User-Centered Web Site Development: A Human-Computer Interaction Approach [With CDROM]

McCracken suggests a somewhat back to basics approach to website design. He offers 4 ideas - proximity, alignment, consistency and contrast. Claiming that by adhering to these, you can develop a very professional website. Even if it is just your personal website. The ideas are useful and uncontroversial. Consistency across the pages on a website is probably the most common idea shared with other books on this topic. Alignment is also a good thing. Like avoiding centred alignment as much as possible. Left alignment is usually the best and safest choice, for the greatest ease of reading. There is a chapter on colour which is also well worth reading. Explaining the biophysics of colour, and how to use colour effectively on a webpage.

Until it was finally in my hands, I wondered why this book had not received much reviewer attention, given its solid content and authorship. Keys to understanding that at once became obvious:1) The book is much more expensive than books with similar content.2) The eloquent Jared Spool, listed as an author, provided only a short preface.3) The book was designed as a college textbook. Who loves or hates a textbook enough to bother to review it?As a classroom aid, the book is superb. Usability principles are presented from foundations to applications clearly and without padding. Unlike many usability texts, statements are backed with ample references. The color illustrations lighten the book sufficiently to soften any textbooky stigma.Each chapter ended with review questions and exercises. Some of them were very interesting and creative, but if you are not in a classroom with an instructor who has access to the password-protected answers, you are on your own.So the Web professional attracted to the material and learning on his own will inevitably feel a bit cheated out of the full value of the book.

I had to design a website for the department in which I work, at short notice and with limited familiarity with internet technology and NO background in graphics or design. "User-Centered Website Development" came to the rescue. McCracken and Wolfe are not interested in flashy gimmicks; they concentrate on designing sites that the site visitors will find easy, pleasant, and efficient to use. Chapter 3, "Know Thy User," helped me figure out what the audience's top priorities were; Chapters 4 and 6, "Organization" and "Site Navigation," helped me organize the pages; Chapters 5, 9, and 10 taught me some basic design principles in a hurry. The best thing about the book, though, is its philosophy--that a well-designed website is for the users, not an ego-trip for the designer. It's clear that they extended that approach in writing their book, to make it as useful as possible for the people who will be using it.