E-Commerce Usability: Tools and Techniques to Perfect the On-Line Experience

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 3:33 pm

Review

‘Dr Travis knows the web usability territory well, and he lays out a clear map for newcomers to follow.’ – Professor Ben Sheridan, author of “Designing the User Interface” ‘The customer centred design methods described in this book help teams to better deliver to customer value consistently, learning as they go and leveraging from their previous successes. Dr Travis has been instrumental in building these capabilities in several development teams with HP.’ – Debbie Mrazek, Customer Experience Planning Program Manager, Hewlett-Packard. ‘Dr Travis has written this book to give you the usability tools that you need to succeed. Learn how to target customers, gather usability data, and continuously improve your site once it has been launched. Read this book to avoid e-commerce failures. Read this book to survive. Read this book to win.’ – John Rhodes, Founder and President of WebWord.com ‘…these are tools and techniques that the entire design team can use, not just for those “weird usability people’ – Keith Instone, Founder usableweb.com

Product Description

Top performing dotcoms share a common feature. It isn’t a new software plug-in or a design gadget or any other piece of technology. These sites share a passionate focus on usability. This guide is designed for software developers, project managers, business analysts and user interface designers, and does not require a background in human factors or usability. It presents a practical, structured, customer-centered design method that encourages innovation yet helps you make sure your final design is still easy to use. It assumes that people will always choose a simple way of achieving their goals over a complex way; it therefore focuses on the customers and explains how to design e-commerce sites that ordinary people can use. The book begins by helping identify target customers and expected business benefits, showing how to collect the data needed to define the customer experience. It shows how to use test results to decide when the site is ready to “go live”. The book provides a detailed description of different customers and the environment in which they access the site. Practical techniques are presented for developing and prototyping site design, starting with paper design and then moving to electronic slide shows or interactive prototypes. The book then discusses methods for usability testing of the designs both by domain experts and representative customers. Finally, it discusses how to maintain the usability edge once the site has been launched.

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Buy E-Commerce Usability: Tools and Techniques to Perfect the On-Line Experience at Amazon
Buy E-Commerce Usability: Tools and Techniques to Perfect the On-Line Experience at Amazon

Technorati Tags: ECommerce, experience, online, Perfect, Techniques, Tools, Usability

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition

Sunday, October 4th, 2009 at 11:53 pm

Comments (3)

Amazon.com Review
Usability design is one of the most important–yet often least attractive–tasks for a Web developer. In Don’t Make Me Think, author Steve Krug lightens up the subject with good humor and excellent, to-the-point examples.

The title of the book is its chief personal design premise. All of the tips, techniques, and examples presented revolve around users being able to surf merrily through a well-designed site with minimal cognitive strain. Readers will quickly come to agree with many of the book’s assumptions, such as “We don’t read pages–we scan them” and “We don’t figure out how things work–we muddle through.” Coming to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces topnotch sites.

Using an attractive mix of full-color screen shots, cute cartoons and diagrams, and informative sidebars, the book keeps your attention and drives home some crucial points. Much of the content is devoted to proper use of conventions and content layout, and the “before and after” examples are superb. Topics such as the wise use of rollovers and usability testing are covered using a consistently practical approach.

This is the type of book you can blow through in a couple of evenings. But despite its conciseness, it will give you an expert’s ability to judge Web design. You’ll never form a first impression of a site in the same way again. –Stephen W. Plain

Topics covered:

User patterns
Designing for scanning
Wise use of copy
Navigation design
Home page layout
Usability testing

–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description
Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it’s hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn’t read Steve Krug’s “instant classic” on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike. Don’t be surprised if it completely changes the way you think about Web design.

Three New Chapters!

Usability as common courtesy — Why people really leave Web sites
Web Accessibility, CSS, and you — Making sites usable and accessible
Help! My boss wants me to ______. — Surviving executive design whims

“I thought usability was the enemy of design until I read the first edition of this book. Don’t Make Me Think! showed me how to put myself in the position of the person who uses my site. After reading it over a couple of hours and putting its ideas to work for the past five years, I can say it has done more to improve my abilities as a Web designer than any other book.

In this second edition, Steve Krug adds essential ammunition for those whose bosses, clients, stakeholders, and marketing managers insist on doing the wrong thing. If you design, write, program, own, or manage Web sites, you must read this book.” — Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with Web Standards