Designing Large-Scale Web Sites: A Visual Design Methodology (Paperback)

by Darrell Sano (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Throwing together a small and snazzy home page on the Net is trivial. Throwing together a large and annoying Web site on the Net is not much more difficult. But crafting a large, snazzy, and compelling Web site on the Net is nearly impossible unless you do a lot of advance planning and carefully thought-out usability studies. Happily, the author of this book--with experience as a Web site designer for Netscape and an interface designer for Silicon Graphics and Sun--walks you through the entire process. The book is especially strong in its coverage of frames and Framesets. Highly recommended for all serious designers of large-scale Web sites.

Product Description
A proven methodology for creating sophisticated, visually appealing Web sites for business, education, and entertainment interests

No longer just a research or academic reference library, the Net is on its way to becoming the ultimate interactive medium of worldwide commerce, education, and entertainment. That's why anyone involved in designing today's increasingly sophisticated Web sites needs to know a lot more than just a handful of HTML protocols. To design a usable and appealing site capable of handling complex human interactions, you need to know how to effectively apply the principles of visual and user-interface design. Now this book shows you how.

Written by a professional user-interface and graphic designer with extensive experience designing large-scale Web sites, this book gives you a complete methodology to use when planning, designing, and developing full-featured, interactive Web sites. Working within the framework of user-interface design principles, and using many detailed examples to illustrate his points, Darrell Sano walks you through the entire process—from setting objectives and defining user and content limitations, to visual design techniques for effective page layout.

Shows you how to apply user-interface design, graphic design, and software engineering strategies and techniques to designing large-scale Web sites

• Explores many critical site development issues, including organizing and prioritizing content, supporting user tasks and goals, and advanced layout and design techniques, including Netscape 2.0 Frameset documents
• Features dozens of examples of effective Web site design, including a stunning 8-page full-color gallery of Web pages illustrating the concepts presented in the book

DARRELL SANO is a user-interface designer with Netscape, specializing in the planning and design of large-scale Web sites for commerce and communication. A former interface designer for Silicon Graphics and Sun Microsystems, he has taught user-interface design at various conferences and events, including the MIT X Consortium Technical Conference, ACM SIGCHI, and the American Center for Design. While at Sun, he was the designer of the server for the world's most popular sporting event, the WorldCupUSA94.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons; 1 edition (February 15, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 047114276X
• ISBN-13: 978-0471142768
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,446,436 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good for its time, but rather outdated by now, September 25, 1998

By	[e-mail] (South Africa) - See all my reviews

This book was clearly ahead of its time when it was written, and tackled some important issues. The focus on screen layout, browser technologies and other paradigm issues was, no doubt, of much assistance in its day.

This being said, the book is now almost three years old and -- for the Web -- that pretty much renders it irrelevant. It still focuses on Netscape 2.0 as a "next generation" browser and words like LiveScript are likely to baffle anyone who wasn't around in the good old days.

I would recommend the book to anyone who wanted a bit of a history of the Web, and some very basic initial guidelines as to the thinking and structures of the medium. But be warned: this book contains a <b>lot</b> of information that has changed, and should be followed up quickly with a book like "Secrets of Successful Websites" by David Seigal, which is infinitely superior.

As a conclusion, I believe it is quite irresponsible of the authors to leave this book as it is and not publish an update. This is not nearly as useful as it could be, and I'm sure many have purchased it and found it quite disappointing.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not so fast, this book is still very useful., June 22, 2000

By A Customer

As a former graphic design teacher and curriculum designer and now a instructional technologist who constantly finds myself trying to educate would-be web designers or website clients.....I still find this book very useful in its converage of website design methodology. Even if you discarded all of the pages containing outdated code, what is left is still of value.

I think if you buy this book and already have a good understanding of website and interface design principles, you will be sadly disappointed, particularly because the title is misleading.

However, if you are a non-designer (someone without formal instruction in design theory), this book will be of *great* value. The right audience member for this book is someone suddenly forced to do web design with no training or a descision maker in an organization who needs to quickly understand, in plain English, how the web design process should work and some criteria for evaluation.

This book is still on my shelf since I bought it in 1996 and I frequently "lend it out".

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A must have for any web site project manager., April 29, 1997

By A Customer

This book provides a project methodology and substantive advice regarding usability and design. The coverage of the considerations involved in creating a large scale web site is thorough. Most of the advice is very solid.

Minor drawbacks are that the design suggestions are warped by a grid ethos, apparently brought about by a too-early exposure to Quark Express.

Another drawback is the constant droning regarding the wonderfulness of Netscape Navigator. This is somewhat understandable as the author is an employee of Netscape. The biased browser information is a little out of date. <P