Im a quite advenced web developer, i bought the book for discipline, you know, one have to read different opinions, but this was a bad time spending to buy it, espect it and reading it.

Too much pre-self-appologies and redundant talking at the begining of the book, those 'predictions' about when will be possible to read long texts on line... completely out of place.

Writing is disorganized, plenty of drifting away from the subject. I guess that Jakob Nielsen is a grat web developer, he knows many technical things about it, but he should not write books. Or he might take some lessons about "making some text shorter", -if you can say somthing using two words, don't use three. Usability is just about to make things easy to read and understand with minimum effort, this short-lettered, plenty-of-words-pages and plenty of pages book is exactly to learn things you should not do when trying to reach for usability.

Im sorry Mr. Nielsen, its dissappointing.

The author offers critiques, but rarely offers a better idea or redesign. It's the same with his other book about home page usability. This is a severe shortcoming.

A related problem is that some of his criticisms are just unfounded or - in my humble opinion - just plain wrong. And I'm coming to the conclusion that that's why he doesn't offer solutions - a web site is a tradeoff between competing goals. It's actually not that difficult to find "problems" with sites; it's much more difficult to fix those problems and find that sweet spot.

It is amazing how a book that was useful when it was published becomes obsolete so quickly. Many of the ideas presented are basically OK, but some are definitively ourdated. The Internet and web browsing experiences have change our perceptions of what works and what does not.

General ideas are quite good...

After reading this book I came up with a better title for it:
"Web sites for dummies".

But then again, should web dummies really read this book ?

The content of this book is made of a series of advices about
organizing your web space. Most good advices in this book are already available (for free) on the W3 markup validator (validator.w3.org) or on some other W3 Consortium page (w3.org).

Other advices are just worthless, like this little jewel:
"[...] sound effects can be used as an extra dimension in the user interface [...] the progress of a file download could be indicated by the sound of water pouring into a glass".

Surely that will clarify it all! Should a flushing sound be played as well ?
I don't see how such a sound could actually give information about the progress of a download.

People really serious about designing user interfaces should try one of Jef Raskin's books, like "The Humane Interface" (ISBN: 0201379376) which introduces quantification techniques of a user's pain when manipulating an interface.

This book summarizes what Jakob Nielsen has been trying to tell us for years about building usable software. Here he applies it to the web. This is probably the best book out there for learning to create web interfaces that won't send users clicking away after two seconds. My only complaint about the book is that he keeps reiterating the same core points over and over again, chapter after chapter. If it's so simple, then why am I reading 500 pages? A good book, but probably could have been condensed more efficiently.

The general ideas in the book are quite good, and should knows to all web developers, even if they choose to ignore them. The only problem I had with the book is that it was released in '99, and in some cases, it shows it's age. In today's environment, we usually don't need to worry as much about 56k modems, or 800x600 screens.

The ideas of a fluid design and response time, however, are still quite valid.

It's one of the must-have books for any webdesigner. You can find it quite cheap, so no reason not to buy it. Check out the authors online articles too.

Nielsen points out in other studies that usability principles that hit the mark endure the test of time. This particular book is evidence of that, although a second edition targeted at updating examples and discussing recent trends in Web technology (e.g. syndication, the rise of portable devices, the proliferation of broadband Internet access) would be particularly helpful.

If you're short on time and resources, and can only read one book on Web design theories and principles (not coding), this is THE book.

Nielsen breaks Web usability into manageable chunks, starting at the page level, building to site-wide issues of navigation and search.

Sections on intranet design and international audiences are a good introduction, but Nielsen's other work (c.f. www.useit.com) do a much better job of illustrating important design considerations in these areas.

You may not follow all of Jacob Neilson's guidelines, but you can't start any website construction or redesign project without reading this book.

This was one of the first usability books I bought. It was great, and I couldn't believe someone wrote all of these ideas down. It _is_ a good book. It is well written, and he does a good job of illustrating his examples.

