The Design of Sites: Patterns for Creating Winning Web Sites

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

Praise for the second edition of The Design of Sites

"In my worldwide IBM marketing role, I have the benefit of working with some of the finest international interactive agencies and internal Web teams. As I read The Design of Sites, I see] the insight from years of professional advice has been put to paper. Nowhere have I seen such a practical, effective, and easy-to-use book to solve and avoid Internet design issues...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0131345559
• ISBN13: 9780131345553
• Release Date: December 2006
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 981 Pages
• Weight: 3.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 7.4" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Lives up the "design pattern" legacy

The amount of web site design knowledge presented in this text is almost unbelievable. Almost every aspect of website design is covered. If you're looking for a 'implementation how-to' book, look elsewhere. This text is more of a 'design how-to' text, and it does an unparalleled job of that.

A top pick for classroom assignment and discussion, especially.

The second updated edition of THE DESIGN OF SITES offers a foundation survey of the principles and best practices underlying outstanding Web design, making it a recommended pick not just for computer collections, but for college-level classroom use. Web designers receive a tutorial on the basics of good web site design, with coverage of AJAX, the latest new design patterns, updated patterns, and more accompanied by color screen shots, diagrams, and discussions of site elements. From the basics of accessibility to direct manipulation and website values, all aspects of web design are surveyed. A top pick for classroom assignment and discussion, especially. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

One of the best web design books I've read

I am getting through the book and it is a treasure trove of knowledge about good design. The patterns discussed in the book can be implemented almost immediately. I like how they included AJAX in the book as an enhancement not a distraction to websites. They even emphasized mobile web applications and patterns for those. If you are building any type of web-based/network-based application, this book should be on your shelf.

Simply Beautiful!

It is now the 22nd of January 2007, and this is my 6th book on the topic of usability, customer-center design, and plainly, human-computer interaction. Certainly, this is the crème de la crème of them all--though i am not dismissing the merits of the other books. This book is the soup-to-nuts on building sites that focus on content management, E-commerce essentials, Web UI, and best practices on enhancing user experience. It is simply a chock-full o' timely and very practical tips and techniques.

here are many tips for designing

This is a book that shows how far website designing has come, since the early days of the mid 90s. Back then, texts on the subject often focused on the technical mechanics. Heavy on HTML, explaining what all those tags did. Plus much details on how to run the web servers. Those were texts for programmers. Duyne and his co-authors give a higher level discourse. One better attuned to a true design approach. And germane to people of different skill sets than programmers. While there is still some discussion at the HTML level, nowadays you can safely assume that much of that degree of detail can be safely handed off, after the design (or a first cut of it) is done. The text spans many aspects of a website. Like having a consistent visual style across all the pages. Or perhaps distinct styles, but each within a clear subset of pages. And the developer should always try to keep in mind what a visitor might expect. For this, a logical and easy to understand layout of the pages relative to each other is key. Along with an accompanying site map. Granted, if you are just starting out with a small site, the map may be unnecessary. But if you have ambitions for more, then designing a logical subdivision of the pages is advised. You probably want search engines to list your site. And list it prominently. Where this applies whether you have a corporate site or a non-profit site. So a chapter offers several hints for search engine optimisation. For one thing, try having meaningful titles for each page. But perhaps the best thing you can do, if you want other websites to link to yours, is simply to write the text as fluently and interestingly as you can. Make visitors WANT to read your pages. All the technical SEO steps are important, but ultimately secondary compared to this. The book also warns of phishing attacks against your site. Perhaps inevitable if you will be doing ecommerce, and if your site becomes popular. One key piece of advice is NOT to outsource your email subscriptions to a third party site. Not only can it make some subscribers suspicious, but it increases their vulnerability to phishing messages.