Nielsen's new book

[Thomas Dowling]

Jakob Nielsen's useit.com site gets mentioned occasionally here, as do
some of his specific AlertBox columns.  You should be aware that he has
just come out with a new book (it was supposed to be out in mid-December,
but there were some production problems).  I've only had a chance to skim
through it, but this is already my "If you can only buy one web book this
year..." recommendation.

  Author: Nielsen, Jakob, 1957-
  Title: Designing web usability
  Publisher: Indianapolis, Ind. : New Riders, c2000
  ISBN: 156205810X

If you haven't read any of his articles, you should know that Nielsen
simply knows a *lot* about usability in interface design and testing, he
insists on usability over pointless flashiness, and on almost any page of
the book he not only gives good advice, but also explains the reasons for
that advice.  For example, his "Frames: Just Say No" section is followed
by the four concepts that determine what a "page" is, all of which are
broken by frames, a handful of usability barriers erected by frames, and
what exceptions there might be for a no-frames rule.

The book includes a ton of screenshots of real-world sites for
illustration--both good examples and bad examples--and addresses not just
page-writing techniques, but writing style and site design.  The book
itself is also beautifully designed, and by the way has the most thorough
colophon I've ever seen.  :-)

(Also by the way, I've been trying to clean up dead links in Libweb, and I
can say that a lot of us need to read the "Supporting Old URLs" section.
Far too many libraries have changed their URLs in trivial, dumb ways and
have left nothing behind except a 404 Not Found or, worse, a 403 Forbidden
message.)


Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu