Rating: 
Summary: For the basics...read this book
Review: This book discusses the design process overall and also briefly touches on usability tests and web surveys. More valuable is the second half of the book which breaks down different types of navigation systems (for Identity, Education, Shopping sites) and has some helpful hints as to what questions to ask accoding to which you are designing. Overall, a very "basics" kind of book. Many of the web examples she sites are no longer working links--good thing the book comes with a cd.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent points, but it's all been said before
Review: This book has some very useful info in it, but I've seen it all before. I read this one right after reading O'Reilly's Information Architecture and felt, at times, that I was reading the same book. The case studies of different sites (news, e-commerce, etc.) were very nice though. Most design/navigation books out there only focus on the kind of site that the author works on. That's not very helpful if the author works for a University and you work for a news organization. This book covered that. I would still recommened "Information Architecture" over this one, but it is still worth reading through.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent points, but it's all been said before
Review: This book has some very useful info in it, but I've seen it all before. I read this one right after reading O'Reilly's Information Architecture and felt, at times, that I was reading the same book. The case studies of different sites (news, e-commerce, etc.) were very nice though. Most design/navigation books out there only focus on the kind of site that the author works on. That's not very helpful if the author works for a University and you work for a news organization. This book covered that. I would still recommened "Information Architecture" over this one, but it is still worth reading through.
Rating:
Summary: An industry standard
Review: This book, along with Morville and Rosenfeld's Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, was one of the first things I read when I started getting into designing navigation for a living. It's very simply laid out, clearly and concisely written, and you'll have no trouble trying to figure out what Fleming is trying to tell you. Some boooks on the subject try to be very complicated, while Fleming points out the basic common sense infherent in good navigation systems. The CD includes a Dreamweaver trial, among other things, if you want to try out this WYSIWYG. Anyone designing a large-scale or commercial web site will be helped by reading this book, as will aspiring information architects.
Rating:
Summary: Better than some people think...
Review: Truly a great overview, and to cover the multi-faceted topic of web navigation is daunting indeed. By all means this is not a hand-holding expedition to find the holy grail of web navigation which is what some people might expect. I think the people who already have a fair knowledge of what works and what doesn't work in web navigation should just go with what they already know, or maybe write a book themselves and enlighten us! Yes, some of us already know the principles outlined in this book, but often we need reminding of what's truly important when we design sites and I think this book does that job very well.
Rating: 
Summary: A book to read and refer to repeatedly
Review: Web Navigation is very well-written, with humor, plain language (it's obviously written for designers in addition to techies), lots of real-life examples, and advice from the experts in the field. We're not only getting Fleming's expertise, but Clement Mok's and Jakob Nielsen's as well (along with plenty of others). All of this advice comes from a user perspective. The book is always reminding us that the purpose of a site is to satisfy the people at home. And through the numerous examples of every type (sites for education, shopping, identity, etc), we see that the rules change depending on who you are and who your audience is, so there is no quick and easy design solution.
Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected. (Better, though.)
Review: When I first heard (six months ago) that someone was writing an entire book about web site navigation, I have to admit I was pretty jazzed. After all, web navigation is something I spend several hours a day thinking about, and there's almost nothing useful written about it. (I make my living reviewing web site designs to make sure that human beings stand a chance of being able to use them. It's a great job.) I figured this had to be just the book I was looking for: endless discussions of whether sites should be wide or deep, how many items you can fit on a navigation bar without scaring users off, whether JavaScript rollovers help or hurt, and so on. Lots of diagrams and flow charts. So I have to admit that I was more than a little bummed when it finally arrived: it just wasn't the book I was hoping for. (In the interest of full disclosure, while I was waiting I sought Jennifer out to consult on a particularly thorny project of mine. She was very helpful.) But the good news is it only took a few minutes to get over my disappointment. As soon as I started reading, I realized that what she's written is actually a much more interesting book than the one I had in mind, and one that's valuable to a lot more people. Even though the title is "Web Navigation," the subtitle ("Designing the User Experience") is what it's really about. It explains (and shows by example) how to grapple with a much more important issue than what your navigation looks like--namely: figuring out your users' goals-what they hope to accomplish at your site-and then designing an experience that meets those goals. (Hint: navigation's just a part of it.) And since it's broken down into chapters for different types of sites (like entertainment, shopping, community, and so on), you don't even have to read the whole thing--although you'll probably want to. Buy this book and Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and spend a long weekend reading both of them. You'll know what you need to know.
Rating:
Summary: A good primer for web navigation
Review: Whether you're an experienced web designer, information architect, developer, or business analyst, Web Navigation: Designing the User Experience, is an excellent resource. While many of the sites that Jennifer lists in her netography have changed and evolved over time, she provides a plethora of examples that are still relevant today. Granted many of her examples are "main stream," alot of great work is being done there. It should be noted that the bibiliography is a bit dated, but again, many of the books referenced in the bibliography would still be relevant today. Additionally, Jennifer provides lists of questions that should be asked when defining / developing site navigation structures. As a consultant, it is my opinion that that best consultants MUST know the right questions to ask. Ms. Fleming provides us with many of these questions. Having also read Rosenfeld and Morville's: Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, I believe that Ms. Fleming is a better writer (or has a better editor). Quite frankly, Morville and Rosenfeld wrote an incredibly important, seminal book, it just isn't very well written in parts. Additionally, I feel that Ms. Fleming provides the reader with considerably more examples than can be found in Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. Kudos to Jennifer! While many might consider the last six chapters of the book "fluff," I couldn't disagree more. If you're particularly new to designing web navigation, these chapters provide practical examples and issues to consider for specific types of web sites. Overall, I believe this is a "must read!"
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