However, for as much usability testing that Jakob must do, he provides little data to back it up. Perhaps hard data was not a requirement for web usability books written in 1999/2000, but it will have a more difficult time standing up to books written more recently.

For a book written in 1999, it's already an achievement that's it's not completely useless, but still it's a bit outdated. Most of its prophecies are wrong (email tokens, anyone? Browsers will be out of date?), and its advice is only good if, first, you believe in it, and second, if you have to manage a site the size of Microsoft.
Even so, part of the book is rather useless. Intranet design does not say anytthing new, desining for disabilities misses many standards, and the part on writing for a global audience seems to be written for the kind of user usable web sites are addressed to, that is, not very bright, I guess. That makes half the book probably very usable, but not very useful.
At the end of the day, if you look for advice for improving the design of your SOHO site, or your blog, you'll find next to nothing in this book.

This book is a must for every web developer, although I think it's time for a newer version, as some of the examples and theories are based on pre-2000 studies.

Overall you can expect a great insight on correct web-design, colors matching, liquid pages, use of navigation and quick respond to user needs.

Another excellent source of information from the INTERNET guru of them all! This book is a definite MUST HAVE for any website designer, newbie to web design and anyone and everyone who has an online business. Simple, easy to understand visuals compliment the text, which is written in a very simplistic manner. This book is wonderful - magnificent - excellent, and will help you greatly understand the elements of successful web design. I've used it to consistently update my own website, at:

http://www.aei.dli.com
If you don't have this book, you're missing out on your single-most-important investment in your professional life!

This book came out in 1999 and you have to be prepared for that. It's still about 80% useful, which is amazing considering how fast web technology is moving. I love the way the author uses lots of actual pictures of websites to illustrate every point. If he would bring it into the third millenium, I'd probably give it five stars instead of three.

I'm a designer and I design web sites for a living, and this book didn't click with me. The topics in the book are repeated over and over and over and over again--simplicity and usability.
A better theme would've been "achieving beauty from simplicity".
While this is a good lesson to learn, unfortunately this makes for boring reading, and Nielson isn't even witty when compared to Edward Tufte.

Pros: Great academic reading, pages are in full color, great for
web designers who can't design and need to conform to
common everyday looking web sites.

Cons: Expensive for the little insights of do's and don'ts,
too much of the insights are really just common sense.

This man can really tell you how to design a website that will satisify user well. He has researched the field of web design and usability stats and knows his stuff. But don't let the man design a webpage by himself. He's a good usability guy, not a good designer.

This book is primarily a stylebook. The web is often mistaken for an electronic book and this is probably one of the reasons it has taken a while to find a guide aimed at web usability. Jakob Nielsen does a great job in creating a style manual for a medium, which has different aims and limitations from printed material. What made Tim Berners-Lee¡¦s innovation successful; the delivery of digital media on all manner of computer platforms; is also its drawback. Not every platform treats HTML tags in the same manner.

Nielsen¡¦s main point is that the web is primarily a communications tool, although an interactive one. He states, ¡§the main goal of most web projects should be to make it easy for customers to perform useful tasks.¡¨ In addition Nielsen points out that your display terminal is not a book. This means a screen that although interactive is harder to read than a book. The prime advantage is the ability to link to other current and active links or content in an immediate manner. The biggest mistake a site author makes is in creating slow, confusing, or cumbersome sites.

Make no mistake, the author knows is stuff and is consistent in his tone. This is the first part of a two-book set. By the time you have read both books some of the more obvious points are a bit overdone, but his main goal; to get web designers to change some of their bad habits worked with me.

Another Outsource Marketing favorite! We have given at least a dozen copies of this book to clients and friends of the firm.

If you like Jakob Nielsen's columns, this book is the full meal deal. It covers the principles of usability and includes dozens of illustrated examples.

