Rating: 
Summary: New Thinking
Review: The best pieces of work in art, music and literature always stir extremely strong emotions in people. An audience's reception to the 'New' is always varied, as understanding and preconceptions (in the case of 'Train of Thoughts', the way in which we view and understand the web experience) are challenged. This is nothing but a good thing.Instead of advocating archaic rules and conventions that are merely reactionary to the mistakes made in the last few years, 'Train of Thoughts' takes steps to review and proactively improve/expand upon the manner in which we communicate and do business on the web in the future. The views here are a world away from Nielsen et al - and as such are extremely valuable for at the very least providing balance to the usability argument, and at the most, changing your perception of what is and isn't a good website and providing you with new ways to approach your work. I have been in the web industry in the UK for 6 years now, and I have a constant battle to change perceptions in people - both within the company I work for, and in clients (potential and existing) of the company I work for. This book is going to be a great help to me in changing those perceptions. Whether you agree with John Lenker's views or not (for the record - I do), this is a fantastic book that every web professional whether design or business focused (or both) should read.
Rating: 
Summary: Book's design compromises its message
Review: The design of this book kept me from purchasing it, even though I was interested in the content. I was looking for a thoughtful discussion about desigining for the web. After a very brief scan through the book, it looked like it might meet my needs. I continued my evaluation with an in-depth look at the book. The chapter summaries at the beginning of the book were unique and very helpful, as was how Lenker labels each chunk of information. The graphics were elegantly simple. Overall, the book was very attractive. After I sampled several paragraphs of text, I reached my decision to not purchase the book. The information seemed interesting and well-written. Unfortunately, there were 2 problems: the text was too small to read comfortably for extended periods and the background graphics on the pages were too distracting (the text itself is displayed in a white box). I don't object to the background graphics themselves - perhaps if they had been muted, they wouldn't be so distracting. I'll also admit that I'm at a point in my life that I'm wearing bifocals, but the text would have been too small even before I started wearing bifocals. I don't believe that the design of the book would have been compromised if the text were a little larger and the background graphics muted a bit. I was very disappointed - there are few good theoretical web design books available. On the other hand, perhaps I'm not a member of the book's intended demographic, even if I am in charge of my organization's web site.
Rating:
Summary: Why is Lenker getting railroaded?
Review: There's no doubt that this will be viewed as one of the most controversial books written on the subject of Web design. Even so, having just read some of the early reviews trashing this book, I had to laugh. The design community has been crying out against the extreme rhetoric of the usability experts, but hasn't had a solid academic rallying point from which to argue until now. Lenker comes along with some solid intellectual arguments FOR creativity and content development and people seem to be crying bloody murder. It would seem that a few nerves have has been touched! Truly, Lenker has written an inspired work that draws from research, experience, and original thinking. Some reviewers are claiming that the book is poorly designed, but so far, not one critic has substantiated their criticism by giving examples of design principles that the book violates! Also, not one person has given any example of a specific point Lenker makes that they think is off-base. The reason? Well, my guess is that they haven't actually read the book -- these early reviews were posted two days after the book shipped. I've had an advanced copy, and I'm just now finishing it! Sure, it's true that there's some room left on every page for imagery--it's called white space and this is a good thing. The reason is that Lenker was smart enough NOT to overwhelm people with page after page filled with solid text containing his thoughtful arguments. I did a quick estimate and it would appear that there are anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000 words in this typographically refined, full color, 1-inch thick, 9" x 9"
book. Yes it's a picture book suitable for your coffee table, but it will likely also serve as a college textbook. Imagine that--could making a college textbook interesting to read be a good idea? Must be why there are a number of people with PhDs that have written glowing editorial reviews for this book. Make no mistake. This is not a Web design "show-me-how" book. There are no "step-by-step" examples. Why would there be? This is an online communications philosophy book (says so on the back cover) and presents theories and principles that are solid enough to go toe-to-toe with the one-sided arguments presented in Jakob Nielsen's "Designing Web Usability." At the end of the day, if you're looking for something written at the third-grade level that you can breeze through in an evening of light reading--read something else. There are plenty of slapped-together-books for you to choose from. If on the other hand, you're looking for something to jump-start your work as a Web designer, read Train of Thoughts. This well conceived, well designed, and well argued book will challenge you, inspire you, and will teach you then concepts needed to design truly effective Web experiences (just like the title says).
