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naleagdeco's review against another edition
5.0
I am a programmer. My idea of a beautiful UI is Nethack. My idea of a great UX is grep. (Hint: You probably don't want me designing a UI, ever.)
But writing a web site, even a dynamic one, is something I have to do as part of my profession, and if nobody else takes on that task, I guess it's on me. And we as developers need empathy in general, let alone an understanding of what is the way that will make as wide an audience feel happiest when using our product (and enabling people to do with what I make what everything that I hope it offers them.)
--
I was designing a webapp to learn some new technology and see if I could get even an amateur hobby web/mobile application under my belt, and was looking for something as thoughtless as "this is how all apps should be designed. Always make them look like this. Always have these pieces here" and so on.
This was the second book I read. The first, Joel Spolsky's [b:User Interface Design for Programmers|41790|User Interface Design for Programmers|Joel Spolsky|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1385163404s/41790.jpg|41306] was good at at beating into my head the kind of values I needed to approach this from an empathy point of view.
This book gets more into the nuts and bolts, even if at an introductory level. It's the kind of book I'm going to need to own and keep around me as I try to do something very foreign to me, design a web page, and keep referencing to make sure I'm sticking to the framework of though as I'm doing what I'm doing ... when in doubt, skim over the book and reassert that I'm on the right path.
--
I probably haven't digested the material enough to recite it back, but basically, it gives me a little bit of a basic layout for how I should structure an app, but also builds into models of how I should anticipate the user engaging with what I make, how they will scan the app and hunt for things in very different ways than I think when engaging with software, and so on. It gives you practical thoughts on how to think of your product as a tool that people are only using because they want to achieve something and maybe your tool will help them do that.
--
So yeah, my big recommendation is that if you're clueless about UX like me, you'll want to have this book around to reorient yourself around repeatedly, like little mantras and compasses.
But writing a web site, even a dynamic one, is something I have to do as part of my profession, and if nobody else takes on that task, I guess it's on me. And we as developers need empathy in general, let alone an understanding of what is the way that will make as wide an audience feel happiest when using our product (and enabling people to do with what I make what everything that I hope it offers them.)
--
I was designing a webapp to learn some new technology and see if I could get even an amateur hobby web/mobile application under my belt, and was looking for something as thoughtless as "this is how all apps should be designed. Always make them look like this. Always have these pieces here" and so on.
This was the second book I read. The first, Joel Spolsky's [b:User Interface Design for Programmers|41790|User Interface Design for Programmers|Joel Spolsky|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1385163404s/41790.jpg|41306] was good at at beating into my head the kind of values I needed to approach this from an empathy point of view.
This book gets more into the nuts and bolts, even if at an introductory level. It's the kind of book I'm going to need to own and keep around me as I try to do something very foreign to me, design a web page, and keep referencing to make sure I'm sticking to the framework of though as I'm doing what I'm doing ... when in doubt, skim over the book and reassert that I'm on the right path.
--
I probably haven't digested the material enough to recite it back, but basically, it gives me a little bit of a basic layout for how I should structure an app, but also builds into models of how I should anticipate the user engaging with what I make, how they will scan the app and hunt for things in very different ways than I think when engaging with software, and so on. It gives you practical thoughts on how to think of your product as a tool that people are only using because they want to achieve something and maybe your tool will help them do that.
--
So yeah, my big recommendation is that if you're clueless about UX like me, you'll want to have this book around to reorient yourself around repeatedly, like little mantras and compasses.
elisacarlene's review against another edition
challenging
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
saxey's review against another edition
3.0
Some good content in here. If you are new to the industry, its definitely helpful.
sdague's review against another edition
4.0
Really good foundation on web usability, well worth checking out.
michaela456's review against another edition
4.0
A very useful book. Short, concise and practical, written with expert insight and sense of humour.
robwcote's review against another edition
4.0
A quick read, but worth it for the nuggets of wisdom to be found throughout. Web design impacts digital marketing and content people's jobs more than they might think, and it's good to know how to play with design to produce a better product.
_walter_'s review against another edition
4.0
Supposedly, this book has inspired lots of people to leave their wives, families, and lucrative careers in order to become designers and usability experts. Legend goes that Steve Jobs asked to be cryo-frozen with a copy of this book in his hands. So read at your own risk. I personally don't think the siren call of UX projects strongly enough out of its pages to give me cause for concern. But there's plenty of food for thought.
In all seriousness, it is an excellent primer to make sure you cover the fundamentals before moving on to more exotic stuff. I do wish the author had included more website samples to illustrate his points, and fewer cartoons, maybe.
Fun fact: the author praises the work of Don Norman, author of "The Design of Everyday Things" and cites him as one of the authorities in the field. Then proceeds to knowingly and intentionally misuse basic terminology coined by Norman himself (affordances vs signifiers) in order to make his point, just cause it was more convenient. Ok...
Good read, more web engineers and PMs need to read it. Recommended.
In all seriousness, it is an excellent primer to make sure you cover the fundamentals before moving on to more exotic stuff. I do wish the author had included more website samples to illustrate his points, and fewer cartoons, maybe.
Fun fact: the author praises the work of Don Norman, author of "The Design of Everyday Things" and cites him as one of the authorities in the field. Then proceeds to knowingly and intentionally misuse basic terminology coined by Norman himself (affordances vs signifiers) in order to make his point, just cause it was more convenient. Ok...
Good read, more web engineers and PMs need to read it. Recommended.
communicatrix's review against another edition
4.0
The web would be a far better place if everyone read this before throwing something up on it. Of course, if they read it, they'd quit throwing up on the damn web.
jmichaelward's review against another edition
4.0
I thought I had already marked this read on Goodreads, but apparently I hadn't...
I read the second edition of this book a year or two ago and got a lot from it, enough that I regularly reference it to people when I think it's appropriate to refer them to it. I just picked up the 3rd edition of the book and read through it again.
Some of the ideas in the book run contrary to some emerging web standards that are described in the North project on Github (particularly when it comes to thinking of websites as a collection of pages - see https://github.com/Snugug/north for more details), but on the whole I think this book is an enormously valid document and includes many easy-to-implement ideas to get developers started down the road of building more usable and accessible sites.
It's a great read, and more importantly, it's short and easy to digest. Some of it just doesn't seem to hold up quite so well, even with the update, which is why it only gets 4 stars in this reader's mind. Still, I think everyone who works in the web design or development fields should give it a read.
I read the second edition of this book a year or two ago and got a lot from it, enough that I regularly reference it to people when I think it's appropriate to refer them to it. I just picked up the 3rd edition of the book and read through it again.
Some of the ideas in the book run contrary to some emerging web standards that are described in the North project on Github (particularly when it comes to thinking of websites as a collection of pages - see https://github.com/Snugug/north for more details), but on the whole I think this book is an enormously valid document and includes many easy-to-implement ideas to get developers started down the road of building more usable and accessible sites.
It's a great read, and more importantly, it's short and easy to digest. Some of it just doesn't seem to hold up quite so well, even with the update, which is why it only gets 4 stars in this reader's mind. Still, I think everyone who works in the web design or development fields should give it a read.