This book is a great help for everyone who needs to improve documentation. It's on my desk and I recommend it 100%.

Part of the value of this book is the promise that the author will provide templates and examples. This promise is worth zero. If you go to the companion website, there is a note from the author that says, essentially, "Ooops, so sorry. Got too busy." Just a tad unprofessional? I guess different people have different perspectives on such things.

Call me crazy, but one would think that the author would have had a whole stack of examples and templates BEFORE he wrote the book. How else would he know what documents are needed? Just a rhetorical question.....

The book itself is useful, don't get me wrong. I am just very disappointed in the lack of companion material. Other reviews very adequately cover the content.

In terms of practical help, AND downloadable templates, I vastly prefer Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works (2nd Edition) by Kelly Goto.

Kelly Goto's advice saved my tail when I was a newbie in the field (waaaaay back in the dark ages of the 20th century), and still has relevance for me today.

Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works (2nd Edition) (VOICES)


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UPDATE: August 2008: nothing has changed on the companion website, http://www.communicatingdesign.com/ Quite frankly, it looks like it has been abandoned.

It is for my Information Design class. I haven't used it yet, but it arrived on time and in good condition..

I'm using this text for my CIS 3900 Business Web Architecture course at Western Michigan University. THis text is geared more towards the designers perspective of wed site creation, more so then development. It's an easy to read text,not full of overly complicated jargon, and tends to be a fast read with lots of helpful diagrams. For anyone looking to explore the dynamics of creating a web site to meet the needs of your client, it certainly is a good source of information and topics to consider during the process.

As a self-starting IA working on large-scale websites, this book has been indispensable. It offers a comprehensive overview of all relevant design documentation from personas and usability to inventories and wireframes. It is an intelligently written and highly readable must-have book for all IAs.

If you are an Information Architect, usability person, or interaction designer, this is a must have on your shelf.

This book is very informative and useful, and it's fun to read at the same time. The author keeps the language simple so it's easy to get through, and it's humorous. A great choice for Information Architects and others interested in the field.

I am responsible for evaluating and coordinating the re-design of a large library website. Since I know the process, I don't read the explanations of this book in depth, but I like it as a reference. I consult it when I know I need a certain type of document, but don't remember the best way to format the information, or have forgotten all the steps involved. The examples are clear and helpful. Why re-invent the wheel? I've developed similar solutions in the past, and they worked.

I purchased and read this book prior to seeing Dan Brown's lecture at User Experience 2007. I like this book because it's an inventory of no-nonsense user experience documents that get the users represented in the process of interface design.

Received book quickly and in the condition it was said. I will purchase from this customer anytime.
Thanks

If you work in a large team in a big corporation, and use conventional rather than agile approaches to web development, you may find this book very useful. It has advice not just on what tools to employ, when, and why, but also how to interact with clients and specialists in various roles during every stage of website genesis/ontogeny, from strategy to execution (via usability tests, concept mapping, wireframes and much more).

As a one-person band with a very small budget, I found big chunks of it rather idealistic, somehow old-fashioned, and not very relevant to my own circumstances. The usability / market research specialist? The information architect? Those would be me. The programmer? The graphic designer? Oh, those would be me too. And the person making sure that the words and images are suitable for the web as a medium? Me again.

I wanted some advice on best practice for (a) documenting decisions made (and reasons for making them) and (b) highlighting consequences of those decisions (and reasons) for future work. I was quite surprised not to see much discussion about how to document (b), which in my experience is often a huge hole in documentation.

Also, the processes I use are much more agile than those described in the book, which doesn't cover how to document development using agile methods. This is a shame, because I think more and more developers are moving in this direction.

Have read now twice. Sits on my desk as a reference, lots of dog-earred pages. Dense with experience, tips and nuances per the intangibles of the design process (Dan's already got the tangibles down cold). I've had a number of my clients (internal and external) read just the Introduction, and have made great progress. A unique volume, very practical. Kudos Dan! - Andrew Schechterman Ph.D. (www.linkedin.com/in/andrewschechterman)

I found this to be a good handbook for the type of documentation I often create on projects. I think I wanted more focus on the information design aspect of diagrams / tables, etc. - sort of Dan's take on Tufte. This is more of a comprehensive review of what content a particular document could or should include, how to inflect the doc to different audiences/purposes, and when (or if) to use it in a project. That is important stuff, and Dan does a good job of it. Dan also provides some nice commentary on the future of documentation.

