Showing posts with label web usability. Show all posts
Showing posts with label web usability. Show all posts

Distinctive Design: A Practical Guide to a Useful, Beautiful Web Review

Distinctive Design: A Practical Guide to a Useful, Beautiful Web
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Distinctive Design: A Practical Guide to a Useful, Beautiful Web ReviewThe purpose of this book is to discuss what makes for good web designs. Much of it is closely related to material on design principles for other media, such as the printed page as for most cases, good design is good design. The author takes another step with respect to web design and discusses topics particular to the web, though, such as how a page appears in different browsers, the effect of add-ins and third party applications, and also spends a good amount of time discussing web design for the latest devices such as mobile, smaller screens, etc.
The topics/chapters are well laid out, the book is easy to read, and the author does a great job at covering the various principles and concepts of good design. Is there unique content to the book? Not really; there are lots of other good books on design out there but this compares favorably with them. It is a good all-in-one reference and I felt it is a useful and practical read - for laymen like me it has a bunch of good ideas. I've read most of them before but it is always good to have a refresher, and just reading the text gives me pointers and reminders of things to make sure I incorporate.
There is an emphasis on making pages user-friendly and ensuring you convey the proper message of the page. It's a practical book. As I mentioned before, the author also emphasizes designing for the latest devices - smart phones, etc., which have a more limited screen space and you have to make sure your message is effective and communicates properly. As another reviewer stated, this is not a book with ready-made templates to try out, or stuff that gets you started right away on a ready-to-go web site. It is a book filled with concepts and principles of good design, applied to the web and as such, the author has written a very useful book.Distinctive Design: A Practical Guide to a Useful, Beautiful Web OverviewLearn to produce a web site that stands out from the crowd
One of the web designer's greatest challenges is to create a site distinctive enough to get noticed among the millions of sites already on the web. This book examines the bond between code, content and visuals to guide you through the factors that increase your design's visibility, usability and beauty. Using this practical advice, even web designers who lack strong artistic skills can develop super sites that strengthen the message and stand out from the crowd.
Most books focus primarily on graphic design principles; this one shows you how to maximize and prioritize every design decision to help your site achieve its primary purpose: showcasing your content and services
Explores the bond between code, content and visuals to guide you through the factors that increase your design's visibility, usability and beauty
Enables even artistically challenged web designers to create elegant, functional layouts that attract visitors and are user-friendly

Every web designer can benefit from this practical advice on creating an informative, attractive, easy-to-use site that gets noticed.

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Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set...Test Review

Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set...Test
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Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set...Test ReviewThis book fills a huge gap in usability testing resources. It gives practical, real-world guidance on how to actually perform the gamut of usability testing, from discussion of advantages and disadvantages of different approaches to almost step-by-step suggestions on how to go about it - recruitment, physical setup, planning, preparation, analysis, reporting. Case studies, samples, templates, and questionnaires abound. The issues she discusses in international testing are especially interesting, although not by any means exhaustive - more like pointers to more information, which apparently would be voluminous.
Every budding Ux evaluator/designer should have this book on their shelf.Usability Testing Essentials: Ready, Set...Test Overview
Do you love your mobile phone? Your MP3 player? Your e-book reader? You laptop or tablet PC? There's a reason for that. Usability.

When usability testing is part of the design and development of products, the results are better products that users want and like. You may be doing testing now or want to help your company get started, but you may not have all the tools to know how to properly prepare, test, analyze, and measure the results across a multitude of cultures, generations, and countries. And you may be facing tight budgets and short timeframes for testing. If this is your situation, this essential handbook gives you a variety of options and strategies for testing in numerous situations.

Usability Testing Essentials presents a practical, step-by-step approach to learning the entire process of planning and conducting a usability test. It also explains how to analyze and apply the results and what to do when confronted with budgetary and time restrictions. This is the ideal book for anyone involved in usability or user-centered design-from students to seasoned professionals.


*Provides comprehensive coverage of all phases of usability testing

*Fully updated four color edition features important usability topics such as international testing, persona creation, remote testing, and accessibility

*Follow-up to Usability Testing and Research (9780205315192, Longman, 2002), winner of the highest-level award from the Society for Technical Communication
*Presents a step-by-step approach to the entire process of planning and conducting a usability test--an essential component of designing usable products*Comprehensive coverage of one of the most important skills necesary for usability and user experience practioners, and the first book of its kind to include international testing*Follow-up to Usability Testing and Research, which won the highest-level award from the Society for Technical Communication, and is already listed among the most widely recommended books in the field.

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Website Owner's Manual Review

Website Owner's Manual
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Website Owner's Manual ReviewPaul Boag's "website owner's manual" is a resource for everyone on a website project team. In it, he champions a refreshingly straight forward approach to planning and designing, building and marketing, and owning and maintaining websites.
According to Boag in a recent article on [...], successful websites begin with business objectives, calls to action and a clear idea of user tasks. What impressed me most is how perfect the concepts in this "owner's manual" are for the business owner considering a new website or website redesign, maybe for the first time.
The logical "road map" presented here for managing a successful website project can painlessly add value to any project when team members, especially stake holders and managers are exposed to it before a project begins. I consider the first 2 chapters on planning a "must read" for all prospective website owners.
The "website owner's manual" makes a great recommendation for new clients or even a gift to help them prepare for a successful website project.Website Owner's Manual Overview
Many of the people responsible for a website don't have a clue what's required to build one and keep it up and running. The job of planning, launching, and managing a site often falls to people who have little or no experience in web design or development. Website Owner's Manual is for the thousands of marketers, IT managers, project leaders, and business owners who need to put a website in place and keep it running with a minimum of trouble.

