Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design Review

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(More customer reviews)From 9 to 5 (well, a "little" after 5 most days), I am an Application Development Manager in my company. In my years doing this, I have read a lot of books on the topic of Web and User Experience Design. So far, only a handful stand out above "Designing the Obvious" by Robert Hoekman Jr. and even some of those, he takes his hat off to (such as the case of "Don't Make Me Think", for instance).
Hoekman proposes the "unthinkable" for those entrenched into rusty web design practices, but when you step back and reconsider the experiences you've had, his framework makes perfect sense. Here are a couple of thoughts he brings to the table, to give you an idea:
-Design an application that does one thing, and does it very well. For every additional feature, there is more to learn, more to tweak and configure, more to customize, more to read about in the help document, and more that can go wrong.
-People (users) don't always make the right choices. They make comfortable choices... they make choices they know how to make. To deal with this, he supports Goal-Directed (also called Activity-Centered) Design, as opposed to Human-Centered Design.
Web Design anathema? Violation of User Interface "basics"? Maybe it sounds so at first, but if you read through his arguments, you will find them very compelling and may end up (like myself) reconsidering some of your initial assumptions.
One of the reasons why his proposal resonated so much with me is because throughout the book, Hoekman introduces concepts that are not familiar in the Web space, borrowing them from long-established best practices in manufacturing (where I worked the first four years of my professional life), such as:
-Kaizen: improving things constantly, in little tiny ways that add up to gigantic results.
-Poka-Yoke: software "devices" meant to prevent user errors from occurring.
-Pareto (80/20 rule): Good, clean Web application design means that 80 percent of an application's usefulness comes from 20 percent of its features.
For longtime professionals and newcomers into the field of User Experience Design, Hoekman's book has turned into an absolute must read.

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Designing the Obvious belongs in thetoolbox of every person charged with the design and development ofWeb-based software, from the CEO to the programming team. Designing theObvious explores the character traits of great Web applications anduses them as guiding principles of application design so the end resultof every project instills customer satisfaction and loyalty. Theseprinciples include building only whats necessary, getting users up tospeed quickly, preventing and handling errors, and designing for theactivity. Designing the Obvious does not offer aone-size-fits-all development process--in fact, it lets you usewhatever process you like. Instead, it offers practical advice abouthow to achieve the qualities of great Web-based applications andconsistently and successfully reproduce them.

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An Introduction to Search Engines and Web Navigation Review

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(More customer reviews)The first chapters of the book provide an extensive introduction to search engines and navigation. No formal prerequisites are required; any Web enthusiast will enjoy reading the book. These chapters comprise of background and history of the Web, navigation and searching, search engine architecture and different types of search engines. In addition to the basics, additional topics covered are navigation (aka surfing), the interplay between search and navigation, Web data mining, personalization, the mobile web, social networks, collaborative filtering and Weblogs (aka Blogs).
The book goes far beyond simple searching and navigation; it provides a comprehensive overview of the current research fronts in areas related to Web search engines and navigation.
The text is highly readable with a large number of illustrations and examples. It can serve as an excellent textbook both for an introductory and a more advanced course of Web search and navigation. Each chapter starts with a listing of objectives and ends with a set of exercises relevant to the topics covered in the chapter. Students will especially benefit from the non-technical descriptions and clear explanations of the concepts.
The book is also a great reference source for researchers and IT professionals: it includes 410 references to articles, and 202 references to Web pages and resources. I highly recommend the book.


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This book is a second edition, updated and expanded toexplain the technologies that help us find information on the web. Search engines and web navigation tools have become ubiquitous in our day to day use of the web as an information source, a tool for commercial transactions and a social computing tool. Moreover, through the mobile web we have access to the web's services when we are on the move. This book demystifies the tools that we use when interacting with the web, and gives the reader a detailed overview of where we are and where we are going in terms of search engine and web navigation technologies.

