally, no one else! This book is a pleasure to read. And invaluable. May simplicity rule!"

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Customer Reviews

Outdated and no news at all
You wont find anything in this book what general common sense already told you.
Besides it's outoutdated and for this reason all examples are useless.

Very nice book
this is a very good book about web usability and its not a complex kind of book, you start reading it and u dont want to stop it untill you finish it!

Not quite what I expected..
As an avid read of Mr.Nielsen's blog and his website, I figured this book would comprise the "Bible of Web Design". Unfortunately, I was a bit let down.

His book does cover many aspects of web design and usability. In fact, he does a very good job at pointing out examples of bad web design. He uses full page pictures analyzing pages and their faults. Additionally, he lays out some ground rules for website design but many of them are redundnant and obvious to those who have designed sites in the past and read his blog/site.

Today though, this book is getting a tad out of date. It was written prior to the Web 2.0 boom and the usability gains included with AJAX and similar technologies.

This book does a good job at educating you that you ought not make websites like many people make their myspace pages (moving backgrounds, sounds onload, etc) but does not really provide any new information on how someone ought to approach new ideas in usability. For a beginner in web design and page layout, I would recommend this book. For someone who has been doing it for a long time I would pass this by.