Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed

by Jakob Nielsen, Marie Tahir

The book begins with a briefing on Jakob's web usability principles, themselves culled from years of research. The 50 sites fall under such categories as Fortune 500 Sites, Highest-Traffic Sites, and E-Commerce Sites.
The content is simply presented: Four book pages are devoted to each homepage. The first page is a clean screenshot of the site's homepage (for readers to make their own, unbiased judgments), followed by a page that explains the site's purpose and summarizes its success--or failure--at usabilty. The third and fourth pages are devoted to crtiques, where Jakob and Marie present no-holds-barred commentary for specific usability practices, as well as suggestions for improvement. Although only the homepage of each site is analyzed, many of the critiques can be applied to overall website design.

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

315 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.