Design, Typography & Graphics with tips and tricks for design, printing, photoshop, photography and publishing of all kinds
The official publication of The Design & Publishing Center. The best place to start is with the latest issue of the Newsletter

This DT&G Editor's Choice SINCE THE EARLY 1990s, anyone who has attended any of my design workshops or makeover clinics will know about my advocacy for simplicity. In 1994 my web design seminars, and web page make-over clinics launched on the premise of "simplicity" and a clear visual direction for the interface design. I did not call it "usability" but that's what it was.

In 1996 everyone wanted a "killer" web site. Self-professed, hip web designers everywhere flocked at the feet of hack profit David Siegel and refried DTPer Roger Black believing they were riding the third-generation web -- until all their traffic fell asleep waiting for the pages to download or wondering what they were supposed to do. Today, with the help of Jakob Nielsen and other "user" advocates, we'll see a revival of usefulness return to the web. Nielsen's "Usability" is the antithesis of Siegel and will breathe new breath into the the victims "killed" by the lack of usability. Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability __ Jakob Nielsen has taken the study of how people use the web to it's ultimate exploitation, making himself the defacto authority on web usability. His latest work "Designing Web Usability" should be on the desks of everyone who develops web pages -- no -- I take that back. It should be studied -- their bible -- because as the world spouts buckets of hype for flash and stream, the success of a web site still boils down to who uses it and how much. Without 'usability' few site visitors get much further than the front door. Jakob Nielsen has written the book I've been praying someone would write for over half a decade. If we could just get the ivory tower web designers to read it we'll have it made. __ Actually, web "usability" is not Nielsen's exclusive idea -- as the media would have you believe. Remember, I told you about Jared M. Spool's research and works paralleling my own back in 1996, and then again when we promoted his report "Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide". That was our first introduction to the term "Usability Engineering." __ In the early days of the web people were so bedazzled by the sheer excitement of designing web pages, few recognized where the web would be in five or six years. Many simply ignored the principles of good design choosing to fulfill their own urges to decorate their web pages with as much visual pollution as they possibly could. I had many web crafter say: "Who cares? I'm having too much fun to worry about the readers." One designer for a well known publication (You'd know their name if I told you!) who attended my Web Design seminar in Chicago said "We design it that way intentionally... we want to make it hard to read!" Then in May, an interface designer in Toronto said "... no need to put so much work into content -- the majority of surfers want the video and audio anyway -- no one reads." __ Believe it or not, the laws of good design that built the visual communications industry out of the dark ages of art nouveau and art deco still hold true today. Both Nielsen and Spool prove it. As a matter of fact, "as the information well grows deeper and wider so grows the need for cleaner, and more usable interface design." __ Nielsen tackles each issue in web design and teaches you how to optimize usability. Not only does he delve into navigation and search capabilities, but he helps you understand and implement strong content design -- what they'll read, how they'll read it, and what they'll read next. Pretty pictures are not what the web is all about -- it's the message and the reader's comprehension of the message that makes it work. Nielsen leads the way. Here's How to WIN this book: if you would like to get this book FREE, visit our "WebDesign & Review" reader web site reviews department, and send in a good web site review. Be sure to use the Review FORM. OR: You can also win books by reviewing books. Just send in your review of a recent book you've purchased, attach a jpg of the cover, or an interior spread, and you're in. Inquire for the details by writing LETTERS@graphic-design.com __ The most important areas of concentration for designers are well covered here too. You need to know what visitors respond to, and how they respond to it. You need to know what happens with international audiences and web sites that cross regional and cultural boundaries. Designing Web Usability brings your understanding into focus, then shows you ways to optimize your relationship with your site visitor. This is probably one of the most important books ever written about web design. It is definitely the most sober, and it's one of the few books with design on the cover that actually deal with design. There's no html in this book -- thank God! There's no java this or flash that. Nielsen deals with the design, and the why of design rather than how. Once you understand why, you don't need to ask how -- you already know. Web designers: you need Jakob Nielsen's "Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity Stunning production from New Riders Publishing... Textbook Binding - 432 pages 1 edition New Riders Publishing See this and all our other "recommended" books today in the Designers' Bookshelf http://www.design-bookshelf.com/ Counterpoint On the down side, some of Nielsen's writings should be taken with a grain of salt. Aside from many obvious egocentric aspects of his writings, many of his "new" design concepts (which he fully claims as his own) are, in reality, rephrasings of existing theory or concepts. On page 351, in a discussion about the original interface design of the Macintosh computer Nielsen says: "I discovered that it made sense to reverse the design principles behind the macintosh and do the exact opposite in every case." Except when he explains his theory, he merely describes logical evolutionary extensions of the Mac interface rather than exact opposites. Another somewhat bothersome current in the book is Nielsen's way of pointing out certain sites as good examples eventhough they contradict assertions he has made in other parts of the book. Nielsen compares "high traffic" sites to low traffic sites attempting to draw the conclusion with usability rules, while ignoring millions of spam messages sent, and millions of advertising dollars spent just to get people to the site. (Equally concerning is that many of these beaming examples turn out to be the web sites who's high praise is printed in the jacket liner of the book. Hmmmmmm. I guess if I had a full page, full color screen of my web site published as a good example in the book I'd be beaming too.)

[ The Design Center ] _ [ DT&G Magazine ] _ [ DTG Newsletter ] _ [ Designers' Bookshelf ]
.
.
.