Web Usability
ISBN: 0735711704
Pages: 500
Publisher: New Riders
Topic: Web Marketing
Rating: 
– (5 out of 5)
I have to say this is one of the best web usuability books I have read so far. ‘Dont Make Me Think’ is a good usability book, but it only takes you through the basics – such as search boxes, navigation and logo placement whereas Submit Now covers all areas of usability on a website.
Submit Now was published in 2003 and is still very much up to date as it does not concern itself with technology of the day, but just the best way to design a website.
The first half of Submit Now covers the four main types of people that frequent the web, these are browsers, evaluators, transactors and customers. Each type of person is given there own chapter and is discussed in depth. Each chapter points out the type of web usability that a particular type of person requires in order to carry out their task.
There are many good tips in Submit Now and it includes things you may not have thought about such as making sure you provide multiple paths to your navigation, setting up search that is easy to use, allowing the browser to bookmark pages or email themselves every page. Submit Now also covers how important more than one photograph of a product is to the evaluators.
Submit Now covers areas for Customers, including online receipts, order cancellation, return and exchange policies, tracking shipments, profiling customers, setting up surveys and more. You will learn the correct way to create all these areas in Submit Now.
Chapter 6 called ‘The design of everyday pages’ is a very good chapter that covers how to layout and design home pages, site search pages, articles, product listing pages, error pages, contact pages and more.
Overall Submit Now is a well laid out and well written book that everybody who designs customer focused websites should possess. Submit Now has lots of practical advice and can really show you how to convert visitors into customers.