Customer Reviews

The Web Design WOW! Book

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

With my first browse, it appeared this book would be a worthy addition, but once I got into the meat of the book I found it had very little worth except for a few inspirational moments. The title leads you to believe it is about the web. Actually about have of it is. The other half is on CD design and packaging. Most of these designs would be way to graphic intensive for a smart web page. Also there is no info on how these designs were actually accomplished. No case histories. Only skin deep reviews about the project. For me, it would be unwise to spend the [money] on this publication. This is truly only eye-candy.

I'm a web designer that needed inspiration for fresh ideas. This book provided me with a systematic way of coming up with ideas and designing from the ground up. It also inspired me and gave me new ideas by looking at the beautiful graphics of other sites. I was pleasantly surprised that this book teaches you the principles of design and marketing while using various successful websites as examples (I thought it would just be a showcase of pretty pages). I just wish it wasn't paperback as I'll probably wear it out very quickly from reading it over and over...

This book is not only bad, it's dangerous.

Let's start with truth in advertising. This is the WEB design wow! book, yet many examples are from CD-ROM and disk applications which don't work with the same strengths and limitations as the web.

Now, on to the content. If you design a web site based on what you get from this book you will produce a cumbersome, lumbering, self-congratulating and user-losing-site. The book exalts stunning graphic design at the expense of usability and routinely calls for the use of exotic plug-ins that simply aren't in the toolkit of most business web users.

There is no attention paid to underlying information design or nonlinear information design. No mention is made of simple navigational options (navigation choices at the top and bottom of pages, site indexes). Devices, such as splash screens which are generally ineffective get prominent play, and techie solutions predominate. For example, the book discusses simplification by using a GIF animation instead of a Shockwave plug-in, but never discusses the appropriate places and methods for using animations.

In short, this is not a book about web design, which is about information design, functionality and graphics that support business objectives. Instead it's a book about graphic design and how it might apply to the web. The graphics are stunning, but if you're looking for how to design an effective business web site, read the research that's out there on what business users want, and save the bucks you'd spend on this book.

I ran into this book while looking for the best thing out there in terms of Web Design. Well, this book is just 4 years too old, unfortunately. Some of the examples, yes, they made sense... but they lack some of the elements that have come to the forefront of the field in the past few years. I was amazed that it was still in the shelves, in fact! If you want an EXCELLENT and current (as of this writing) book on the topic, get yourself a copy of "Web Redesign: Workflow That Works" by Kelly Goto, Emily Cotler. You'll be happy if you do!

I am a web developer/programmer who loves good looking web pages. This book has webpages that are just too old. I think those pages could have been thought of as good-looking ones, but that's not true anymore. If you are trying to get some inspiration on your web design, there are tons of books with recent, breathtakingly beautiful webpages.. Just look somewhere else.. or go to the bookstore near you and check out all the books about web graphics..

This is not related to this book.. but the Photoshop WOW book is a great one..

This book is useful for one thing... an interesting historical perspective on the web.
Published in 1998 (thus written in 1997) this is a a 7-year old book. MUCH has changed since that time, and leaving this in print without a new edition is disgraceful on the part of both the authors and publisher.
I guarantee that 90% of the websites they use as examples have completley changed their interface and design since this book.
In fact, many of the examples they show are hopelessly confused and chaotic front pages, that may have worked as a novelty back in the day, but will not have staying power with modern-day web surfers.
They are dozens of new and much better books on the market for the moeny... "Home Page Usability" and the incredible "Design of Site"s are two of my favorites.

I do not understand the reason they chose to tie the title to web design only, since the book addresses CD-Rom and multimedia projects also. Furthermore, this book is too simplistic to be really helpful. I read the first half and only scanned the rest of it. With all the good materials on web design, I could not afford to waste my time on this one. The pictures of web home pages disseminated here and there are the only good thing about this text. They are good looking and can help generate some ideas; plus, they are in full color.

As a web designer I have found this book to be most inspirational. While I do not agree that all of the sites that he lists in the book are designed well, it does provide many examples of various types of web sites with beautiful pictures and site layouts.

A visually stimulating and inspiring book that is one of my favorate on graphic design for the electronic media. This is not a book for beginners who are learning the basics of web design though, for it focuses on the visual aspect of interface design alone.

I've used this book for two years as a text and inspirational idea book in my web design class. The best thing about the book is that it speaks to the "process" of web design as well as design basics, covering all the bases in marketing and publishing and also addresses portfolio and self-promotion. Frankly, there is far too much in the book for one course but I find that each student finds something unique to their way of working that helps them produce better images and design. However, after two years I was hoping for a second edition to cover new technology available to the web designer.

If you want to know about the how and why of web design, this is a excellent book. It is not just a "picture" book but a learning guide. I highly recommend it.