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Tagging: People-powered Metadata for the Social Web Review

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(More customer reviews)
This was a really good book. It wasn't what I expected it to be. But it was a worthwhile read. I picked it up because I do a fair amount of work writing book reviews and making guides and booklists on Amazon. And Amazon now lets guys like me create tags for the books I review and include in guides and lists. I kind of expected this book would have talked a little bit about the Amazon system of tagging. Nope. But that's OK. It's still a good book. It includes seven chapters and three appendices:
1. What is tagging?
2. The value of tagging
3. Tagging system architecture
4. Tags, metadata, and classical systems
5. Navigation and visualization
6. Interfaces
7. Technical design
A. Case study: social bookmarking
B. Case study: media sharing
C. Case study: personal information management
Tagging is a form of information that is really starting to take root in our computer systems and online systems. I first experienced it back in 1998 when I purchased a copy of Lotus Organizer to use as my Personal Information Manager (PIM) when practicing law. The program allowed me to cross-reference the many lists I had created in its database. I thought it was really cool back then.
I was just getting into creating Web sites in 1998, too. And I found the tagging features in Lotus Organizer enabled me to do with the data in my database what I was doing with my Web pages in my Web sites. Basically tagging is another name for hyperlinking. Nothing more and nothing less. A tag will take you to a new idea, concept, data item, data page, or database. It's a springboard that will take you to information.
This book points out that tagging is a new form of information management as it relates to personal organization, information architecture, and online communities. I suppose my Lotus Organizer program is an example of the first, and Amazon's system is an example of the last. So is it really all that new?
All in all, this book explains the value of tagging. It's a guide to what, how and why to tag. Each chapter ended in a list of bullet points called a Summary. I liked this feature very much since it helped me skim through the book quickly. 5 stars!

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Tagging is fast becoming one of the primary ways people organize and manage digital information. Tagging complements traditional organizational tools like folders and search on users desktops as well as on the web. These developments mean that tagging has broad implications for information management, information architecture and interface design. And its reach extends beyond these technical domains to our culture at large. We can imagine, for example, the scrapbookers of the future curating their digital photos, emails, ticket stubs and other mementos with tags. This book explains the value of tagging, explores why people tag, how tagging works and when it can be used to improve the user experience. It exposes tagging's superficial simplicity to reveal interesting issues related to usability, information architecture, online community and collective intelligence.

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Building Enterprise Taxonomies Review

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(More customer reviews)Stewart has written a book that pulls together concepts, terminology and processes for folks who need to organize digital information, and he does it in a beautiful publication -- great layout, readable text and plenty of illustrative graphics. Topics span a comprehensive range of interrelated issues, from findability and controlled vocabularies, to taxonomies and ontologies. Important terms are highlighted in bold throughout. The material has been carefully researched over the past few years and presented in earlier forms as lectures in a series of university courses. Chapters are supported by extensive bibliographic notes, as well as an Index that practices what the book preaches -- that terms are polysemic (look it up here!) and that the first problem for the knowledge worker is disambiguation -- or clarifying which concept is intended when several are possible. Add in the pervasive humor, and you have a text that students should find to be an excellent learning tool.

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Taxonomies have been fundamental to organizing knowledge and information for centuries. Now they are the backbone of well organized information systems and the lynchpin of findability in an online world. This book is the first taxonomy primer to present how to design, create, apply and maintain structured vocabularies, including taxonomy, thesauri, ontology and folksonomy, specifically for digital information. This comprehensive and accessible guide explains how to make sure both content creators and content consumers are speaking the same language. (Second Edition)

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Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites Review

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(More customer reviews)I had been looking around for a book like this for some time now: one that guides me through the crucial conceptual design phase of web site development. Most books on web site design are really about user interface design. This book offers a top-down planning approach to getting from the recognition of a need for a web site through to the final working design. It plugs up a lot of the gaping holes that topic-specific design texts leave open.
The over-riding concern and emphasis in the first section of the book is on how to organize the information on the web site in such a way that the target audience can readily get at it. To this end, the authors focus on three 'systems' that need to be developed, implemented and coordinated on a web site: a navigation system, a labeling system and a searching system. Once these systems are thought through and designed then the rest of the work becomes a matter of filling in the information content, functionalities and the bells and whistles.
Clear, concise and even a bit humorous, this book will definitely give you a peace of mind if you find yourself a bit overwhelmed at times when deciding on just how you will approach building a web site.

