Book by Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir
New Riders Publishing, Indianapolis, November 2001
ISBN 0-73571-102-X
- Buy online:
- Amazon.com (30% discount)
- FatBrain
bookstore (20% discount)
- Amazon.co.uk (sometimes cheaper for European orders when including shipping costs)
Homepages are the most valuable real estate in the world. Millions of dollars are funneled through a space that's not even a square foot in size. The homepage is also your company's face to the world. Potential customers look at your company's online presence before doing any business with you. Complexity or confusion make people go away. Of course, all other aspects of bad web design should be fixed as well, but if the homepage doesn't communicate what users can do and why they should care about the website, you might as well not have a website at all. That's why homepage usability is so important and that's why we wrote a book specifically about this one topic.
We followed on our own principles when naming the book. Most people should be able to figure out what a book called Homepage Usability is about. Two words, and you know the topic.
Study Guide
Four exercises to accompany the book for use by corporate reading groups or individual home study.
Reviews and Articles About the Book
- Sydney Morning Herald (February 19, 2002): "a useful contribution to the discipline, and more fun than you'd think" ... "pushing you to think more rigorously about how users see your own pages"
- PC Magazine (January 22, 2002): "a must-read for Web site designers"
- CompuNotes (January 2002): "you'll be able to take a lot of guesswork out of [the] design process"
- HTMLcenter (January 2002): "Excellent homepage guidelines and statistics"
- Metropolis Magazine Japan (January 2002)
- Darwin Magazine (January 2002): "a swell gift for your Web design team"
- Sunday Times (London): "Helpful advice, easy to apply" ("books of the year" listing, December 30, 2001)
- SiteCritique (December 2001): "by far a resource that no web designer should be without"
- Mantex UK (December 2001): "any Web designer [...] will learn a lot"
- Danny Yee's Book Reviews (November 2001): "invaluable advice on web design - I learned a lot from it, as I think even seasoned web designers will"
- Acts of Volition (November 2001): "The book itself is a thing of beauty"
- New Media Knowledge (November 2001): Interview with Jakob Nielsen about the book
Table of Contents
- Preface
- 113 Design Guidelines for Homepages
- Determining Homepage Content
- Vertical Industry Segments
- Communicating the Site's Purpose
- Communicating Information About Your Company
- Content Writing
- Revealing Content Through Examples
- Archives and Accessing Past Content
- Links
- Navigation
- Search
- Tools and Task Shortcuts
- Graphics and Animation
- Graphic Design
- UI Widgets
- Window Titles
- URLs
- News and Press Releases
- Popup Windows and Staging Pages
- Advertising
- Welcomes
- Communicating Technical Problems and Handling Emergencies
- Credits
- Page Reload and Refresh
- Customization
- Gathering Customer Data
- Fostering Community
- Dates and Times
- Stock Quotes and Displaying Numbers
- Homepage Design Statistics
Percentages showing how frequently each of the possible alternatives are used for main homepage design choices.
- Download Time
- Basic Page Layout
- Page Width
- Liquid Versus Frozen Layout
- Page Length
- Frames
- Fundamental Page Design Elements
- Logo
- Search
- Navigation
- Footer Navigation
- Site Map
- Routing Pages
- Splash Pages
- Frequent Features
- Sign In
- About Us
- Contact Info
- Privacy Policy
- Job Openings
- Help
- Graphics and Multimedia
- Pictures
- ALT Text
- Music
- Animation
- Advertising
- Typography
- Body Text and Background Colors
- Link Formatting
- Recommended Homepage Design
- 50 Homepage Reviews
- Appendix: Listing of Window Titles and Taglines
- Appendix: Screen Real Estate Allocation
- Appendix: Gallery of Logos
- Appendix: Gallery of Search Features
- Appendix: Gallery of People Photos
- Appendix: Gallery of Shopping Carts
- Index
Errata
List of a few minor errors in the first printing.
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Translations:
German
Homepage Usability. 50 enttarnte Webseiten
ISBN 3-8272-6290-9
Homepages Analyzed:
About.com
Accenture
Amazon
Art Institute of Chicago
AsiaCuisine
Barnes&Noble
BBC
Boeing
CDNow
Citigroup
CNet
CNNfn
Coles
DirectTV
Disney
Drugstore.com
eBay
eMagazineshop
ESPN
ExxonMobil
FedEx
Federal Highway Administration
Florida Department of Revenue
Ford
Gateway
GE
GM
Global Sources
IBM
James Devaney Fuel
JobMagic
Learn2
Microsoft
MotherNature
MTV
NewsNow
New Scientist
PBS
Petsmart
Philip Morris
PlanetRx
Red Herring
Slusser's Green Thumb
Southwest Airlines
Ticketmaster
Travelocity
USA Today
Victoria's Secret
Wal-Mart
Yahoo
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