Dan M. Brown (no, not that Dan Brown) has written a very helpful and comprehensive guide to the family of documents that make up web design and planning. The book is divided into three sections: User Needs; Strategy; and, only then, Design. Brown's book is all about instilling a moderate, but never overbearing, amount of discipline into the process. It sees web design for what it is: requiring a fair amount of creativity and artistry, but also requiring a bit of tethering to ensure that core user needs are being served. It's a nice reference book to have on your shelf.

Ever tried to design a website, ever tried to design a application. Makes sense in your head, clear concise design...for get about it, you are a design and usability master. Ah, every felt like no one else got it? Ever been in a brainstorming session that you lost control of to taking about the site URL for hours?

This book helps...a lot. Helps you communicate in the organization/discovery/planning stages of site and application design. That way your boss, clients and you can be on the same page.

Heavy read, hit it all, invaluable book. I am not really using as a reference.

I WISH I'd had the benefit of this book coming out of graduate school. I am benefiting from it now on a daily basis! This book has become a fixture on my desk and is spreading like wildfire through my office. Non-IA types are purchasing this book to understand better what it is we do. Incredibly well written, succinct, funny and above all has pushed me to create better documentation. I recommend this book to any would-be interaction designer who may be unclear as to how to produce excellent work. This book will set the bar high.

As soon as I picked up this book, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I've been working with wireframes for many years, and creating them for a couple of years, but it's my experience that everyone does them differently, and so I gratefully welcome an overview of the basics.

I almost don't dare to write this next thing, so unbelieving am I at my good luck, but here are all the documents he covers, filling in holes in my knowledge base:

1. Personas
2. Usability test plans
3. Usability reports
4. Competitive analysis
5. Concept models
6. Content inventories
7. Site maps
8. Flow charts
9. Wireframes
10. Screen designs

As he says in his preface, it's a how-to book. It's a cookbook. It's for people who make the docs, people who use the docs, and people who review the docs.

I'm really excited. Methodology is great, but what a joy it is to just get some basic templates!

I've said it before about Dan Brown and will say it again. He earns such respect from his expertise not just in his active pursuit of advancing the UX industry, but in his prowess to apply these perspectives to every day realities.

Just for a second, step away from other publications hammering UX industry "required" vocabularies driven by buzz words and marketing efforts. Leave generalized high level, often siloed deliverables behind you. These have been long thought of as qualifiers that seem to legitimize an IA, UX lead, or Creative Director's influence on a project, but often fall short when the "grand UX process" is chopped down.

Dan Brown takes all of these best known practices and applies them to your every day projects, realistically, effectively, and ultimately smarter. The true benefit from this book lies in the simple principle often over looked when cranking out work. The value of your deliverables impacts the future of your upcoming deliverables. While you may know some tricks of the trade, Dan guides you in great detail ways to finesse and refine what you already have built (or may be building). He calls attention to the important aspects these deliverables add such as strength to upcoming documentation and validation to previous documentation.

And if that were not enough, he outlines the best approach to take when challenged by clients seeking validity to these deliverables.

This book has been by my side since I purchased it last fall. I refer to it so many times when I need real-world solutions and client interfacing insights.

Here's to hoping he has a follow up book!

Dan Brown's book is a great supplement to Morville and Rosenfeld's Information Architecture providing detailed information on producing effective deliverables and communicating findings from research. Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning provides the information every student in information architecture wants to know - how do I apply my knowledge in a report and communicate it to clients.

This book is great. The author gives concepts, not single objectives and a full overview of how your team and client will approach these documents.