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A Project Guide to UX Design: For user experience designers in the field or in the making Review

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(More customer reviews)A Project Guide to UX Design is a book that defines the micro and macroscopic views of user experience design and its role in the project life cycle. Russ and Carolyn do a great job of reiterating what the core of user experience design is as well as identifying the different roles that utilize it. The book covers a lot of ground and takes a transcendental approach of showing the underlying purpose for each role in order to promote a synthetic comprehension of user experience design as opposed to shallow memorization.
The main target audience of the book are Information Architects, Interaction Designers, User Researchers, and other project stakeholders (Business Analysts, Content Strategists, Copywriters, Visual Designers, and Front-end Developers).
To make the contents more inviting, I've created an enclosing outline to provide abstract classifications for several groups of chapters. Each number represents the number of pages in each chapter:
+ Introduction
- Chapter 1: The Tao of UXD (8)
- Chapter 2: The Project Ecosystem (29)
+ Business Perspective
- Chapter 3: Proposals for Consultants and Freelancers (15)
- Chapter 4: Project Objectives and Approach (10)
- Chapter 5: Business Requirements (15)
+ Research
- Chapter 6: User Research (26)
- Chapter 7: Personas (13)
- Chapter 8: User Experience Design and SEO (17)
+ Information Architecture / Interaction Design
- Chapter 9: Transition from Defining to Designing (18)
- Chapter 10: Site Maps and Task Flows (17)
- Chapter 11: Wireframes and Annotations (17)
- Chapter 12: Prototyping (15)
- Chapter 13: Design testing with Users (25)
- Chapter 14: Transition: From Design to Development and Beyond (10)
The book also contains frequent references to books, online resources, and user experience groups and authors throughout as opposed to an Appendix or a 'For further reading' section nested in the back. This helps to drive home the thoughts as you read them, rather than 'when you are finished'.
As an aspiring user experience professional, I do believe that this book is worth owning, reading, and referencing as a compass to create effective user experience in any project setting.

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"If you are a young designer entering or contemplating entering the UX field this is a canonical book. If you are an organization that really needs to start grokking UX this book is also for you. " -- Chris Bernard, User Experience Evangelist, MicrosoftUser experience design is the discipline of creating a useful and usable Web site or application—one that's easily navigated and meets the needs of both the site owner and its users. But there's a lot more to successful UX design than knowing the latest Web technologies or design trends: It takes diplomacy, project management skills, and business savvy. That's where this book comes in. Authors Russ Unger and Carolyn Chandler show you how to integrate UX principles into your project from start to finish.• Understand the various roles in UX design, identify stakeholders, and enlist their support• Obtain consensus from your team on project objectives• Define the scope of your project and avoid mission creep• Conduct user research and document your findings• Understand and communicate user behavior with personas• Design and prototype your application or site• Make your product findable with search engine optimization• Plan for development, product rollout, and ongoing quality assurance

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Search Patterns: Design for Discovery Review

