Rating: 
Summary: Must-read for all would-be web designers
Review: Nielson clearly explains important design considerations for all web designers and developers. His theme throughout the book is that every design decision you make must be in the interest of helping to communicate information to the reader. His basic messages are: There are too many sites on the web that display distracting, if not confusing, visual elements on their pages. Learning the technical details of web page implementation is not enough. You must also understand how to effectively provide information to your site's visitors.As you progress through each chapter, he'll illustrate bad examples and then suggest improvements for them. Some very good examples of what he feels is effective design are also presented.
Rating: 
Summary: An Intelligent Introduction to Web Usability
Review: Nielson's book offers a straightforward and intelligent presentation of web design with a keen awareness of the big picture and what actually happens when users visit a web site. All times the practice of simplicity and ease of use are emphasized in page design, navigation, content and overall web site development. The book is heavy (literally!) with high quality color printing featuring hundreds of web sites to illustrate each of the points discussed. This could be regarded as a serious textbook that takes a deeper cut into the art and science of effective web site design than the more amusing (and also valuable) reads such as "Web Pages that Suck." Nielson addresses such issues as users with disabilities, the global nature of the web and the implications of multilingual sites, the use of metaphors, and the numerous other issues including download times, URL design, graphics, streaming video vs. downloadable video, site structure, color and text design, and so on. The book really "gets into it" and does not shy away from the nitty, gritty details, using its large quantity of illustrations to fully address each point. While it comes across as heavy handed on some occasions ("Do it this way") where an experienced web designer may see alternatives, this detail provides a great introduction for those new to web design. This one text effectively captures the most significant topics associated with designing effective web sites that will accomplish the task at hand. Reading it will put the overly zealous gif animators and latest plug-in proponents in touch with the world of the average user. Given some of the hideous web sites I've seen even from Fortune 500 companies with large web development budgets, Nielson's book is a voice of reason and intelligence in an area where hype and flash can cause people to lose sight of their objectives.
Rating: 
Summary: must-read for Managers & CEO's
Review: A VERY good book and highly recommended for Project Managers and even Sales Rep's and upper management, who will understand this book because it's simple and full of colorful screenshots. Not recommended for web designers, as they should have been reading the author's monthly column (and Tufte) for the past few years and this book is simply preaching to the choir. Don't know what i'm talking about? get the book.
Rating:
Summary: Worth reading but take it with a grain of salt
Review: This latest endeavor of one of the more renowned authorities in usability design strives to give a complete account of what is involved in the design of a successful web-site. While Nielsen uses many real-life examples to illustrate his points, I find more than a few of his assertions a little suspect. In some situations, he over-simplifies and describes the outcome of the problem in terms of "black and white", not allowing for any shades of gray. Whether Nielsen is successful in getting his points across is questionable due to this black and white approach. However, he does bring up a lot of timely issues for designing on the web such as response times and overly flashy graphics. The tone of the book is definitely overbearing and opinionated, nevertheless, his style of writing does make the book very readable. If you need to know the basics of designing interfaces for the web, this book will serve as a good reference. My suggestion is that you take his words with a grain of salt and not worry too much if you have to break one or two of his cherished "top-ten" rules of interface design.
Rating:
Summary: Required reading
Review: Anyone who wants to design more than 5 web pages should be required to outline the major points in Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability. Anyone who is hiring someone to design a web site should read this book first. Anyone who uses the internet as a regular source of information will tend to scream "YES" when Nielsen points out examples of bad web design. Jakob Nielsen's book describes a way of thinking about the World Wide Web. It is not a how-to book tied to a particular software package. He simply wants the internet to be a useful place where communication takes place. He talks about what a web page should be like rather than focusing on the HTML required to create it. He illustrates his ideas with many examples of sites that work and ones that don't. As a result, it is one of those rare computer books that will still be useful 5 years from now. Much of the information in the book seems obvious. After all, isn't communication the goal of a web page? Yet I would guess that after reading a chapter of Nilsen's book, you could identify significant design problems in the majority of web sites. Read all of the chapters and you'll begin to understand what it takes to create powerful web sites. Dale Fast fast@sxu.edu
Rating: 
Summary: Nielsen is a dinosaur.
Review: The book is banned at our company. We feel is will stunt the creative growth of our employees. For the life of me, I can't understand how anyone who's been doing web work for a while would take Jakon Nielsen seriously. This man is *severely* out of touch with the industry, but mixes in just enough common sense for the sheep of the web design world to proclaim him an expert.
Rating:
Summary: Users First In Web Site Design
Review: Jakob Nielsen has employed his useability skills to produce this excellent, insightful and well-written book. Putting aside current technologies and gadgetry, this book deals very practically with what makes web sites compelling and useful for people. His style is very readable and there are so many good, worthwhile ideas, that applying just a handful will make a difference to how you build and think about web pages/sites. But beyond the individual suggestions, this book challenges you to re-align your view to that of customer/user experience and goals, in much the same way as Alan Cooper's "The Inmates Are Running The Asylum" does for traditional application development. An enjoyable book that makes you frustrated by the current crop of shortsighted, poorly designed sites.
Rating:
Summary: THE handbok for sensible web design!
Review: Designing Web Usability is full of great insight into how the web is REALLY used by users, that most users want information, not entertainment. So, we must design web sites for the intended audience. Is it to be information based, entertainment based, or a mixture of both? The best web sites get this balance right. This book shows YOU how to get it right.
Rating:
Summary: A great book on web usability... and management science
Review: The other commenters have it spot-on. A delight to read, don't forget some jazz, a must-have if you plan to do web sites yourself, explanatory text as to why you love/hate certain web sites, blasted flap. One aspect is missing in the reviews IMHO: it is also very much so a 'management science' book (Amazon: you might want to add this book to such a category). Although usability is the argument (and well made it is), the real grist is on putting the user central to all you do. That's a philosophy one should take to heart in this networked world, where 'power' is shifting from producers (1850-1950) through retailes (1950-about now) to the consumers. That's us, by the way. To be able to put customers central requires a 'net-centric' frame of mind. And that's a very difficult thing to do for (established) organisations. My favourite quote is thus (page 353): "Most companies are severely deficient when it comes to strategic thinking about the impact of the Internet. Accelerating change means that the future will happen sooner than you think, so you have to start thinking about it now." Indeed, and that is why to me this is ultimo a management science book. Thanks, Jakob.
Rating: 
Summary: Only a tiny part of bigger picture
Review: Nielsen relies completely on usability testing as a panacea to address all problems with bad site design. As always with him (and most other usability preachers), he fails to address a far more fundamental problem: How do we create usable designs in the first place, so that we achieve good usability results in the end? For the answer to this question, you'll have to wait for the far superior book, tentatively titled "Getting the User Experience Right". It addresses the ten or so other processes designers need to go through, besides usability testing, to create great, easy-to-use designs. It shows the steps to take to enable designers to make important design and information architecture decisions, rather than trying to make those decisions for you (as Nielsen does--which is ridiculous, as every project is unique). In the end, usability testing is the easy part. One more thing: Have you ever noticed how the websites of usability gurus and companies are all really, really ugly!
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