Product Description
The book begins with a briefing on Jakob’s web usability principles, themselves culled from years of research. The 50 sites fall under such categories as Fortune 500 Sites, Highest-Traffic Sites, and E-Commerce Sites. The content is simply presented: Four book pages are devoted to each homepage. The first page is a clean screenshot of the site’s homepage (for readers to make their own, unbiased judgments), followed by a page that explains the site’s purpose and summarizes its success–or failure–at usabilty. The third and fourth pages are devoted to crtiques, where Jakob and Marie present no-holds-barred commentary for specific usability practices, as well as suggestions for improvement. Although only the home… More >>
Jakob Nielsen book – need more comment ? Must have it if you are pro.
Rating: 5 / 5
In the past Jakob Nielsen has written intelligent and cutting-edge commentary on the state of online usability. When it comes to software and web usability he has only a handful of equals. This book is a huge let-down following his excellent book, “Designing Web Usability” – that is a must read. Anything worth learning in “Homepage Usability” is already in “Designing Web Usability.”
Jakob Nielsen goes well beyond usability here. He now either believes he is qualified to give sales, marketing, copywriting and advertising advice or, as the hefty price-tag for this book indicates, he may have just sold out. The latter may be truer. Evidence for this is how he recently sent out his widely-read newsletter with advertising suggestions for Google.com without disclosing the nature of his financial relationship to the company.
Deconstructing homepages is only a somewhat useful exercise anyway. Most user actions take place deeper within the site. The goal of the homepage is not just usability, but to persuade the visitor to click beyond. Nielsen misses this completely when he offers advice suggesting that navigational elements never be repeated. Does he believe every user studiously examines every navigational element before deciding what to do next?
Here are another couple of examples of how poorly thought-out, inconsistent and inaccurate his advice is:
+ Internal Search Engines – Advising that every homepage must have a search engine input box contradicts research that shows how inefficient search queries are for most users and how it compromises conversion
+ Copywriting – Dogmatically proclaiming that exclamation points don’t belong on homepages is arrogance running headlong into ignorance. Good copywring is sensitive to context.
There are dozens of other examples as curious as these. It’s possible to glean good usability advice from this book. However, how will the average reader separate the wheat from the chaff?
This is an attractively packaged – but not user-friendly – coffee table book. I’ll be using it to stabilize the uneven leg of my coffee table.
Rating: 2 / 5
Excellent book from excellent authors. MMUST HAVE for professional and commercial web designer/project manager. No other comments.
Rating: 5 / 5
An excellent book that takes on the top sites in the world and offers them advice on where they might still be going wrong. Can’t fault it at all.
Rating: 5 / 5
This book basically lays out the fundamentals of home page usability and then points out things that are right or wrong with some 50 popular websites.
Although the content of the book is ok, it is highly ironic that the book itself violates the very principles it is trying to preach.
First of all, the book is very HEAVY because it has color pages which are printed on heavy bond paper. It is also unwieldy because the pages are LARGE (Since the authors print out those website homepages at almost 100% of their actual size). It is simply to cumbersome to read on the train, or laying on a bed. One has to read it with the book rested on a table because it is so hard to manage (It won’t even stand by itself because it is soft covered.)
Second of all, some pages are completely wasted, which is again highly ironical since the authors talk about spaces WASTED on webpages…) For example on pages 5-6 entitled “Homepage Guidlines,” page 5 is black with no content, and there’s content on only half of page of page 6. In the “website decontruction pages” section, webpages that are being analyzed are printed in the same size twice, one with red numbered circles(to be pointed out in the opposite page), one without. The authors could have just printed the pages with the red cicles on it (or have the original in a smaller size) and still achieve the same effect.
The red border to the side of the book is completely useless (other than for visual effect). While its purpose is to indicate which webpage it is analyzing, it could have been done without this SIZABLE red border . They could also have used this sizeable border to color-code the various sections of the book. As it is, it is space wasted that adds to the already massive size of the book.
Without the wasted page real estate, the book would have been tremendously lighter, more portable, and would have allowed the reader to enjoy reading it more. I understand that it is suppose to be a book relating to webpage design (hence the fancy layout), but it is an “usability” book, not a “fancy design 101″ book. While the information given is good, I could have brought another book that offers same amount of content, but with less hassle (and probably with less amount of money given the fact that bond paper is expensive.)
If Jacob Nielsen were to deconstruct his own book, he would fail to meet his own standard of usability.
Rating: 3 / 5