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By web standards this is an old book. 3
years to be precise. Most things to do with the web are
hideously out of date after 1 year nevermind three. So why
review this book now and is it still worth reading.
First Impressions
At 250 pages, this is a reasonably
substantial book without being intimidatingly large. It is
filled with a large number of illustrations some in colour.
These vary from actual web site screen shots through design
diagrams to mock-up sketches. On first glance this is a book
about making websites communicate with people - about
publishing using HTML. Visual Communication and graphic design
are the authors strong subjects so it looks good.
Aged
With anything web related, after 3 years
some of it is bound to be going stale. The Introduction and
the 2nd chapter on Prelimary Design Preparation definitely
fall into this category. Both web site development tools and
web sites themselves have come a long way since this was
written. The 5th chapter which fills the last 40 pages is a
tutorial on how to use the latest Netscape development tools -
1996 versions, naturally! Sano is a Netscape employee so no
surprise there.
So in summary Chapters 1,2 & 5 aren't
really worth the bother, unless you still use Netscape 3.x
A Design Methodology
The real value of the book is in Chapters 3
and 4. The first presents Sano's methodology for developing a
website design. Its really quite rigorous. Entitled "Designing
the Organisational Framework" it leads us through the
organisation of the information, developing a basic structure,
adding links, considering the navigation, grouping content,
adding hierarchy. Sano introduces a notation for this level of
design - task flow diagrams. He then introduces refining the
task flow with paper prototypes and develops that through into
HTML prototypes and finishes off chapter 3 with a lightweight
look at login, search and help.
Chapter 4 takes the content of his earlier
book, Designing Visual Interfaces and develops it for web site
design. Sano leads us through the art of graphic design and
shows how to apply it to on-line publishing. Towards the end
of the chapter he gets into how to solve these problems using
real HTML and examines the limitations.
Summary
Yes, it has aged a little, but like Sano's
earlier book there is a timeless element to the meat of the
content in Chapters 3 & 4. This book is worth reading. Its
hard to believe that much of the advice doesn't affect
usability. Perhaps the UIE results reflect the nature of what
they were testing.
Sano shows the reader how to develop a
sound methodology for designing documents for on-line
publication. It doesn't touch on some of the newer web uses
such as eCommerce and someone will surely write a better book
soon.
I still like this book and I will go back
and read parts of it again and again.
Recommendation
3/5 - aging in places but still offers some
great advice on visual communication for the web. |