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(More customer reviews)"There's no shortage of problems with search today," says Peter Morville at the end of Search Patterns, his most recent book. Throughout the book, Morville chronicles the challenges of search and effectively communicates the best practices of building usable search experiences. While the book more than adequately accomplishes it's stated goal -- to foster greater cross-disciplinary collaboration by increasing search literacy -- it would have been an even better book if the author had proposed more of his own innovative solutions to search's problems.
In the preface Morville sets out to tear down the walls between disciplines, and at this he succeeds. From user psychology to technical considerations to the specific components of the user interface, Search Patterns has something for everyone involved in implementing search.
The first two chapters lay the groundwork for the rest of the book, discussing both why people search and the individual components that make up search. The book is in full swing by chapter three where Morville discusses user behavior, elements of interaction, and -- my personal favourite -- the principles of design.
In talking about design principles, Morville describes search both as a conversation and a jazz-like improvisation. He urges the architect to make search an easy, simple process to initiate, followed by a progressively more sophisticated toolkit that enables users to iteratively refine their query. He argues for a no-suprises approach to the user interface in which valuable options are highly visible and elements of interaction are easily predictable. Many of the principles are applicable to a much broader context than search alone, but that only stregthens their merit.
The real heart of the book is chapter four, which looks at 10 design patterns over 50 pages. It considers the obvious patterns -- autocomplete, faceted navigation, advanced search -- as well as more disparate groupings like federated search and personalization. I was disappointed that the patterns only summarised existing conventions rather than challenging any bad habits. And while this chapter does consume 30% of the book by page count, it manages to stay at a very high level, even to a fault. I would have preferred more permutations and analysis of the cornerstone patterns, such as faceted navigation, while spinning some of the less well-defined patterns into chapters of their own for more consideration.
However, the lack of innovative solutions or granular analysis is quelled by the wealth of thought-provoking examples throughout the book, with an especially high concentration of desktop, mobile, and even kiosk visuals in chapter five.
The final chapter of the book is a forward-looking vision of what search could look like in the distant future, as well as what it probably won't look like (sorry, no "knowledge navigator" robot assistants). While an enjoyable thought exercise, I would have preferred more concrete insights into the near-future possibilities for search (collaborative, task-oriented searching, for example).
Despite a lack of new ideas, Search Patterns is a must-read for everyone collaborating on a search application. It will give your team of designers, engineers, and business stakeholders a common vocabularly and greater awareness of the many sides of search.
Morville ends the book -- as I will end this review -- by urging the reader to get to work on making search better: "For every unsolved problem," he says, "there are countless instances in which we know the solution, but nobody has bothered to implement it. Discipline and attention to detail would go a long way toward improving the world of search."
You should get started by reading this book.

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Search is among the most disruptive innovations of our time. It influences what we buy and where we go. It shapes how we learn and what we believe. In this provocative and inspiring book, you'll explore design patterns that apply across the categories of web, ecommerce, enterprise, desktop, mobile, social, and real-time search and discovery. Filled with colorful illustrations and examples, Search Patterns brings modern information retrieval to life, covering such diverse topics as relevance, faceted navigation, multi-touch, personalization, visualization, multi-sensory search, and augmented reality.




By drawing on their own experience-as well as best practices and evidence-based research-the authors not only offer a practical guide to help you build effective search applications, they also challenge you to imagine the future of discovery. You'll find Search Patterns intriguing and invaluable, whether you're a web practitioner, mobile designer, search entrepreneur, or just interested in the topic.

Discover a pattern language for search that embraces user psychology and behavior, information architecture, interaction design, and emerging technology
Boost enterprise efficiency and e-commerce sales
Enable mobile users to achieve goals, complete tasks, and find what they need
Drive design innovation for search interfaces and applications

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No Code Required: Giving Users Tools to Transform the Web Review

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(More customer reviews)This book is simply a collection of essays. There's nothing wrong with that. However, my frustration is with the discrepancy between expectation and reality. Perhaps I expected too much? Maybe. I stumbled across this book, skimmed a few portions using "search inside", and read a few quick reviews. I got very excited as I thought I'd discovered some great new tools. At the same time, I wondered how in the world I'd never heard of these things when they appeared to be so useful! I was a little taken aback by the $40 price tag for a Kindle edition, but felt confident that the end result would be more than worth it.
I was extremely disappointed to discover that the vast majority of tools listed in this book are not available. This doesn't seem to correspond very well to the subtitle: "Giving Users Tools to Transform the Web". The majority of items listed are either unavailable or only available to people within select groups (MIT for example).
If you'd like to learn about some of the great tools that may some day be part of our daily computing, this may be the book for you. If you want to find tools that will help you today, I'd suggest you skip this one.

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Revolutionary tools are emerging from research labs that enable all computer users to customize and automate their use of the Web without learning how to program. No Code Required takes cutting edge material from academic and industry leaders - the people creating these tools -- and presents the research, development, application, and impact of a variety of new and emerging systems.

*The first book since Web 2.0 that covers the latest research, development, and systems emerging from HCI research labs on end user programming tools


*Featuring contributions from the creators of Adobe's Zoetrope and Intel's Mash Maker, discussing test results, implementation, feedback, and ways forward in this booming area


*Companion Web site features video demonstrations of each system

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Secrets Review

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(More customer reviews)I don't usually do reviews but this book took me by surprise. I am impressed with the content, it was a fresh perspective on search engine optimization and it offered some really practical, useful advice that virtually anyone who understand the basics of SEO would be able to implement.
I eagerly pre-ordered the book because I have read Danny's articles on SEOmoz. It came 7 days ahead of the scheduled release date so I was delighted with Amazon.
I started reading and I couldn't put it down. Maybe I'm a nerd but I live and breathe online marketing and SEO was the core of it all.
Here are some of the key takeaways:
1. SEO Consulting Process - Learn how to win clients, how much you should charge for your services (master services agreement,
NDAs, SOW) and the best deliverables/reporting for your clients.
2. Suggested SEO Pricing - Website Audit, E-Commerce Site Audit, Link Building, Reputation Management, Social Media Management,
Keyword Research and etc. (Very helpful if you are looking at doing consulting work, it is so hard to determine the right price
point on your own).
3. 58-Page Comprehensive Technical SEO Site Audit - Unless you paid for SEO site audits in the past you won't be able to get a more
in-depth sample. Oh and he also show you how to do the Site Audit as well.
4. How to Conduct an E-Commerce Audit - In my opinion the first 4 items are worth it's weight in gold for a SEO freelancer, SEO
consultant or even an SEO agency.
5. SEO for Local Business - What works and what doesn't: customer opinions/reviews, universal search, image search, video search
and ranking factors.
6. Optimizing for Alternative Search Engines - Amazon, YouTube, Facebook, Delicious, Flickr and Twitter (this help outline how
search and social is truly intersecting and in order to be successful on the web you need to go beyond Google).
7. The Essentials - The book includes an explanation of how SEO works, top SEO tools to use, finding and troubleshooting common and
advanced SEO problems and of course SEO Best Practices (some of which you can find on SEOmoz).
The bottomline: Danny makes SEO actionable for the average person, more importantly he makes it lethal for the seasoned SEO veteran
(you can become a superstar-SEO-ninja with this book).
Since the SEO field is always rapidly changing, I highly recommend picking up this book as soon as possible (today if you can) because it will give you 80-90 percent of everything you need to start consulting successfully with SEO right away. I teach SEO at a local community college and I am contemplating to make this a required reading, it is that good and applicable.


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Tips, tricks, and little-known methods used by professional SEO consultants to rank in some of the most competitive search phrases
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of creating, formatting and promoting web pages in a manner that ensures that they are ranked highly for chosen keyword phrases after a user performs a Web search. This unique book taps the relatively unknown market of advanced SEO knowledge, and reveals secrets used by only the best SEO consultants.
You'll take your Internet marketing skills to the next level as you gain a thorough understanding of standard SEO techniques such as on-page optimization, off-page optimization, and link building. Packed with real-world examples, this essential guide demonstrates how real SEO consultants work with Fortune 500 companies to get the results they desire.
Explains the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) and how it enables a specific site to rank high in a Web search based on particular keyword phrases
Shares little-known tricks and tips of SEO consultants that work with Fortune 500 companies
Demonstrates how to perform a professional SEO Web site audit
Reveals the techniques that current SEO leaders use to remain high in rankings
Divulges secrets for spying on your competitors' ranking techniques

