The Design of Sites: Principles, Processes and Patterns for Crafting a Customer-centered Web Experience: Amazon.co.uk: Douglas K. van Duyne, James A. Landay, Jason I. Hong: Books

Product Description

Based upon extensive, ground-breaking research, The Design of Sites introduces a comprehensive, pattern-based approach to making web sites truly customer-centered. Using the 101 patterns presented here, Web and business professionals can learn from the industry's experience and best practices, and dramatically improve customer satisfaction and retention. The authors have chronicled visitors' behavior to find the patterns that emerge from experiences ranging from navigation to e-shopping, and to discover how individual site visits fit into users' larger goals of finding information and making purchasing decisions. Drawing on this research, The Design of Sites introduces proven principles, processes, and patterns for building customer-centered Web sites. Their patterns encompass virtually every key issue, including: creating powerful home pages; managing content; simplifying layouts and navigation; optimizing performance, and much more. For all Web designers, developers and decision-makers seeking to maximize the business value of their Web sites.

From the Back Cover

“Stop reinventing the wheel every time you design a Web site! The Design of Sites helps you rethink your Web sites in terms of genres and patterns. Once you have identified the patterns and applied the best practices for those patterns as outlined in this book, you will reduce your design effort by 50 percent... at least!”

—PAWAN R. VORA, Vice President, Information Architecture, Seurat Company

“The content in The Design of Sites could make a novice into a seasoned professional over a weekend. Many companies pay a fortune for the information contained in the book’s primary chapters.”

—JOHN CILIO, Global marketing manager for the Web site of a leading international supplier of computer hardware, software, and services

“This book has many handy checklists for what you should and should not do in creating a conventional Web site. Just following the authors’ suggestions would put your site in the top few percent for readability and usability.”

—JEF RASKIN, Creator of the Macintosh computer and author of The Humane Interface

“Now that The Design of Sites has made its appearance, we won’t have to put up with those poorly designed Web pages. These authors have captured patterns from successful Web designers, including their own experience in consulting and teaching, and have made this information accessible to all of us. The book is readable yet full of worthwhile information—a valuable addition to any Web designer’s bookshelf.”

—LINDA RISING, Independent consultant and author of The Patterns Handbook, The Pattern Almanac 2000, and Design Patterns in Communications Software

“The Design of Sites bridges the gap from theory to practice and makes it possible for people in the Web-design space to use user-centered design principles in their work—without having to undertake extensive training.”

—MAYA VENKATRAMAN, Human interface engineer, Sun Microsystems

“The coverage in The Design of Sites is excellent—issues go beyond the traditional ‘design the best page’ focus and do a good job of showing the context. I haven’t seen any other book with the kind of breadth this has.”

—TERRY WINOGRAD, Professor of Computer Science, Stanford University, and editor of Bringing Design to Software "Just following the authors' suggestions would put your site in the top few percent for readability and usability."
Jef Raskin, creator of the Macintosh computer and author of The Humane Interface

Creating a Web site is easy. Creating a well-crafted Web site that provides a winning experience for your audience and enhances your profitability is another matter. It takes research, skill, experience, and careful thought to build a site that maximizes retention and repeat visits.

The authors of The Design of Sites have done much of the research for you. Based on extensive investigation and analysis of more than a hundred high-quality Web sites, this book distills the principles and best practices that make sites enjoyable to visit and an asset to the organizations they serve. This comprehensive resource features a complete set of design patterns that offers proven solutions to common Web design problems. These patterns are applicable to a wide variety of site genres and address every aspect of Web site design, from navigation and content management to e-commerce and site performance. In addition to enhancing the usefulness and quality of your site, these patterns will shorten development cycles and reduce maintenance costs.

Whether you are involved in building a site for business, government, education, or entertainment, The Design of Sites will help you focus on the needs and expectations of your customers and give you the tools you need to create a satisfying and effective Web site.

See all Product Description

Customer Reviews

5 star

4 star

3 star

2 star

1 star

4 reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars

Write a customer review

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful

I use this as a reference book at work all the time 22 Sep 2004

By Ms. J. Mellor

Format:Paperback

This book sits on my desk at work and I am always referencing it. Its great for help when submitting tenders for designing websites - the writers anticipate what I want to say to a client, and checking back with the book helps me to structure my thoughts quickly and stay to the point.

The book has a clever referencing system, using colours, numbers and shapes, so that I can skip from one section to the next, following a logical trail. For example, Section F3 (Shopping Cart) references E1 (site branding), K4 (action buttons) and H1 (process funnel), so I know to check these areas before continuing.

This is a truly useful book, whether to teach new skills, to put clarity and focus on the tasks that come up again and again when designing sites, or set an example of structured thinking when tackling a completely new problem.

I recommend it for anyone who designs content managed sites.

Comment |

Was this review helpful to you?

Yes

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

An encyclopedia of best practices! 22 Aug 2003

By M. Van Welie

This book is a must-have for all web designers! For novices it is a perfect introduction to designing a customer-centered user experience and for professionals it is a thorough 'reference manual'. During any web project you do, you'll find useful and practical information in this book. It's a book I wish I had written myself.

The book it literally packed with examples of best practices in many area's of web design and all of them are explained in easily understandable wordings. If you are looking for practical help, and not theoretical stuff, during a web design project, you'll find all you need in this book.

The only criticism I have is that it is such a thick book. But on the other hand, I am waiting for 'Design of Sites: Part II'......

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

Absolutely essential book for web designers 9 Jan 2007

By Eddie Truman

Whatever role you may have in the design, maintenance or construction of websites, this book is essential. While there are other books that are 'must haves', the Jakob Nielsen books and 'Don't Make Me Think' by Steve Krug, this book stands out in terms of the sheer quantity of essential information. Buy this book !