Excerpt: "With about 10 million sites on the Web...and about 25 million by the end of the year...users have more choices than ever. Why should they waste their time on anything that is confusing, slow, or that doesn't satisfy their needs? ...As a result of this overwhelming choice and the ease of going elsewhere, web users exhibit a remarkable impatience and insistence on instant gratification. If they can't figure out how to use a website in a minute or so, they conclude that it won't be worth their time. And they leave."

To view Nielsen's excellent website on usability, visit www.useit.com.

Cover to cover this book is crammed full of good stuff. I started learning about the internet from the search engine optimmization side of the web. I was always told that good seo was good usability and vice versa.

As I turned the pages I kept saying "good idea" and "I never though of that." The intranet chaper was so convincing that I thought about calling coorporate headquarters and chewing them out about the site desing. A+++

Jakob Nielsen is well known for his reports on usability and I really enjoyed his book "Homepage Usability." I figured that this would be a more in-depth exploration of how to design with the user in mind. Most of the points were on the ball, and very common sense, but nice to see it in writing from someone else. The examples in "Designing Web Usability," though ancient, fit well with the points.

I kept getting lost, in a way, because I kept getting distracted by the prehistoric examples and data. For example, what do I design for? 640? 770? What is in use today? 1997 was a long time ago in web years. I suppose it's difficult to have a book with such current data in it, but I'm thinking it's definitely time for a new version of this book.

There is also a tendency for redundancy. I suppose this is inevitable since whether you're a search results page or an intranet site, you're still dealing with the same topics of design.

I do like that even though this book is ancient, it touches on accessibility issues. So many places are only now thinking of that. I also like that testing is mentioned, though again, it is peppered with out-of-date technology which makes all the information seem invalid.

I think this book would be much stronger with new examples, updates here and there to technology and re-released. I think that that was one of the strengths of his other book, "Homepage Usability," was the freshness of the examples and problems designers are facing. If, and when, there is a new and more concise version of this book, I will buy it.

this play must be read at least twice in order to get
a real sense of whats going on.Ibsen created a timeless work of art when he wrote Hedda Gabler.Here we have a simple plot,A woman who feels that she is trapped in a loveless marriage,discovers that her old love is back in town. To make things more complicated for Hedda, this old lover is a rival of her husband.To add insult to injury,her old lover is being helped by the woman she hates.But I wouldn't fell too sorry for our Hedda, from the very opening of the play we get a chance to see who Hedda really is.In this scene we see George Tessman, Hedda's husband admiring the new bonnet of his aunt Miss Juliana Tessman,who has just placed it on a chair.Hedda enters.
Hedda-
Tessman, this servant will never do.
Miss Tessman-
Berta will never do ?
Tessman-
Whatever put that in your head, dear?
Hedda-
Look at that! She has left her old hat lying around on a chair.
Tessman-
Why, Hedda--
Hedda-
Suppose anyone had come in and had seen it!
Tessman-
But Hedda! That bonnet's Aunt Julia's
Hedda-
It is ?
Miss Tessman(picking up the hat)
Yes, indeed. And what's more,it;s not old.
Hedda knew that the hat belonged to Miss Tessman,and that it wasn't old.This is where the reader get a sense of what Hedda is about.We see the woman full of jealousy,needing always to be the center of attention.

This book did not resonate with me. Perhaps it is because I recently completed reading a great book on web design, "The Design of Sites."

It is not that the book is without merit. There are nuggets of wisdom buried in every chapter. Jakob Nielsen is an acknowledged web design expert. This book summarizes much of his thinking. Simplicity and usability should rule the web, according to the author. He is right. Users, or perhaps the term, surfers is more appropriate, are never more than one click from moving on to the next site.

There are some great chapters - the one on content design springs to mind. However, the book is like reading a W. E. B. Griffin novel. By the time you finish it, you realize it does not contain much new material. Topics and introductions are continually re-served and rehashed. At these prices, the author ought to credit his readers with enough intelligence to remember lessons taught in previous chapters.

The author's mantra is to know your user. This book would have been better if he accepted his own advice.

