Nielsen and Loranger's book is one of the most cited Web usability books. The guidelines in the book are based on the data of the usability testing (716 Web sites with 2,163 users) conducted by Nielsen's usability consulting firm Nielsen Norman Group and additional testing (25 Web sites and 69 users) specifically for this book. The authors revised their older guideline published in 1994, and discuss how to prioritize usability problems. The following seven chapters are dedicated to guidelines for specific issues including search, navigation and IA, typography, writing for the Web, product information, visual design, and the use of multimedia. In the final chapter, the authors stress the importance of understanding the target users and prioritizing function before form, and encourage designers to design usable and elegant Web sites.
This book covers many basic Web usability issues with solid data and confident argument. In fact, the shear extensiveness of their data and experience makes their guidelines credible and convincing. In addition, the book includes a large number of examples with attractive and faithful visual presentation (color images of Web sites), and the authors offers' analysis and evaluation, which I found not only helpful for the readers to understand the material, but also very appealing. Despite that, I found two major problems with the book. First, although the authors claim that the guidelines in the book apply to the Web sites of large, medium and small corporations, eCommerce, governments, and other non-profit organizations, the book has a strong inclination towards eCommerce and corporations. Little attention is given to Web sits of purposes other than those to sell. Second, the authors have not discussed at all Web 2.0 applications/Web sites, which are becoming... the Web. The book was published in 2006, when Web 2.0 was starting to get attention in the industry. The absence of mentioning of Web 2.0 is indeed an appointment.
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