Homepage Usability

by Jakob Nielsen

While there is a plethora of books available that provide tips on Web design, most authors leave a significant gap between the theory and practice--a gap that is left up to the reader to fill. Homepage 50 Websites Deconstructed boldly steps into that gap with specific observations and suggestions backed with solid quantitative analysis. This book focuses only on home page design as the most important point of presence for any Web site. This definitive work is coauthored by Jakob Nielsen--the accepted industry expert in Web usability--and Marie Tahir, an expert in user profiling. Their collaboration has produced a guide of such rare practical benefit that Web designers will likely wear out their first copy scouring the pages to savor every last morsel of wisdom. The book begins with a chapter of precise guidelines that serve as a checklist of the features and functionality to include on your home page. The specifics found in categories such as "revealing content through examples" and "graphic design" will quickly hook you and whet your appetite for more. These guidelines are followed up with hard statistics and an examination of the ominous Jakob's "Users spend most of their time on other sites than your site." Here you'll find some interesting statistics about how various conventions like search, privacy policies, and logos are used. All this leads up to the showcase element of the book--a systematic deconstruction of 50 of the most popular home pages on the Web. The authors painstakingly pick apart each in an uncompromising autopsy of usability. Each site is graphically analyzed for its use of real estate and summarized with the frankness only found from true experts. Then each section of the home page is bulleted and analyzed for potential improvements. It's a bold move to offer a critique of industry-standard Web sites such as Yahoo, CNET, and eBay, but the authors have done such a fine job that the designers of those sites will surely make reading this book a high priority. For the rest of us, this work will serve as an invaluable gospel. --Stephen W. Plain Topics covered : Design guidelines, convention usage, screen real estate, navigation, content presentation, search facilities, links, graphics and animation, advertising, news, customization, and customer feedback.

Genres: Design, Usability, Nonfiction, Technology, Web, Reference, Business

344 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2001

About the author

Jakob Nielsen is a leading web usability consultant. He holds a Ph.D. in human-computer interaction from the Technical University of Denmark in Copenhagen. He is also the principal of the Nielsen Norman Group which he co-founded with Dr. Donald A. Norman (former VP of research at Apple Computer). Before starting NNG in 1998 he was a Sun Microsystems Distinguished Engineer.

Nielsen founded the "discount usability engineering" movement for fast and cheap improvements of user interfaces and has invented several usability methods, including heuristic evaluation. He holds 79 United States patents, mainly on ways of making the Web easier to use.

Nielsen has also given his five quality components of Usability Goals, which are: Learnability, Efficiency, Memorability, Errors (as in low error rate), Satisfaction.

Reviews

[Hillary · Rating 2 out of 5]

At first I thought this book would be inspiring and informative. Although some of the statistical data was useful, overall I found this book to be stifling. As a student of web design, I found it bothersome how the authors stamped out every notion of creativity. They insult the intelligence of present-day internet users and suggest an almost "template" approach to web design. As they deconstructed sites, I found their suggestions to be petty and/or picky. For example, they suggest that every page should place the logo in the upperleft corner. Or, they would criticize wording for being "overly cutesy" or "too clever."

Although I think it is important for webpages to have worthy content and logical navigation, the authors of this book regard visual appeal as something frivilous. I would challenge that the viewing public do in fact have a large visual vocabulary and are capable of consuming and understanding different visual forms. We see this in the areas of advertising and industrial design, with the success of fresh, unpredictable campaigns and product lines.

I think this book provides some limited insight, but after the first 40 or so pages, the stringent guidlines become overbearing.

Curiously, I wonder how Nielsen's site, useit.com, would survive a deconstruction? The site is jam-packed with words, and the space is too unified without any visual elements to break it up. I didn't have the patience to scan through it at all.

[Avid Series Reader · Rating 3 out of 5]

useful tips:
-use non-breaking spaces between words to preserve key phrases
-avoid exclamation marks
-use blue for unvisited links, purple for visited links
-if a link does anything other than go to another web page (pdf, audio, video), explicitly indicate what will happen
-don't put horizontal nav above the banner ("banner blindness")
-don't include active link to homepage on the homepage
-all pages other than homepage should have the logo be a clickable link to homepage
-don't give up valuable homepage real estate welcoming users - use for a tag line instead
-decorating with holiday graphics can make the website more appealing to users. timing is critical (avoid putting up early or leaving up after holiday)
-spell out month or use month abbreviation, instead of using numbers for dates (Jan 2, 2003 vs. 01/02/03)
-include a search box, white background, 30 chars, "Search" button

[Taylor Nguyen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the book to be a bit outdated. The information was also presented in a way that wasn't easy to read.

[Daily Tech · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Work, Keep Going!
Try to visit the Affordable SEO U.S

[Catherine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I will forever be grateful To Jakob Nielsen for giving me a book that I can whip open, point at and say, "Best practices standards are specific about avoiding [insert hypertension-inducing bad idea here]." This book was exactly what I needed in order to get over the "My wife thinks ..." hump in our homepage redesign project. Thank you.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ironically this book about usability had very poor usability. It started with 60 pages of theory (boring & with no context) and the 50 actual home pages were merely criticized instead of showing improved versions.

Ideally the book would have worked the theory into examples showing the bad and how to correct those issues instead of playing the critic instead of the creator.

[Shawn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty useful for giving practical advice and criticism of websites. Not as good as the Designing Web Usability.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good survey of what was in use and how it is seen by the user. However, it is not a book on theory. It also is not a book for creativity. It simply relates what works and reminds us that art for art's sake is not a good communications model.

[Joen Wolfrom · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book exceptionally informative about creating a homepage. If you read it and study the examples, you will find that you can determine your likes and dislikes in quick order. This book provides a serious discussion about homepage designs.

[Alain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beau geste!

[Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bit dated now, but the concepts are still important.

[Paolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cinquanta home page analizzate in profondità: come ha detto qualcun altro, il migliore (e più condivisibile) libro di Nielsen.