As the only book focused on the subject of SEO consulting, this must-have resource unveils secret tricks of the trade. From the Author: How to Get Your First Major SEO ClientI have worked with many of the webʼs most popular websites as an SEO consultant, and each of them shared one infuriating trait. While their SEO problems were not that difficult, the process of getting them to hire me was.Before I can explain how I overcame this barrier, let me set the context. Large clients generally suffer from many or all of the same difficulties: 'The potential major client's website scaled quickly but without SEO in mind. This makes going back and working with a legacy Content Management System (CMS) very difficult. 'The amount of inbound links is no longer a problem, but optimally passing the value of those links throughout the site is a problem. 'The production of content is no longer a problem, but that same content being duplicated across multiple URLs is massively devaluing that same content's value. 'Big organizations generally have very big websites. While the raw materials for a search engine optimized site are there, the information architecture is not. So how do you use this knowledge to get your first major SEO client? The answer is to create solutions to these problems before the potential client even identifies they exist and then sell your services to them in the correct way. Once you have done that, offer your solutions at a cheaper than market price (for your first major client only!) and make it clear you have the follow through necessary to guide these changes through their companies structure. That sounds good but how do I establish myself as a trusted source? That is exactly the correct question! Larger companies usually need hard data in order to make these decisions. This means you will need appropriate case studies. Case studies pay dividends so always be sure to create them after working with noteworthy clients. (I even recommend doing this in exchange for a lower price, if necessary.) Since in this scenario, you haven't already had a major client in the past, the best case study isn't really a case study at all. Use the potential clients site as an 'in progress case study" and cite actual problems that exist on their site today and show them the results your previous (although smaller) clients got in the past. Back this up with inside information on how others have seen similar results at other major websites. The most cost effective way to get that evidence is to take other SEOs who already worked with major clients out to lunch or coffee in exchange for examples and anecdotes they experienced with past clients. This will both help you become more knowledge and improve your ability to sell yourself. This combination of pre-identifying the potential major clients' problems, reassuring them that you have the stamina to push the changes through their company structure, demonstrating the type of results they will likely receive from working with you and basing all of that on case studies and actual examples make up the system you need to get your first big SEO client. While this should get you the results you need, more details are available in this book, Search Engine Optimization Secrets, in case you need more detailed instructions. This system has worked for me and it has worked for others. Now it is your turn.

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Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User Experience Review

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(More customer reviews)§
The title of this book does tend to focus things, doesn't it? A book totally dedicated to working out navigation challenges in Web products means that it is destined to be a one-stop keeper on your shelf. If you work in any capacity on Web front-ends, navigation is often the issue of issues, the source of stimulating and heated team discussions. This book won't end those discussions but the information in it will certainly add calm perspective to them.
_Designing Web Navigation_ seems to have it all in one place, including practice discussion at the end of each chapter and further reading recommendations. The amount of information is impressive. There is not a page without a visual aid of some sort. I certainly like having lots of screenshots of real sites with the commentary of the author.
I also like the practical knowledge of the author which informs his writing -- he emphasizes the variability of the rules in the complex contexts we Web workers tend to work in. Note, for instance, how differently he approaches Amazon's tabbed navigation from how usability guru Jakob Nielsen writes of them. Nielsen never passes up an opportunity to exclaim what is wrong wrong wrong about Amazon's tabs. Kalbach, instead, explains the motivation behind each passing stage in the evolution of those same tabs, giving the dynamic context. This rings true for those of us with daily working knowledge in constructing user interfaces.
I was a bit disappointed that the book did not have more on the specific problems of designing Web *applications* instead of conventional Web sites. However, the book is written is such a way that this is not a problem. The advice and arguments on p.236 "Don't start by designing the navigation on the home page" encapsulates quite well something I have learned working on agile development teams over the years.
I had a few problems with the readability of this book. Page numbers look like squished gnats and all paragraph sub-headings were a pretty but painful light blue. The extremely large line-height weakened the separation of paragraphs.
As I mentioned, this book is chock full of the right material that belongs on your shelf for when you need it...and you will.
§