Anybody who says that Nielson does not back up his "opinions" with research didn't read the book. The whole idea of the book is quite the opposite. Nielson does an outstanding job using hard statistics and data to prove his theories. These are not opinions, ladies and gentlemen. These are serious ideas with powerful and well researched facts backing them up.

Though the book is kind of expensive, the whole thing is in color and makes the price worth while. I use this book all of the time to show clients how exactly their site will impact most average users. It is a serious book for serious advocates of web design, and to a Web Master like myself, it is the perfect weapon to create a beautiful and completly usable web page.

The teachings in this book are critical in developing a web site (particularly one that is Line-of-Business focused) that will drive repeat visits. The most important lessons learned: (1) Don't break the browser model, (2) Know your users' needs and design the site to accommodate them, and (3) Learn how people read screens and design pages to surface the most important content in a page or site.

Pablum served up as science with no practical scenarios or examples to back up the author's theories. Sort of like reading Freud and wondering when we are going to get to Skinner.

This book is widely regarded as a web usability classic. Not everyone loves it, though. Opinions range from "he is a genius" to "the book is obsolete".

The book is bigger than it need be. Nielsen argues strongly that web sites should be concise, but that doesn't carry over into his writing. In several places a paragraph or two seemed very familiar, having been used several chapters earlier. There are lots of colour screenshots of web pages, mostly to point out flaws.

I agree with most of what he says: Make things simple, easy and effective for users; make your pages download as fast as you can; provide a site search and so on. Where he lets himself down is in speculating about what the internet might be like five, ten or even twenty years from now. This is a complete waste; I got fed up wading through it.

It's also too heavy on opinion and too light on practical detail for me. Nielsen claims he plans to write a "how to" book sometime, but that's no use right now. The section on internationalization, for example, tantalizingly mentions a few things (US switches go "up" for "ON", European ones go "down"; don't use baseball metaphors etc.) then leaves it up to the reader with very little further help.

Well worth absorbing, but I won't often dip into it again. Unless you are a collector, borrow it rather than buying.

For information on web usability and perspective of a real pro, give this book a shot. Many designers get caught up in the glitz of FLASH and the complication of endlessly nested tables that they cut out a valuable group of users. The book is careful not to disparage design focused sites but adds a bit of reality to the purpose of web standards and the true intent of the internet. While the publishing date is a bit aged, the principles are sound. Overall, a good addition to any developers library.

By thinking of a website as an interface instead of a means to directly deliver entertainment or complex content the value of the Jakob Nielsens's guidelines becomes more obvious.

Browser incompatibility issues, unsupported file types, and the prevalence of modem dial-up-connections makes the internet and website design a challenge. Simple and usable websites are an even bigger challenge, which is why too few exist. But what a refreshing relief they are when happened upon.

If more websites adhered to the Jakob Nielsen way of thinking ( as it is mine ) the internet would be much more useful.

Steve Krug's `Don't Make Me Think' should also be read, and digested.

This book covers it all. It answered 99 percent of the questions and concerns I had about designing a usable site. Whether you agree or disagree with Jakob, you have to admire the body of work he's given the Internet. And you have to respect his opinions. They are very credible.

If one cares about usability, this is a page turner. I could hardly put it down. And I'm sure this is one of the few books I own that I will use daily and keep handy and probably well marked. To me, that's the sign of a very good, very important book. One you live with.

When you've read this book, you'll know more about usability than probably 90 percent or more of the people on the web. And you'll be able to create a site that will be useful to people, which translates into more business.

Most of the sites on the web today are really pretty bad. Both the design and the copy are bad. When you understand usability you can make a site that works for everyone concerned.

This book is fascinating. It's easy to read and understand. It covers all the topics that are usability concerns. This is NOT a book about web design. It's about usability and incorporating it into your design and into your writing. So writers as well as designers should read it.

I read "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug and I found it a very good book. I learned a lot from it. But after reading this book by Jakob Nielsen I really "got it". And you will too.

