Customer-Effective Web Sites

Rating:
Summary: A Primer for Effective web site development
Review: Dalgleish nails down the methodology and identifies the most relevant issues for developing EFFECTIVE web sites in a clear and concise manner. It wouldn't surprise me if this book saves millions and significnatly cuts development cycles.

DOT COM CIOs should have purchased this book before hiring anyone!!!

Rating:
Summary: Absolute Stroke of Genius!
Review: I bought this book not too long ago and it has really helped my business web site. The tips it gave me were well thought-out and were incredibly helpful. All the info in this book incresed the quality of our web site and our customer interaction so much that we are getting more customers than we ever have. If you have a website involving customers, then I recommend you get this book as soon as possible as it is the most worthwhile book I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Great stuff!

Rating:
Summary: Important for e-commerce managers
Review: I get the feeling that this book may immediately appear as most suited to Web designers. Actually, this book is about A LOT MORE than Web design. In fact, Dalgleish covers the full gamut of the process for both businesses and their suppliers (including Web designers). The reader is lead through the process from beginning to end - and e-commerce managers who are on the line for the delivery of results, need to know everything about what is coming, and the pitfalls to avoid. And what's unique about the book is that the end-to-end process is customer-driven, from the very questions businesses need to ask themselves when writing their strategy right through to the Way a Web designer translates the business' service offering into tangible navigation design, for example. Dalgleish makes it clear that the book was written for the whole community seeking to create Web experiences for customers; a community that needs to integrate its efforts to really deliver to the customer for competitive advantage to business and better lives for people - and that includes e-commerce managers like me. A must read.

Rating:
Summary: Gems
Review: I kind of like this book, and I think you should buy it, because it offers some good strategic thinking about finding opportunities, calling in the right parties to a project, and developing a site. The author's recognition of the valuable role customers can play as part of the development team isn't often seen in web books (I saw it in Jeff Rubin's "Handbook of Usability Testing", but I haven't seen it elsewhere). Her recognition of the value that good marketing research can play is also commendable -- good, quantitative market research is an area that some other books will tell you to disregard, in favor of repeated user testing. But without a solid business proposition, a lot of effort could be spent on a too-small opportunity.

That said, I would also want to take other ecommerce books with me to my desert island. While Dalgleish gives attention to the importance of the user, I don't think the user gets *enough* attention. And the comments on the importance of user input and appeasing the user are diffused through the book, never achieving a critical mass, such as one gets in Alan Cooper's "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum." In my view, this is a missed opportunity. While it is good that Dalgleish makes comments such as "customers don't understand the way your Web site works as well as you do," it would be better to remind the site owner that the users failure to grasp the Web site is not due to any fault of the user. More evangelism on user-centered design would be very helpful here. And to round that out, I would also want Cooper's "Inmates" and the latest Jakob Nielsen book ("Designing Web Usability") on my desert island. As an additional item for my island, I would also want to bring Deborah Mayhew's "The Usability Engineering Lifecycle," as a strong reminder that user perspectives need to be gathered very early on in the process. (I don't believe Dalgleish discusses user task analysis explicitly, perhaps leaving that discussion to the experts she wants us to put on the development team.)

To reiterate, I do kind of like this book, and I think you should buy it. But don't expect to get buy on this book alone.

Rating:
Summary: Best book by far on "customer based" web development
Review: If you are designing web sites for either business or pleasure - you need to read this book. It highlights what you need to be aware of in your target audience. Where do their eyes move on the page, how do you keep them from clicking off your site (no, it's not only speed).. how do you design the online experience to hold your visitors and keep them coming back? This book is really good! I have read waaaay too many of these articles in tech journals. There is no 'sponsor', no products being sold - just solid recommendations on getting an effective site up. As we know - putting a web page up is easy. Getting people to come once, and again is the challenge. Some of this information may be intuitive to those with experience, but for someone beginning to design corporate sites for ecommerce - better check this book out! Customers have very concrete expectations from an online presence ... and if you don't meet those expectations - all it takes is a click and your site is history. Very enjoyable, easy to read and very pertinent to today's web page designer.

Rating:
Summary: Chore
Review: If you are going to be designing mega-websites, like Amazon.com, (The author uses Amazon.com as an example), or if you are in a mega-corporation with a dedicated team assigned the task of setting up a web site, this book is for you. If you like the esoteric debates on the merits of internet/web design along the lines of Jacob Nielson, or Patrick Lynch, then this book is for you, (although this author does not come across as iconoclastic in her views as the previous authors). Are these the only audiences for this book? No, I am sure anyone involved in designing web sites can find something of value in these pages, if you can stick with it. I found the writing style to be very dry, making reading this text a chore.

Rating:
Summary: Important for e-commerce managers
Review: The first few pages excited me, as I thought the book was coming at the subject from a great angle. However, then I got bogged down. While there are useful points made, it is difficult to find them.

I feel the book could be useful for people who are approaching websites from a technical background but that the overkill - in my opinion - on the marketing basics will obstruct people with a marketing background from getting much value from it.

I also found the structure of the book took greatly from my ability to get to the content. In many chapters, things are broken down like chunks of code - while this might make it easy to reference a certain topic, the way the code was assembled made reading the book in a linear manner difficult. Had it been a website, it would have lost this customer to another site quickly (that said, the structure would probably work better online).

Nonetheless, there are ideas of value in the book and, for readers from a technical background, it offers some ideas that you should think about.

Rating:
Summary: Gems
Review: This book deserves two or three reads. There are some real gems to be discovered. The easy-to-read writing style might disguise some really unique thinking and concepts. The author presents the concept of "theming" (where customer scenarios create "doing threads" around which navigation, metahor, utility and dialogue are wrapped) for example as a whole new way to approach Web design. The author also shows how a company can do research to identify what customers need to do on their Web site and why - and how that gets communicated to the Web designer and incorporated into a "theming" approach throught the development and testing process. The author also presents new project management and business process design techniques. Not to mention the no-nonsense way the author establishes the fact that Web sites are currently falling way short of customer expectations (without berating the point and giving tangible examples). I was also intrigued by the fact that this book was written a few months before the .com crash - much of what was foretold has come about - the point in the last chapter about "the quick and the valued" and the need for companies to establish real customer value instead of thrashing the latest fad was well made. This book should be read by everyone involved in eBusiness, across the spectrum, for a reality check, and for some fresh thinking.

Rating:
Summary: A Primer for Effective web site development
Review: This book offer beginners a quick start about various items when designing a website, with customer focus in mind. Quite good if you always have strategy in your mind. Advanced readers may skip this one.