Good value: sensible, clear, readable | Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application...

One of the good reads... but... | Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design | Robert Hoekman Jr.

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	• Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design Robert Hoekman Jr. New Riders Press, 2006 - 264 pages average customer review:based on 24 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A fine little book

Not essential reading, but a really good little book. If you diligently follow companies like 37 Signals or other smart web application development practices, you've probably already thought of most of this. But it's nice to have it in a single, well-written, volume. One problem is that the author talks about "common sense" and "obviousness" as if they were universal, when they're not. It would have been nice to have some evidence from, say, the science of human visual perception to support some of the claims made here.

Good value: sensible, clear, readable

This book is to web application design what Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition is to website design. Many of the same concepts are echoed, the style is fairly engaging (if you can bear the occasional coy "dear reader" kind of aside), and the publishing format is similar.

I agreed with much of what this book said. For example, the author advocates:
* Accommodating the users' mental models instead of forcing them to learn new concepts/skills
* Turning "beginner users" into "intermediate users" as quickly as possible
* Building applications that do one thing, or just a few very closely-related things, very well -- rather than ones with loads of add on capability
* Understanding users, but doing lots of (iterative) testing (incorporating feedback into the next version for testing) rather than a lot of research upfront

I had a few minor quibbles, including:
* Many of the illustrations seem rather gratuitous, making me suspect that they were thrown in there simply to increase the length of what is a slim volume. (A contrast with the Steve Krug book, where the illustrations genuinely add to the information content)
* The tone was a bit arch for me in places.
* For some of the points he made, I thought that there were better example applications than the ones the author used.

Nevertheless, this is a very easy and thought-provoking read. It will only take you a few hours to read it from cover to cover, but its recommendations will stand you in excellent stead for many years.

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One of the good reads... but...

No non-sense approach in putting the detail by the author. Good read for the people developing web applications for generalized users.

downside, author quoted examples from 37signals, apple and google - sublimely bashing microsoft when ever possible. From my standpoint I dont care if apple wins or microsoft wins, except when I pay for a book from an independent author to provide a unbiased view, should not feel like someone that works for apple or google wrote this book. If thats what I want, I would have bought book from those authors.

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I want my whole team to read this!!

I love this book for it's brevity, clarity and simplicity. While everything in this book is obvious and common sense, it is still amazingly useful. You should not underestimate your minds ability to ignore and distort such obvious things, especially when we are emotionally invested in the product. Reading this book is helpful when starting or reviewing a product.

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old but still good. buy it used it s not woth to buy it new.

old but still good. buy it used it s not woth to buy it new.

Designing the Obvious belongs in the toolbox of every person charged with the design and development of Web-based software, from the CEO to the programming team. Designing the Obvious explores the character traits of great Web applications and uses them as guiding principles of application design so the end result of every project instills customer satisfaction and loyalty. These principles include building only whats necessary, getting users up to speed quickly, preventing and handling errors, and designing for the activity. Designing the Obvious does not offer a one-size-fits-all development process--in fact, it lets you use whatever process you like. Instead, it offers practical advice about how to achieve the qualities of great Web-based applications and consistently and successfully reproduce them.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

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