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Title: Usability for the Web: Designing Web Sites that Work by Tom Brinck, Darren Gergle, Scott Wood ISBN: 1-55860-658-0 Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann Pub. Date: 15 October, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $49.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.5 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Seven user navigation models are excellent
Comment: This book contains a lot of usable usability practices that really works! You can get literally all the details of usability testing practices in this book, as well as how to run them. And good amount of pages are spent for user needs analysis and task analysis as the first steps explaining Web site engineering approach.
When reading this book, my first impression was that many worksheets, checklists and forms were included throughout this book:
- Client Interview/Web Site Information Worksheet
- Goals checklist
- Sample of Web survey
- Focus Group Preparation Worksheet
- Information Architecture Review Checklist
- Mockup Checklist (in Envisioning Design)
- Mockup Style Review Form (in Envisioning Design)
- Writing Guidelines Checklist (in Web page writing)
- Form for Brainstorming Icons
- Form for Testing Whether an Icon Is Recognizable
- Problem Report and Resolution Form (in Pre-Launch)
- Problem Summary Report (in Pre-Launch)
- Postproduction Checklist
- Web Site Final Approval Form
- Minimal Maintenance Checklist
- A Detailed, General-Purpose Checklist (for Inspection)
- User Testing Preparation Worksheet (for Evaluation)
- Typical Testing Script (for User Testing)
- Consent Form (for User Testing)
These materials are really helpful in conducting actual usability testing to get effective results. And many concepts are also categorized, organized, and explained in a lot of tables.
In engaging Web usability testing, the most important thing is to understand your audiences. This book contains very specific way of putting them into action using scenario approach. The most impressive approach of this book is in enumerating user characteristics as seven user navigation models:
1. Omnipotent model: Because people have perfect knowledge, they donft err in any way.
2. Most rational model: People click interesting links only.
3. Minimum effort model: People behave in ways with least mental efforts.
4. Mental map model: First, people build their mental map according to the Web site structure. They donft use navigation in that site which doesnft fit with their mental map.
5. Repeat fixed ways: People like his own way. They repeat their fixed ways irrespective of their inefficiency.
6. Get nearby information: When handy resources are found nearby, people use them and donft go outside.
7. Cost-performance approach: Best strategy will be determined by this cost-performance approach.
One more important practice to develop a Web site that really works is to consider the gInternational Differencesh such as languages, units, symbols, currencies, date & time, and conventions. These points are correctly addressed in this book to make your Web really workable in the international grounds as well.
This book is a really remarkable work from the point of usability practices. Don't miss this book!
Rating: 4
Summary: Pervasive Usability
Comment: This is a serious book about a serious subject: usability. The authors practice what they call pervasive usability, where usability is factored into every stage of the Web site design process. This integrated approach to usability saves money by catching problems early in the design life cycle at a point where changes are much cheaper. This results in highly usable sites that are simple, consistent, aesthetically pleasing, and profitable.
This book is more than a usability guide. It is more a handbook for design teams. It has both great breadth and great depth, covering the gamut of usability-related topics like task analysis, information architecture, page layout, and web writing and gives useful details not found in similar books. That knowledge stems from the authors' extensive real world and academic experience as part of both Ann Arbor-based Diamond Bullet Design, and disciples of the University of Michigan's school of human-computer interaction. Throw in some cognitive psychology for good measure, and you've got a rare combination of skills.
The authors have done us a great favor. They've distilled their design process into this book, complete with checklists, optimal processes, and techniques that design teams can use to improve or rework their existing design processes. The authors say that only through a logical, reasoned, and structured process can truly excellent and usable sites be created.
The design process acts as the outline for their book:
* Requirements Analysis
* Conceptual Design
* Mockups & Prototypes
* Production
* Launch
Each stage is iterative, where time and budget allows. The book expands on each stage of the design process. Actual production is only a small portion of the overall site design process.
The process of design is usually about choosing tradeoffs that yield the best solution. Since most site design projects have a limited budget it's better to leave off some nonessential features than omit usability from your projects. Sites with poor usability inevitably fare worse than sites with good usability. By following the authors' recommendations your site can be one of the few that is highly usable. From WebReference.com.
Rating: 4
Summary: One more thing to make it more usable...
Comment: This book is great and very informative, however the only thing I would change (perhaps for a second edition) would be to make it spiral bound so it could lay flat while I am using it at work, which would also make it easier to photocopy the different checklists (very helpful!).
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Title: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug ISBN: 0789723107 Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 13 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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Title: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites by Louis Rosenfeld, Peter Morville ISBN: 0596000359 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 15 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Designing Web Usability : The Practice of Simplicity by Jakob Nielsen ISBN: 156205810X Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 20 December, 1999 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: The Design of Sites: Patterns, Principles, and Processes for Crafting a Customer-Centered Web Experience by Douglas K. van Duyne, James A. Landay, Jason I. Hong ISBN: 020172149X Publisher: Addison-Wesley Pub Co Pub. Date: 22 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $54.99 |
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Title: The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web by Jesse James Garrett ISBN: 0735712026 Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 11 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.99 |
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