The Design of Sites: Patterns for Creating Winning Web Sites

I was hoping this book would have more fundamental design insights that could be applied to various situations. However, I found it to be a bit too obvious with samples and ideas based on common websites. The design points were ones anyone who browses the web could have figured out on their own. Essentially the book would use popular websites as models and say do your sites like this. There was no obvious indicator that these were even patterns per se. Just that these sites are popular so they must be the best way of doing it. That didn't seem particularly convincing when most sites design changes every 2-3 years. It also didn't highlight the shortcomings and tradeoffs you must make when choosing a particular pattern. Essentially this book wasn't much use to me since the websites I work on don't fit any of their models. I was hoping for a book where you can apply *fundamental* design patterns to all types of situations not just the specific ones mentioned (e.g. The best way to format entry fields, when to use a pop up versus show everything at once, how mnay items to show in a list, when to use pagination versus list scrolling, and the why's and hows and tradeoffs and all that stuff we consider when designing a web site.) I was hoping for something along the lines of the Microsoft style guide I read several years ago, but catered for the web.

I hardly ever write a review for a book and I read many. In fact, I believe this is my third review ever. I just had to get online and let people know what I think. So here it goes: Are you planning a web site? Is the project important to you? Want it to come out right? Want details about how to put together every single aspect of a successful site (specially an ecommerce site)? Want "to the point" type of info as in just the right amount, not too little and not way too much? Want perfect visual examples of all concepts via screen shots and drawings? Then this book is the Bible! No, forget that! This book is God! Thanks very very much to the authors. Enough said.

Contrary to popular belief, a good website is not just the result of someone's ability to manipulate a website development tool. The Design of Sites emphasises the need for research, planning, and documentation, and for following a standard software development life cycle - requirements definition, design reviews, testing, maintenance. The first five chapters are general, and the rest of the book contains "patterns" for specific types of websites. Thus, the reader can read the first five chapters, then pick and choose from the patterns, according to need and applicability. A bonus is the reference to a cool design tool developed by the authors - fun and useful. Whether you are developing a website for a client or for yourself, this book is for the "thinking" website developer.

I bought the Design of Sites book about three months ago and have read about 250 pages of it so far. The book has full-color pages and is a great reference for design decisions. It covers topics for so many different types of web projects. It talks about design, usability, information architecture, and almost all aspects of the web. It isn't meant to be read cover-to-cover, but the amount of great ideas and design solutions it presents make it hard to only read it when you have an issue. Over 800 pages and a great appendix with sample usability evaluations and how to conduct online research will without question make you a better web designer/developer. I can't wait to finish reading it.

I am a content writer launching a site, without a massive budget, trying to get up to speed on the back end of all of this mumbo-jumbo wonderful world of web potentialities. You can get a hernia walking from the shelves to the cafe in the bookstore with so many "must-read" tomes. So far, they all fall short of THE DESIGN OF SITES. And now I'm not looking too hard for any more, because I finally get it, thanks to lucid explanations and a brilliant though straightforward frame of reference. Bravo.

Buying this book your will be get a "while" patterns cycle for old web sites with nothing new, just obvious information.When i got this book i thought it was going to be a guide to follow to get better sites, but is not. the way the book is structurated destroy all your dreams about web patternsI really disapointed about it, let me give you an example , you are looking to improve your landing page, then you open the landing page pattern with the expectation to see examples info and the most inportant items to keep in mind , but , you do not receive any important advice you do not see any example, just obvious things, and recomendation of read others patters that actually do the same... recommends others patterns, all the patterns referes to others patterns, and you never finish learning what to do to improve your landing page.It has a lot of screen shots, i can say is the book with more screen shots I've ever seen, but the screen shots or examples are very old and not well explained.

This book gives you great tips to identify and plan the design of a website, nowadays it may be a little outdated, but still has the fundamentals for the beginning phases on web design and development. It is not a technical book, but a guide.

This book is good for understanding overall design concepts that are good to know for site building, but if you are a person looking for code to use you won't find it in this book. Moreover, this book is good reference material.

Le livre est arrivé à destination en moins d'une semaine, très rapide !L'état du livre était neuf et pour ce qui est du contenu, je ne fais que commencer à le lire, c'est en anglais, mais il est facile à lire, ce n'est pas un anglais dit "technique".Je n'ai rien à redire, très bon achat sur amazon ! Le prix est bien moins élevé qu'en magasin !

The book wasn't in a perfect shape : few pages bent and the book is a bit weary, but in an overall good shape.

C'est un bouquin très épais, mais ce sont les premières pages qui sont les plus intéressantes pour moi, je n'ai pas encore trouvé d'autre bouquin qui rentre autant dans les détails sur les bonnes questions à poser et la bonne méthode à suivre, pas à pas, pour construire un site solide et professionnel qui répond vraiment aux attentes des visiteurs et du client. Utilisée sur une poignée de sites et c'est devenu ma méthode de prédilection. Il aurait besoin d'un coup de neuf, mais par comparaison, les Patterns de Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design, que je possède également, bien que plus modernes, sont décrits de façon plus abstraite et sont difficiles à appliquer au monde réel.

I first stumbled upon this book a few years ago and my first reaction was 'Why haven't heard of this book before?' Still baffled me why it is not widely known. There are lots of UX books out there that are hip and trendy - and not much practical use. As a professional User Experience designer I get a little bored with these fad books. In complete contrast this book is extremely useful for people who design and build websites, even if you have been building sites for years. For any given function or situation The Design of Sites will give you examples of best practise design patterns so you can start from there. Highly recommended.