User-Centered Web Design

Rating:
Summary: Practical, but based in good theory
Review: A "user friendly' and practical guide to designing or transforming personal or professional interactive websites, John Cato's User-Centered Web Design specifically focuses on designing for the end-user. A concise, readable text presents a comprehensive overview, practical advice, proven methodology, ideas and advice for insuring that final web designs meet the needs of both the client and the end-user. Strongly recommended for the novice web designer, User-Centered Web Design will also prove an invaluable reference for even the more experienced web master in tweaking websites for maximum effectiveness and ease of use by site visitors.

Rating:
Summary: Practical, but based in good theory
Review: Some may consider that user evaluation is a "luxury" - but you may do well to consider the cost of NOT incorporating any user evaluation/involvement. Well documented examples of commercial websites that have failed are legion, often because the "designers" simply designed for themselves or their clients, ignoring their target audience.

This book offers practical advice that enables web designers to satisfy the people that really matter - the users. It is a very good example of academic research translated into everyday practice.

Rating:
Summary: Usable book for user centered design
Review: This book by John Cato offers a great set of examples on how to move the the process of user-centered development for websites. The book is filled with examples that help developers, designers, and managers get a grasp of the steps, thought process, interaction with users, process, and documentation that is greatly helpful in building a product the intended audience uses. Cato includes helpful lists, advice, and points out common problems along with instruction for correcting them.

Rating:
Summary: WAY overdone
Review: This book is an overcomplicated and useless study of the obvious. The author basically tries to apply structured development and database design theory to web design.

Anyone can create and I/O diagram or flowchart. Basically, anyone who knows structured programminging would gain absolutely nothing from this book. Anyone who doesn't know the design process, will only become confused an frustrated.

The author unsuccessfully tries to simplify the prototyping process, and never explains it either. Basically, he teaches that web design is a monotanous process that must be done over and over again until it comes out right.

Any Analysis and Design book would teach someone a great deal more than this book. The author tries to reinvent the wheel by creating a square.

This is certainly a poor book indeed.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the real world!
Review: This book offers several academic methods for setting goals and measuring the success of those goals based on user evaluation. This is fine if your clients are willing to pay up to 5 times the cost of a less stringent design process. The problem with this book's guidelines is that they seem to be based in a world of fantasy where everyone has 30 hour days they can devote to working on the pre-design analysis of a site. While this would be ideal, it is far from realistic.

Overall I found this book to be full of nice ideas but lacking in real world application. If you want a guide to designing user-centered web sites for clients with unlimited budgets and patience, then this is your book. However, most of us live in a world with more constraints and less freedom than what these ideas would require.