The Design of Sites: Patterns, Principles, and Proceses for Crafting a Customer-Centered Web Experience

by Douglas K. van Duyne, James A. Landay, Jason I. Hong

-- Improve your Web site step-by-step - and boost customer satisfaction and retention.-- Patterns for e-commerce, internationalization, site-branding, education, and more.

-- Optimize home pages, layout, navigation, usability, and performance.

Based upon extensive, ground-breaking research, The Design of Sites introduces a comprehensive, pattern-based approach to making web sites truly customer-centered. Using the 101 patterns presented here, Web and business professionals can learn from the industry's experience and best practices, and dramatically improve customer satisfaction and retention. The authors have chronicled visitors' behavior to find the patterns that emerge from experiences ranging from navigation to e-shopping, and to discover how individual site visits fit into users' larger goals of finding information and making purchasing decisions. Drawing on this research, The Design of Sites introduces proven principles, processes, and patterns for building customer-centered Web sites. Their patterns encompass virtually every key issue, including: creating powerful home pages; managing content; simplifying layouts and navigation; optimizing performance, and much more. For all Web designers, developers and decision-makers seeking to maximize the business value of their Web sites.

Genres: Design, Web, Nonfiction, Website Design, Art Design, Reference, Computers

762 pages, Paperback

First published July 22, 2002

Reviews

[Craig Cecil · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there are many books on the market that discuss patterns related to programming, architectural elements, etc., this is the first book I've seen that focuses on web patterns at the user interface level. The book is essentially an indexed, cross-referenced, best practices guide to building web pages that attract and keep customers. Or at least keep you from pissing them off. The authors have collected and summarized a great deal of HCI research (all listed in the resources section of the appendix) on web usability, so none of this stuff is made up--it's all based on time-proven, tested, and verified data about how people actually use the Internet (e.g., see Amazon, Yahoo!, Google, et. al.). A few of the patterns are no longer considered best practices, due to evolving standards (e.g., CSS) and increasing browser standards support. This is a very handy reference book, especially for an in-depth UI checklist.

[Marcus Lira · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best thing about this book is its organisation. Never *ever* a book about web design had changed the way I thought about ordinary graphic design, but the authors of this book did a really impressive job.

[Inggita · Rating 3 out of 5]

it's a reference book for designers - we never really "finished" "reading" it - we will go back again and again sometimes to the same pages for the same issues.