Rating: 
Summary: Excellent resource
Review: This book is a great resource for web developers. The suggestions Neilsen makes are backed by usability studies that make sense. While some guidelines may seem limiting, the facts upon which they are based are clear and well-founded. When the author writes that usability research shows web pages with 40K have a 25-30% bailout rate on a standard modem line, we are free to disregard this and make bloated, sluggish pages anyway. But what Neilsen's book makes clear is the effect that this has on the average user. At no point did I get the impression that Neilsen had anything but respect and concern for the users. He is their advocate. The virulent reactions some people seem to exhibit in reaction to this book amaze me. As a software engineer, I can say this book has been an extremely valuable reference. As a web user, I can also say that I wish more web developers would read this book and put these guidelines into practice.
Rating:
Summary: Useful day to day. Period.
Review: I've had this book for about a year, but have held back from reviewing it until I could see it in action in our work place. (In all honesty, I could have posted these same opinions six months ago; it was effective that long ago, but reviewing this was not one of my top priorities.) In my work place (a large large corporation whose website has scads of pages), this book has been a major resource for colleagues trying to support the user experience. Nielsen makes his points clearly and supports them with germane examples. His tone is sober and persuasive, and while he often gives direction in absolute terms (allowing little room for judgment), he never sounds like Chicken Little. This increases his arguments' credibility, which is of course important if you need to cite an outside source. The day to day usefulness? Well, where I work this book has buttressed discussions around page download times, organization, page real estate, intranets... I don't know of any other web book which could have filled this role. Granted, other books carry similar messages, but their authors are not quoted daily, and they are less likely to be recognized by those you work with. The fact that there is a mouse pad (intended as a joke) that asks you to ask yourself "What Would Jakob Do?" is a testament to the persuasiveness of his arguments. They are persuasive for a reason. BUY THIS BOOK.
Rating: 
Summary: It should be about facts not ego
Review: From the beginning this book seems to be about Jakob standing on high, sharing his unquestioned wisdom with the simple folk. Perhaps if he backed up his pronouncements with more facts, idependent research (not just quoting himself, his firm or his past affliations with Sun) he might sound like more than hot air. In the end, I measure any non-fiction book by how many practical insights, tips or concepts I take away. I finished this book without having learned anything more than if I had sat in a bar listening to a couple of web designers bitching about how stupid most people are. It comes down to look at my site. I got it right because I am smarter than you. Save the money. Go buy a couple of developers a beer.
Rating: 
Summary: Overall, a good book to read. But not a bible to follow.
Review: Jakob is a controversial figure on web design community, and will keep being that way for quite some time. It's not hard to figure that out for someone who put his name right on the cover of the book like what it is with this book. But yet, many of the comments that I read in the book are very helpful. A lot of them are common sense, but for some reasons, they haven't been common on the web page design. The way I see it is, as long as it helps users retrieve information that they want from a web site, it is a valid guideline. And one common misunderstanding about Jakob Nielson is that he thinks users are idots. But I don't think that's what he said. What he said is, users are not patient. And that I can totally relate to. I mean, hell, I am not patient when I browse the web. As to the rest of the comment that he made, I don't agree with him, especially his comment on the efforts that has been made to the web environment to make it a multimedia. It is not a waste, Jakob! If it were, all of us would still be using DOS, not WINDOWS, today. One last thing to complain about the book, the diagram and figures are terribly integrated, if at all, with the main text. I kept being forced to jump back and forth between the text and the figures and found myself confused many many times. Talking about usability and readability, hummm...... Jakob? Anyone?
Rating: 
Summary: It's not a religion, people...
Review: Nielsen's advice is indispensable mainly in the business (E-commerce) website sphere. It isn't as applicable in the "personal homesite" sphere (again, this book and really most of Nielsen's ideas are aimed at professional web designers), and only partially for "all the rest" (governmental, museums, etc). As far as E-commerce (business sites) goes, I agree with Nielsen on every one of his points (one can take them as *general guidelines* for all other types of websites). But it seems exceedingly foolish to react to his perceived egotism. Leave it alone already... take what you need and leave the rest. If Nielsen is a "legend in his own mind," then so are most other people... admittedly he seems a bit outspoken about it, but so what?
Rating:
Summary: Good information but extreme
Review: A terrific resource for a first time website or novice designer. Good advice for a website which caters to the generic, unknown user; extreme in today's virtual marketing campaigns where the design team is completely aware of the user's needs and requirements. Definitely information worth keeping in mind when designing any website.
Rating:
Summary: Users first
Review: Self-indulgent artistes hate this guy because his ultimate message is "think of the user first." Self-indulgent artistes believe that the incessant display of their own hi-bandwidth graphical prowess is the purpose of websites. That's fine for a college kid's personal site, but it doesn't work if you are desiging for a business. Those of us who have to work in the real world appreciate Nielsen's common sense and excellent priorities. Besides, he may not be perfect, but he's one of the few web gurus who backs up his opinions with empirical data.
Rating:
Summary: just wants attention
Review: i thought this book might try to tell me something important. i mean, anybody who self aggrandizes himself as much as nielsen does must have at least something to offer, right? well, it's this: people are sheep. why this book is considered so important in information design is beyond me. go for the classics: tufte as someone mentioned before. 'desigining web usability' offers nothing but unjustifiably overinflated ego. what nielsen offers is what should be the most basic common sense for anyone in design. nielsen is only successful because he successfuly exploits the general public's ignorance and awe/inferiority complex regarding design and new media to his own end. he reminds me of newt gingrich.
Rating:
Summary: Above Artists
Review: If you enjoyed Roger Black telling you how to design for the web, you're going to love this. You're probably also a beaten house-wife. I have witnessed over and over again, the deep heated desire to control creatives. I believe it largely stems from envy. This guy probably had a problem with sound in movies, color television and graphics on web pages. If you want to really learn something about useability, try Edward Tufte. Nice cover design though. I suspect he objected to that as well.
Rating:
Summary: A Must Read for Anyone Involved with Websites
Review: Jackob Nielsen has pulled together an excellent primer on usability for websites. Perhaps the easiest way to summarize his book is the book's tagline: "The practice of simplicty." Web design has to this point been more of an intuitive art for many designers. Many web managers look at general graphic and layout design and not the functionality that design is suppose to enable. Nielsen takes this intuition and describes exactly what solid, functional web design looks like and what it should do. He uses numerous real world examples and screen shots throughout the book. Scattered throughout are statistics from his research which are helpful as well. Nielsen also explains how website should differ from Intranet sites and also how to "internationalize" your website for foreign users. One particularly helpful chapter focused on how to write for the web. A common theme throughout the book is that web users are impatient and thus prefer to skim rather than read. Thus, when writing web content, you should do so with skimming in mind using lots of bullets, and highlighting key words. He also advocates using Title tags for links so that when a user places a mouse cursor over the link, a little bubble help will appear describing where the link will take the user. The chapter on page design is also particularly helpful in building in designing pages that tells the user where they are, what they can do from there, where they can go from there, and what is offered - all without scrolling. Nielsen has become the Father of Usability on the Internet. This is a great book to give you some practical advice on design. It won't tell you how to do coding, but it gives you the conceptual framework needed to design a site. Even if you do not agree with all of his points, it will at least have encouraged you to think about aspects of design that many haven't considered.
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