Son of Web Pages That Suck: Learn Good Design by Looking at Bad Design (Paperback)

~ (Author), Dean Peters (Author) "To paraphrase an old statement about programmers..." (more)
Key Phrases: heroin content, splash page, skip intro, Internet Explorer, Daily Sucker, Wish List (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A must read for anyone interested in web design." -- Midwest Book Review

"Reading this book cover to cover should be the first design decision of both the novice and the pro. 5/5 stars" -- August 2002, Computer Arts Magazine, http://www.computerarts.co.uk

"This book is a much easier and (more importantly) funnier read than any web design book you'll find out there." -- Adam Bell, DigitalMediaNet.com

Product Description

From Vincent Flanders, co-author of the best-selling Web Pages That Suck, comes an all-new, irreverent look at the web's worst. Whether you're designing a site for your digital photos or in charge of your Fortune 500 company's web presence, you need to read Flanders take on the many mistakes that undermine some of the best-known sites on the web.

Within these full-color pages, you'll:

TREMBLE at the horror of Mystery Meat Navigation RUN SCREAMING from splishy splashy Flash pages CONQUER your web nightmares by learning the four guiding principles of smart web design MASTER the art of spotting a page's flaws in two minutes flat

Written from the ground up to cover today's biggest web design challenges, Son of Web Pages That Suck also features a CD packed with great utilities to help you design, test, and manage your site, plus links for web-based resources discussed in the book.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Sybex Inc (April 5, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0782140203
• ISBN-13: 978-0782140200
• Product Dimensions: 9.9 x 7.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #606,997 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A webmasters job is never complete, July 27, 2004

By	Isabella Valentine - www.IsabellaValentine.com (Bloomington, IN) - See all my reviews

Ok all I can say is wow. This man uses insults (accurately) to get the job done. I found myself wanting to redo things on my site and other sites I design just so he wouldn't find it and use it as a bad example. Good God. He is RIGHT ON on a lot of that stuff.

I disagreed him with him when it came to Flash. He thinks Flash is unnecessary, which it is in certain circumstances... but... he failed to mention adult sites which really use the art of visualization for the ultimate sale, which is what he discusses - that websites should be about bringing in money. Other than that and his not-so-secret hate for splash pages (although again, he failed to mention that some sites actually REQUIRE them by law)... I agreed with him on everything else in the book.

He gets into the Do's and Don'ts and really blasts the sites that use tacky animated Gifs on clashing backgrounds, unclean and unfocused sites, sites that don't use alt tags on images, and it really covers a whole lot of things that are just plain wrong. Way wrong.

He even got into a subject about never including text that says 'Click Here' and at first I scratched by head and thought - but why not?? And he showed some examples of it done right, and examples of how bad and tacky it can look when it is used wrong. I immediately got inspired and got rid of all of my 'Click here' text and sure enough, the results looked much more professional.

I have at least 20 high-maintenance business sites I constantly work on, and that being said - I am constantly feeling pretty positive about the work that I do. He doesn't care how good you think you are. He will be brutal. And it's about time someone steps forward to say it.

'A webmasters job is never complete' is an accurate statement.

He doesn't just give negative criticism... he offers good advice and solutions that are doable and just require effort and a sense of direction.

The bottom line: If you get aggravated with what he says, you can close the book and reopen it when you're ready for brutal honesty.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and informative, May 16, 2002

By	Andrew B. King (Ann Arbor, MI United States) - See all my reviews

Vincent Flanders' new "Son of Web Pages That Suck" is the sequel to his best-selling book "Web Pages That Suck." WPTS arose from the site he founded by the same name in 1996, WebPagesThatSuck.com. It seems that WYSIWYG editors have just made it easier for designers to create bad web sites faster, so Flanders felt a second book was needed.

Flanders takes a different approach to teaching usability than the likes of Nielsen and Norman. Through over the top humor and outrageous examples of bad web design he manages to teach good design while keeping us entertained. Flanders uses humor as a teaching aid because he's found that that people tend to learn better when they are entertained.

You'll find yourself laughing as you read this book. The book is peppered with full-color pictures of Flanders and friends in various getups: a devil, an angel, a mechanic, a flasher, and even in the tub ("Splish Splash Pages" chapter). It's all in good fun, as Flanders doesn't take himself too seriously. He makes his points without condescension. He even uses Johnny Cochran-like sayings to illustrate his points:

"If the Bits Don't Flow, People Will Go."
"The Top's Gotta Pop or They're Not Gonna Stop."

The author is a marketing showman, using carnival-like PR:

TREMBLE at the horror that is Mystery Meat Navigation
RUN SCREAMING from splishy splashy Flashy pages...

The book is a hybrid design and usability book aimed at beginning to intermediate designers. The book teaches good design practices through bad mistakes with scathing commentary on numerous really bad web sites. Through his web site's "Daily Sucker" and thousands of email suggestions Flanders has plenty of material to choose from.

The actual advice is common sense stuff that advanced users will already know like keeping text contrast high and file sizes low. However, even after years of preaching the gospel, usability experts are finding web designers repeating the same mistakes over and over again. Flanders shows what not to do, and offers suggestions on how to do it right.

Web design is about working within limitations. Unless you have what Flanders calls "heroin content," make your pages fast loading, easy to navigate, easy to read, and minimize extraneous features. He gives useful pointers throughout the book for graphics optimizers, validators, browser simulators, and includes a CD chock full of useful utilities to shrink and shape up your pages.

Flanders likes to say, somewhat tongue in cheek, that this book is for everybody. It is not quite in that category, but it will have a broader appeal than most web design books with its splashy graphics, non-technical approach, and Flanders' trademark humor. Some college professors have even adopted his book for their Web design courses because it doesn't put their students to sleep. Highly recommended.

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learn the right way by seeing the wrong way!, July 23, 2002

By	Barbara Rhoades "Jackie of all Trades" (O'Fallon, MO USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

SON OF WEB PAGES THAT SUCK
AUTHOR: Vincent Flanders with Dean Peters and a Cast of Hundreds
PUBLISHER: Sybex
REVIEWED BY: Barbara Rhoades

BOOK REVIEW: Sometimes looking at something bad can help you see what a web page should look like. You immediately begin to say, I would NEVER do that on a web site. This begins the creative thought process that, in turn, helps you design a web site everyone will be able to navigate and enjoy.

The first thing you should do after purchasing Son of Web Pages That Suck is check out the CD that is included. It contains over a dozen programs that can help the web designer to create better pages. A few of the programs that you might want to try are Snag It (captures anything you see on the Windows Desktop), Top Style Pro (checks for cross-browser problems as you work), Color Schemer (helps create color themes) and Screen Ruler (a virtual ruler that you can drag around the screen). These are trial programs and can be purchased for permanent use.

There is a section called Two Minute Offense. This is an exercise designed to getting you thinking in two minutes of all the problems that show on the web page displayed in that section. There are other side bars to help you learn also such as Sucks Not and Sucks a Lot. Both titles are self-explanatory. Dont forget to check out the What Did You Learn at the end of each chapter. This section will review what went on in the chapter and gives you a chance to be sure you saw everything in that chapter.

Remember that wonderful font you found and always wanted to use? Probably on a web page is not the place for it. And be careful of color. Too much color in the same line of text can be a problem. These are only a few of the problems that Son of Web Pages That Suck points out. It is a book you will be hard pressed to not wear it out as its pages contain so much information you will want to read it many times.