Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning (Paperback)

~ Dan Brown (Author)
Key Phrases: creating personas, creating test plans, presenting wireframes, Creating Users Flows, Microsoft Visio, Solution Center (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Most discussion about Web design seems to focus on the creative process, yet turning concept into reality requires a strong set of deliverables—the documentation (concept model, site maps, usability reports, and more) that serves as the primary communication tool between designers and customers. Here at last is a guide devoted to just that topic. Combining quick tips for improving deliverables with in-depth discussions of presentation and risk mitigation techniques, author Dan Brown shows you how to make the documentation you're required to provide into the most efficient communications tool possible. He begins with an introductory section about deliverables and their place in the overall process, and then delves into to the different types of deliverables. From usability reports to project plans, content maps, flow charts, wireframes, site maps, and more, each chapter includes a contents checklist, presentation strategy, maintenance strategy, a description of the development process and the deliverable's impact on the project, and more.

About the Author

Dan Brown has been practicing information architecture and user experience design since 1994. Through his consulting work in both public and private sectors, he has improved enterprise communications for both Federal and Fortune 500 clients, currently the Federal Communications Commission. Dan writes and speaks frequently on information architecture, and contributed to the inaugural issue of UX Matters, a new online magazine dedicated to user experience design. Dan is very active in the local Washington, DC information architecture community, and serves on the advisory board for the Information Architecture Institute.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: New Riders Press; 1 edition (September 16, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321392353
• ISBN-13: 978-0321392350
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 7.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #11,909 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars For people who work in large web teams, November 6, 2007

By	antenna (ex-UK now US) - See all my reviews

If you work in a large team in a big corporation, and use conventional rather than agile approaches to web development, you may find this book very useful. It has advice not just on what tools to employ, when, and why, but also how to interact with clients and specialists in various roles during every stage of website genesis/ontogeny, from strategy to execution (via usability tests, concept mapping, wireframes and much more).

As a one-person band with a very small budget, I found big chunks of it rather idealistic, somehow old-fashioned, and not very relevant to my own circumstances. The usability / market research specialist? The information architect? Those would be me. The programmer? The graphic designer? Oh, those would be me too. And the person making sure that the words and images are suitable for the web as a medium? Me again.

I wanted some advice on best practice for (a) documenting decisions made (and reasons for making them) and (b) highlighting consequences of those decisions (and reasons) for future work. I was quite surprised not to see much discussion about how to document (b), which in my experience is often a huge hole in documentation.

Also, the processes I use are much more agile than those described in the book, which doesn't cover how to document development using agile methods. This is a shame, because I think more and more developers are moving in this direction.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The meta-web development communication book, December 2, 2006

By	Manny Hernandez "Author of Ning For Dummies" (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

Dan Brown did it. I never imagined someone would pull it off, but he came up with a meta-web development communication book, a book about the process of putting together user needs, strategy and web design documents. In these three categories, he covers the ten web site communication deliverables he considers to be of most value, taking the reader through a structure that will help in the process of conception, construction, presentation to others and context.

I found the concept of Personas he introduced very interesting (and innovative in the web development space) and later picked up a book that specialized on the topic ("The User Is Always Right" by Steve Mulder and Ziv Yaar) to learn more about it. In terms of the rest of the concepts he introduced, if you are a seasoned web producer/development specialist, you may not find most of them to be new, but seeing the whole package in front of you will be useful and refresh items you know to be of importance. If you are becoming acquainted with this area, the book will become a permanent reference you will want to take with you at all times along with "Web Project Management: Delivering Successful Commercial Web Sites" by Ashley Friedlein.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Buyer beware - companion website does not have promised resources, June 2, 2008

By	S. Harrison (Clements, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

Part of the value of this book is the promise that the author will provide templates and examples. This promise is worth zero. If you go to the companion website, there is a note from the author that says, essentially, "Ooops, so sorry. Got too busy." Just a tad unprofessional? I guess different people have different perspectives on such things.

Call me crazy, but one would think that the author would have had a whole stack of examples and templates BEFORE he wrote the book. How else would he know what documents are needed? Just a rhetorical question.....

The book itself is useful, don't get me wrong. I am just very disappointed in the lack of companion material. Other reviews very adequately cover the content.

In terms of practical help, AND downloadable templates, I vastly prefer Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works (2nd Edition) by Kelly Goto.

Kelly Goto's advice saved my tail when I was a newbie in the field (waaaaay back in the dark ages of the 20th century), and still has relevance for me today.

Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works (2nd Edition) (VOICES)


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UPDATE: August 2008: nothing has changed on the companion website, http://www.communicatingdesign.com/ Quite frankly, it looks like it has been abandoned.