Customer Reviews

The Big Red Fez: How To Make Any Web Site Better

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I find it difficult to believe so many people liked this book:
The author starts off with 'bad' examples that admittedly have been made on many websites, but are really to obvious to put in a book of which the author is claimed to have 'inimitable wisdom' (back cover).
Then, towards the end, more examples of 'good' design are given, and most of these did not impress me at all. At some point I even got the feeling this was some sort of brochure (given its size, you can hardly call it a book) written to advertise the websites of Godin's friends and clients.

The enormous amount of research the author must have done is nicely summarized in this quote from page 105: 'Find the sites on the web that are working and copy their organization.'

If you're looking for a good book on this subject, look up Steve Krug or Jakob Nielsen.

Author of several brisk, witty, and informative business books, Seth Godin has a unique gift for locking in on a core concept and then explaining why and how it can guide and inform thinking about an important business issue. In this volume, he focuses on "how to make any Web site better." His dual metaphors explain the meaning and significance of the title. Preferring a marketer's version of a Web site to that of an engineer, he suggests that "One of the best ways to remind yourself about what's really going on [when someone visits a Web site] is to think of a monkey in a big red fez...The best way to motivate the monkey [to take a desired action], of course, is to use a banana. Whenever a monkey walks into a new situation, all it wants to know is, 'Where's the banana?' If the banana isn't easy to see, easy to get and obvious, the monkey is going to lose interest. But if you can make it clear to the monkey what's in it for him, odds are he'll do what you want." Obviously, the monkey is the Web site visitor and the banana is the incentive mechanism.

Godin uses a number of different real-world Web sites to illustrate what is and is not effective; he also explains why. (Presumably many of those responsible for the ineffective Web sites have read this book and made the necessary revisions since it first appeared about 18 months ago.) One of the book's most interesting points concerns the quite different mentalities of the engineer and the marketer. The former assumes that smart people have plenty of time, know precisely what they want from their online surfing, and can make a considered decision if provided with sufficient data. In stunning contrast, the marketer assumes that people are busy, ill informed, impatient, not very thoughtful and eager to click on to something RIGHT NOW. The marketer also believes that if you don't give the visitor the right object (or objective) to click on to immediately, the visitor will hit the "Back" button and leave.

I presume to add another difference: I think that most visually complicated Web sites resemble the front page of the U.S.A. Today newspaper (especially the Friday/Saturday/Sunday edition) whereas the most effective Web sites resemble the most effective billboards along a highway. Percentages vary but research studies suggest that online surfers spend about 90% of their time visiting the same ten Web sites Also, that after a unsatisfying experience, the percentage is even higher; that is, approximately 95% of online surfers never return to that Web site.

One substantial benefit this book provides which I did not anticipate when I began to read it is that the same principles which Godin recommends to increase a Web site's effectiveness are also relevant to the design of marketing and sales collateral materials such as direct mail solicitations and printed brochures. Because of the immense clutter through which messages of various kinds struggle to reach their destination, and because this clutter is certain to become even greater, Godin's concept of what he calls a "purple cow" (explained in a book of the same name) has compelling importance: become and then remain remarkable for as long as possible. Web sites, letterhead, business cards, products, services...indeed contact and communication in any form...must attract and reward attention or are certain to fail. Period.

Those who are responsible for Web sites or who heavily depend on Web sites to help achieve their business objectives are strongly urged to check out all of those which Godin features in his book. Also be alert to various lists of award-winning Web sites, especially those selected by online surfers rather than by technicians. For example, the finalists in competition for the 1st Annual Web Site Award sponsored by WIRED magazine.

One final point: This year's Purple Cow may well be a Plaid Kangaroo in 2004.

Let me first say that I'm a huge fan of Seth Godin. That being said, this is not one of Seth's better works. A better title might have been: The Big Red Herring: A few of my web page pet peeves.

Here's how the book breaks down. There are a total of 111 pages. There are 46 mini-critiques which are comprised of one page with a single B&W screenshot of a webpage or email and a facing page explaining what you're looking at. These pages are usually only about 3 - 4 paragraphs (half the page). Of the 46 mini-critiques, 7 are about emails. This leaves 39 mini-critiques about actual websites.

