The Design of Sites: Principles, Processes and Patterns for Crafting a Customer-centered Web Experience [Paperback]

“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!”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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.

Douglas van Duyne is senior director of customer experience products and design at Keynote Systems, the worldwide leader in Web performance measurement and management systems. He was the cofounder, president, and CEO of NetRaker, a leader in customer experience management solutions, prior to NetRaker's acquisition by Keynote in April 2004. Doug has more than twenty years of entrepreneurial, management, and software design experience.

Doug's management experience includes positions at GO Corporation, an early portable computing developer, and software product design at KidSoft, a pioneering e-commerce company before the advent of Web-based shopping. As principal of Dune Design Group, Inc., he consulted on major Web site design projects for Intel, Safeway, Cooking.com, and healthshop.com.

Doug studied computer science, physics, visual arts, and music at the University of California, Berkeley, and he has a B. S. in computer science.

James A. Landay is a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches courses in human-computer interaction. He is also the CTO and cofounder of NetRaker.

Jason I. Hong is a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. He has worked at IBM Research, Fuji Xerox Palo Alto Laboratories, and Xerox Research, and is a consultant for eDealFinder.com.