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Thoroughly rewritten for today's web environment, this bestselling book offers a fresh look at a fundamental topic of web site development: navigation design. Amid all the changes to the Web in the past decade, and all the hype about Web 2.0 and various "rich" interactive technologies, the basic problems of creating a good web navigation system remain. Designing Web Navigation demonstrates that good navigation is not about technology-it's about the ways people find information, and how you guide them. Ideal for beginning to intermediate web designers, managers, other non-designers, and web development pros looking for another perspective, Designing Web Navigation offers basic design principles, development techniques and practical advice, with real-world examples and essential concepts seamlessly folded in. How does your web site serve your business objectives? How does it meet a user's needs? You'll learn that navigation design touches most other aspects of web site development. This book:

Provides the foundations of web navigation and offers a framework for navigation design
Paints a broad picture of web navigation and basic human information behavior
Demonstrates how navigation reflects brand and affects site credibility
Helps you understand the problem you're trying to solve before you set out to design
Thoroughly reviews the mechanisms and different types of navigation
Explores "information scent" and "information shape"
Explains "persuasive" architecture and other design concepts
Covers special contexts, such as navigation design for web applications
Includes an entire chapter on tagging
While Designing Web Navigation focuses on creating navigation systems for large, information-rich sites serving a business purpose, the principles and techniques in the book also apply to small sites. Well researched and cited, this book serves as an excellent reference on the topic, as well as a superb teaching guide. Each chapter ends with suggested reading and a set of questions that offer exercises for experiencing the concepts in action.

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Web Application Design Patterns (Interactive Technologies) Review

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(More customer reviews)User experience experts, information architects, and the like will want
to have a copy of "Web Application Design Patterns" as an important
addition to their knowledge base. Web developers and companies feeling
they can "handle it themselves in-house" will find this book an
absolutely critical must-have. It is obvious that years of experience
and research have gone into the production of this valuable reference.
Written at a college / professional level, Vora's style remains,
however, as user-friendly as his design solutions. Presented in a
straightforward PROBLEM --> SOLUTION --> WHY --> HOW format, this 429
page volume skips the editorializing and pontificating; instead, it provides
concrete examples and explanations of underlying concepts. This
book is a veritable encyclopedia of solutions to today's software
interface design issues.
Colorful screen shots grace almost every page, helping the reader
quickly understand problems and resolutions with real-world examples.
Along with the expected discussions of everyday mechanisms such as
forms, user authentication, and navigation schemes, "Web Application
Design Patterns" forges on with detailed examinations of rapidly
evolving areas such as Rich Internet Applications (RIA), social
networking sites and more.

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Ever notice that-in spite of their pervasiveness-designing web applications is still challenging? While their benefits motivate their creation, there are no well-established guidelines for design. This often results in inconsistent behaviors and appearances, even among web applications created by the same company. Design patterns for web applications, similar in concept to those for web sites and software design, offer an effective solution. In Web Application Design Patterns, Pawan Vora documents design patterns for web applications by not only identifying design solutions for user interaction problems, but also by examining the rationale for their effectiveness, and by presenting how they should be applied.. Design interfaces faster, with a better rationale for the solutions you choose.. Learn from over more than 100 patterns, with extensive annotation on use and extension.. Take a short-cut into understanding the industry with more than 500 full-color screenshots and a web site for help, discussion, and a collection of additional patterns.

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