I think that for the money we should have had at least a few of the screenshots in color, particularly the one where Seth tells us that the buttons are the wrong color, but doesn't mention what color they are. We don't know, we're looking at a B&W picture.

There are only about 13 unique insights. So each insight is repeated an average of 3 times. In the book Seth himself says, "Redundancy is often the enemy of a great web experience". Well, ditto for the book experience.

The first web site listed on Seth's recommended site list is the book's. You'll find that the only content on the web site is directed toward selling you the book that you're already holding. There are no extra web site critiques or examples. What's the point? As Seth himself would say, "Where's the banana?"

Short and sweet list of do's and don'ts for website designers. Most of the guidelines are common sense unless you're a techie or web designer, which is the whole point that the author is trying to make. You need to put on the marketing hat when it comes to profitable web design. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has a website or develops websites and desires to increase their customer retention and profits.

As Seth Godin says - there's probably more detailed and less simplistic books around which cover the topic of web design and development - and I have read them too. But this one captures the essence of the REAL needs of a web customer in a simple easy to digest format. I would recommend the book for anyone building the first (or even 10th) website. And perhaps I'd even give it to my customers who frequently ask us to build crazy ideas into their websites.
Steve Mathew - Managing Director, Fireworkx.com (designer and developer of websites and web systems)

If you're trying to do any online commerce, this book would be worth buying even if the purchase price was $200.

The easy-access that has allowed anyone with a computer to have a website of their own has created a huge mass of poorly-designed websites. Unfortunately, the same quality has crept into commercial sites, too....and some of the worst offenders are actual names you'd recognize!

In his wonderfully refreshing and down-to-earth style, Seth Godin speaks candidly about what web visitors are looking for when they visit your site....and why they'll leave in less than three seconds if they don't see it.

It's not a how-to book on HTML, Java or Flash. It has nothing to do with the mechanics of designing a site. It's about what the web visitor SEES and DOESN'T SEE.

This thin little volume will change everything about how you look at web design. Buy it!

There is a reason you are reading these words. There is a reason Amazon is a huge success. In a few simple examples Seth points out some of the ideas of effective web design.

While this book is in no means comprehensive, it is a small invenstment into the future of your web site and business. At $10 and only a half hour read you only need 1 good example to make the book worthwhile!

Seth Godin can give you more valuable information on the do's and don'ts of Web site design in this small book - with a 1 picture/1 textpage approach that at first glance makes it similar to a kids' book - than any of the boring 500-page encyclopedias by wannabe web "experts" I've read recently.

This is a must-read for anyone that USES the Web, let alone for those whose work is making it. As an interactive marketer, you bet I'll be giving this book to my clients each time they want to put their entire company's history in the homepage. Way to go, Seth!

The Big Red Fez is a quick read. This book covers the many does and don't of web site development from a user experience perspective. Even for the experienced web site designer, The Big Red Fez, back to the basic approach serves as a good reminder that the customer comes first.

The loudest message from The Big Fed Fez is that the site should be about the customer not the developer, marketer or business manager. There is some good commentary on customer segmentation and how to address customer segmentation. Another useful idea is trying different approaches and measuring the results of each. There are plenty of products that make this approach feasible and the results make the effort worth while. One of the most important activities is measuring is establishing a baseline.

The Big Red Fez is a quick read, but has many useful ideas and concepts. If you are an engineer, marketer or business owner manager this book provides useful insights into building a great customer experience.

Some things are so obvious that we shouldn't need to be reminded about them. Unfortunately, while how to design a useful web site should be in this category, according to Seth Godin, it isn't.

In this 100-page book, Godin advocates the simple marketing principal of putting only, as he says it, "one banana" per page - that is only asking the user to do one thing at a time by focusing on the question, `what do you want the user to actually do?' He demonstrates the effectiveness of this principal by having a single main point for each two-page site-review.

The book also provides a simple metric for designing sites - the further along (or closer to giving you their money / permission / etc.) the more valuable he or she is. As such, the site should direct users along the path to purchase (etc.) not sidetrack them with other suggestions or paths.

The book is not a collection of general principals, but rather a critique of over fifty actual web pages, some praised, others picked apart. As such, the application of the principals is crystal-clear.

The book is clear and concise and (like many of Godin's other books) is a must-read for anyone designing, marketing-through, or engineering a website.