I love this book! Brown definitely knows his stuff, which makes sense since he talks about deliverables and documentation, you'd think he would know how to write a book about communicating his ideas to an audience. Awesome job Mr. Brown. Thank you for coming up with this gem! It has templates galore to keep your project organized. I'm a librarian so I have read many, many books that talk about information organization, but this book stands out because the information and samples make you think of your particular project. The reader is prompted to consider details that most books overlook or assume the reader already knows. Can't wait for the next book by this author!

I found Dan's book just as I was beginning a new job as an information architect. Although I've done this work for a number of years, I found that he had some great tips on just about everything--from constructing a wireframe (how much detail, what to include, etc.) to the most strategic ways to do a wireframe walkthrough with a team. I appreciate Dan's common-sense, real-world approach.

When upper management starts using the phrase "best practices" near your office, keep this book handy. Mr. Brown has written the authoritative work on how to document your IA work and - perhaps more importantly - how to present your work.

The sections on presentation and getting buy-in alone are worth the price of admission.

Dan Brown did it. I never imagined someone would pull it off, but he came up with a meta-web development communication book, a book about the process of putting together user needs, strategy and web design documents. In these three categories, he covers the ten web site communication deliverables he considers to be of most value, taking the reader through a structure that will help in the process of conception, construction, presentation to others and context.

I found the concept of Personas he introduced very interesting (and innovative in the web development space) and later picked up a book that specialized on the topic ("The User Is Always Right" by Steve Mulder and Ziv Yaar) to learn more about it. In terms of the rest of the concepts he introduced, if you are a seasoned web producer/development specialist, you may not find most of them to be new, but seeing the whole package in front of you will be useful and refresh items you know to be of importance. If you are becoming acquainted with this area, the book will become a permanent reference you will want to take with you at all times along with "Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites" by Ashley Friedlein.

There is no point doing killer design work if you can't explain it to other people. This book contains a comprehensive examination of the documentation process. It covers deliverables for a range of design processes, from research through to final design. Each deliverable has a detailed explanation of the key communication needs, options and great example.

I'm going to buy a spare because I know how often I'm going to loan this out.

If you're a nerd like me, then you feel giddy when someone publishes a cool nerdbook. I have stayed up late reading this book and and filled the margins with notes and stars. Brown gives simple, applicable advice about creating and presenting Web deliverables.

I am impressed with his comprehensive coverage of the entire life of each deliverable and with how he shapes content into the book's practical structure. Brown writes clearly and concisely, and he crafts his content with solid writing patterns that make the book easy to understand and easy to use. He's as thoughtful about the use of the book as he is about the use of his Web documentation.

Brown groups the deliverables into user needs documents, strategy documents, and design documents. Each deliverable is its own independent chapter. Each chapter covers creating the deliverable, presenting it, how to use it in a project, and how it fits with other documents. He prioritizes the deliverable's content so you know which information is most essential. For each deliverable, Brown writes about the challenges one will face when creating the document and presenting it. For example, he writes about how to structure meetings to prepare for and solve common meeting challenges.

This book has helped me because I'm relatively new to Web documentation, but I'm sure veterans will find it useful, too. I highly recommended it.

Dan Brown's first offering is a practical guide for Information Architects (IA) and other usability and user experience professionals in the web/software design and human factors engineering industries. Because IA is an emerging field, Dan draws from his vast experience to describe 10 typical deliverables that help facilitate the design of useful products.

You may already be familiar with these types of documents, but Dan inspires creativity by showing examples of each type of deliverable. In addition, he provides a focus for each section by explaining the purpose of the deliverable, its intended audience, level of effort to produce the deliverable, context (when should it be produced in the development process?), and format (what might it look like?).

I won't outline each type of deliverable here because you can simply view the table of contents, but I will say this...After owning the book for less than a week, it sits right beside me at work. A few days after receiving the book, I was asked to create a content inventory of a particular web site. The practicality of the book helps me focus on what information I should be communicating to my intended audience and the examples spark ideas to make my work product better.

This isn't a book to tell you how to do your job, but it is a book to help you effectively communicate with a diverse group of stakeholders so that the resulting product fulfills its requirements and results in a high ROI.