Using clever illustrations, easy-to-follow lists and diagrams, and other friendly touches, Website Owner's Manual helps readers form a vision for a site, guides them through the process of selecting a web design agency, and gives just enough background to help them make intelligent decisions throughout the development process. This book provides a jargon-free overview of web design, including accessibility, usability, online marketing, and web development techniques.

Using Website Owner's Manual, readers master the vocabulary and concepts they need to discuss how a website dovetails with the needs of a business. This book will help them work confidently with the designers and developers building and maintaining a site so they can concentrate on what your website needs to do.


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Web Style Guide, 3rd edition: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites (Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites) Review

Web Style Guide, 3rd edition: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites (Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites)
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Web Style Guide, 3rd edition: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites (Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites) ReviewMy impression after relying on 2nd edition to teach web design all these years is similar to the 2-star reviewer who wrote this version is laced with jargon and a difficult read. It seems this book has gone from a fundamental primer on basic web design principles that served as an excellent introduction to web design for novices to some kind of "introduction to large-scale web design" that throws newcomers off into the deep end of "analytics," "metrics," and "wireframes." I am seriously reconsidering if I can use this book in my beginning web design course anymore. I understand design tools have evolved and the Internet has become much more dynamic, and that it is certainly a challenge to know where to draw the line between "basic" and "advanced" web design concepts, but this 3rd edition seems to have over-corrected and gotten away from its core strengths. I may just stick with the 2nd edition as it seems to cover the basics much better without the addition of the new content in this 3rd edition...Web Style Guide, 3rd edition: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites (Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites) OverviewConsistently praised in earlier editions as the best volume on classic elements of web site design, Web Style Guide, now in its Third Edition, continues its tradition of emphasis on fundamentals. Focusing on the needs of web site designers in corporations, government, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions, the book explains established design principles and how they apply in web design projects in which information design, interface design, and efficient search and navigation are of primary concern. New in this edition: -a full chapter devoted to Universal Usability-guidelines and techniques for creating universally usable designs
-a full chapter on Information Architecture and how best to promote its robust development-information on Search Engine Optimization and the designs that improve it-techniques for using Cascading Style Sheets for layouts and typographic design-185 illustrations, all in full color

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Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer Review

Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer
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Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer ReviewWhen I first saw that this book was coming to light I had mixed feelings. On one hand, I was hunger for more testing knowledge, both theoretical and practical. On the other hand, I am always apprehensive when books talk about tools. However, the book impressed me as a comprehensive guide to Online Testing. And when I read the following (p.18), I was sure the book is what the market needs:
"The important thing to keep in mind is that the Google Website Optimizer is a tool. (...)It cannot do your thinking for you. It cannot plan your tests. It cannot produce the creative. It cannot interpret your results beyond demonstrating numerical significance and confidence. These things are up to you. If you want the tests you run on the Google Website Optimizer to be meaningful and to provide the intelligence you need to make well informed marketing decisions, then this is the book you need."
The authors cover very thoroughly the Why, the What, and the How of Online Testing. All you need to know from the value of testing to how should you get started. The examples are very enriching and illustrate the power of testing and the bottom line: Testing = $$$.
Part I covers the Why; the authors delve on the power of testing and provide some amazing examples of it (including a masterpiece on Amazon's testing efforts). In addition they walk us through the Google Website Optimizer and provide powerful tips on the tool.
Part II covers the What and the How; the chapters are structured in a very actionable way: "Questions to ask", "Exercises", "What to test", and "Apply this to your site". As you read you can implement the tips instantly. A few examples of what to test are: usability, look & feel, searchability, product presentation, up-sell/cross-sell......
Part III covers some technical aspects of testing. The authors provide interesting information about Google website Optimizer scripts, statistical tests, and other special issues.
*The book is well structured, insightful and action oriented: exactly as online marketing should be! I warmly recommend it.*
Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer OverviewStop guessing, start testing, and enjoy greater success with your website.
If you're looking for more leads, sales, and profit from your website, then look no further than this expert guide to Google's free A/B and multivariate website testing tool, Google Website Optimizer. Recognized online marketing guru and New York Times bestselling author, Bryan Eisenberg, and his chief scientist, John Quarto-vonTivadar, show you how to test and tune your site to get more visitors to contact you, buy from you, subscribe to your services, or take profitable actions on your site. This practical and easy-to-follow reference will help you:
Develop a testing framework to meet your goals and objectives
Improve your website and move more of your customers to action
Select and categorize your products and services with a customer-centric view
Optimize your landing pages and create copy that sells
Choose the best test for a given application
Reap the fullest benefits from your testing experience
Increase conversions with over 250 testing ideas
Save $25 on Google AdWords with coupon included in the book

Take the guesswork out of your online marketing efforts. Let Always Be Testing: The Complete Guide to Google Website Optimizer show you why you should test, how to test, and what to test on your site, and ultimately, help you discover what is best for your site and your bottom line.

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