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but over designed
Review: This book is not one that is easily read. The pages are heavily designed graphic design treats, but the text and the messages play second fiddle to the layouts, distracting full color background images, and other visually focused entertainments and explorations. This book perhpas makes for a coffee table book, or a book to flip through to find ocassional inspiration, but not much more. The written ideas are lost in the visuals.
Rating: 
Summary: bad information, badly designed
Review: This book should have been called "trainwreck of thoughts" It looks like it was designed by the n-gen design machine, and the advice is poor and disorganized. It shows impressive ignorance of information architecture and usability, as well as solid design practices, and seems to be written by a moderately talented "artiste" who wrangled a book contract during the good times of publishing. I cannot believe any technical editing or fact checking was done on this beast. go read tolleson's book, tibor's books or even hillman curtis's book if you want inspiration. For knowledge of the user centered design practice, get "designing websites that work: usability for the web" which -- despite the title -- gives advice on the entire design process.
Rating:
Summary: Attract, Inform, Invoke
Review: Train of Thoughts is an intelligent discussion that strongly supports a subject dear to my heart-the value of engagement on websites. As a curator of online museum exhibits, I am deeply interested in moving beyond the very useful but cold facts of so many online resources and into experiences that have something akin to art and storytelling. Mr. Lenker finally says what I've been longing to hear, and he supports it with multi-disciplinary research and makes it intelligible through well-conceived diagrams. This is not how-to-build-a-website, as another reviewer points out, but how-to-imagine-the-potential-of-websites. It is also not just philosophical ramblings (as the title might seem to imply) but practical advice, complete with case-studies of successful websites and interviews with their creators. In the process, Mr. Lenker revisits the design of a book. Structurally, this is the most successful translation I've seen of the web onto the page. It is not chapters of text but-like a good website-short blocks of text, intelligently headlined, that together complete a larger series of thought. The organization is not standard, but it is easily navigable, enjoyable, and it serves to underscore his points, especially his mantra: attract, inform, invoke. This is a must-read for those of us who create websites. It is not the last word, as the author clearly states, but an eloquent invocation of discussion that I hope will lead to a new vision.
Rating:
Summary: A nice picture book
Review: TRAIN OF THOUGHTS
Designing The Effective Web Experience
AUTHOR: John C. Lenker, Jr.
PUBLISHER: New Riders
REVIEWED BY: Barbara Rhoades This book is not what the title lead me to believe it was about. I thought it would be a "show-and-tell" of how to design a better web site. It might even have been about how to improve on some effects you already were using. Rather it is a colorful picture book of dry discussions on what should and shouldn't be done in a web site. There are no step-by-step instructions on how to do these suggestions, no "show-and-tell", no CD with files to help you walk through the ideas, just small print and lots of pictures. Train of Thoughts reminds me of a very dry college text that is all talk and no show.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly the worst designed book in history
Review: Web usability is a hot topic. I can look on my shelves and find the usual suspects: Nielsen, Lynch, Fleming, Black, Mok, Raskin, Carroll, Poole, etc. I teach web and interactive design at Indiana University. I requested this book because it sounded interesting. It sounded like something different than what the usual suspects write and it is. It actually has useful information in the book and might even have been a successful book if the author or the publisher actually understood how to design a usable book. The problem with this book on designing an effective web experience is that either the author or the publisher and maybe even both can not design a usable book experience. This book has 25% textual information on a page and 75% totally gratuitous graphical sludge flowing all around the text. This visual sludge has no reason for being on most of the pages. It slows down the reading and some cases contradict the information on the page. This sludge is in full color and is the main reason this book is listed as [price] US. I'd suggest that both the author and the publisher get together and read Brenda Laurel's Utopian Entrepreneur, a mediawork pamphlet from MIT Press. It is a pamphlet; it uses appropriate graphics and it costs about [price]. It works as a book and it works as a book about usable media in ways this book doesn't come close. Thom Gillespie
Director of the Mime program in interactive media design at Indiana University...
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