I highly recommend this very valuable book. It's an investment that will pay big dividends.

Susanna K. Hutcheson
Owner and Executive Copy Director
Powerwriting.com

When I bought this book, I did so under the false impression that the man who designed the book was also the author. Not so. As a CIW Master Site Designer, I am highly offended by this guy's oversimplified view of Web design and usability. One only has to take one look at his own Web site to see that his solutions are neither practical or "usable." Unfortunately, like so many in his profession, he completely disregards the fact that the Web is now a publishing medium - NOT a computer technology. More importantly, regarding e-commerce, it is a marketing tool; one can no longer disregard esthetics for the sake of "usability." Worse yet, like many of these so-called "usability professionals," he's treating the symptom and not the illness - poor browser software design. Most, if not all, of the usability issues for which Web designers and developers must compensate are due to lack of standardization and technological development in the browswer software industry. Sure, browser interfaces are getting prettier, but the guts of browser software still have not changed enough to appropriately accommodate the shift from technical tool to marketing medium. Of course, if these problems were solved, these high-priced "usability professionals" would be out of a job . . .

At any rate, I am a firm believer (and practitioner) of the philosophy that one does not need to sacrifice esthetics for usability, as opposed to the strategies presented herein by Herr Neilson. Do not listen to this man; he is a self-proclaimed "expert" who, by demonstration via his own Web site, has no clue how to address the true needs and concerns of Web customers - let alone, Web users. Stay away from this book!

This book changed my point of view on desiging web pages. After reading the book, I went back to basics and dropped the flashy for the functional. Applying his views on navigation, avoiding excessive graphics and managing loading times have certainly helped the usability of my site.

If you are serious about building a site and have little experience and are willing to disregard much of what you see across the web then this book if for you.

I liked this book. I bought a template for my website.. so many of the design features talked about were already made for me. Good. But the accessibility guidelines were great. I added some finishing touches and I've got a pretty darn accessible site with a variety of browsers.

My only failure was when you hit the homepage.. you should know immediately what the site offers.

That I need some revisions at this point.

Book was well worth the read. It might make some pages a bit borning, but you can skip those rules. Once you understand what makes a lot of pages really horrible, you can eliminate that stuff from your site and get moving.

Animated gifs, scorlling marques, flashing text.. huge video files.. simple stuff like that really detracts from your site.

All in all, this book was well worth the read. It went by really quick.

Okay, so everybody who every writes a review says that about "...a necessary addition..."

But seriously...

Some people may complain about this book, or say that it's not very useful, but like *anything* on usability, it's about lessons. Jakob Nielsen is quite the usability Yoda, and he very much shows what he considers to be elements of high (or in many cases) low usability.

His approach is nice for a couple of reasons. Often, when designing an element, you may ask yourself "Is this usable?" Most developers are blind to usability, as they can use their own code, and fail to take into consideration someone unfamiliar with thier process. Nielsen, through his copious examples, shows what's common on the internet, and describes usability elements based on that. The fact is, most of what we see and use on the internet could be vastly improved. He simply points it out.

Just like anything, this book should be read and taken with a grain of salt. Absorb what he has to say, and see how it applies to your development. While he is considered very yoda-like, he isn't the be-all, end-all authority (I can hear some people's teeth grinding at that comment... heh). Use what makes sense, and eschew what doesn't.

Overall, however, I *highly* recommend reading this book, if just for the usability perspective. You'll learn a lot, even if you don't try. An excellent book.

I first encountered Jakob's shinning masterpiece, whilst studying a BSc In Ingorability, and as soon as it came, I took it in my stride and followed through till the last page, the quality of research,presentation and shallowness put this book as one of my top favourites all of times, The Nielsen kid is able to conjure a great book which offers the reader nothing new, everything that is stated within this book is readily available at your feet fetish on the world wide web. I would encourage all mum's & pop looking into buying this book to improve their under the cover usability methods to forgo on buying this book and simply send jakob some high heel boots