By Kelly Goto & Emily Cotler
Review by: Alex
There is nothing that I can say which is bad about this book, In fact I would probably go to say that this book is the most important book in my entire library which from the other reviews I have done is quite a statement. Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that works is a book which explains in clear steps the process you should go through in designing a website, using concepts such as interface design, usability, site structuring and many more. This book goes through each concept of your site you should master and guides you through the steps you need to take to build a website rather then focusing on code alone. An example of this would be that you declare what you want your website to be, then you draw up plans, then you structure the site, add a design, optimise it, test it, publish and add increasing functionality. The book uses this clear "from start to finish" approach to show you that making a website is not simply a case of slapping a lot of elements together but it is a process which needs to have order. One of the major advantages of the book is that it has checklists, things you should do lists and other specifications you can work towards so you can pace yourself and your new design while doing each thing a step at a time. Also this book contains contributions from major developers such as Jakob Nielson, Jeffrey Zeldman and Eric Meyer who impart you with good standing advice in their specific fields. Overall this roadmap approach to making a website contains a good amount of theory, exerts to help you in practice and contains hundreds of tips to guide you through making your new website an improved one. If you are a checklist sort of person or someone who likes to have a map to guide them through getting everything done there is absolutely no substitute to this book which contains various approaches to help you (tips, case studies, expert advice, etc) and this is a must have for any budding website developer or designer. One thing which you should be aware of is this book fairly pricey however is worth every penny.
The chapters in this book include the following... Chapter 1 explains the basics of producing your workflow and the essential knowledge you require. Chapter 2 shows you the core process overview and generally introduces you to the concepts you will cover in the book. Chapter 3 defines the project and allows you to work out what your audience wants, scheduling and budgeting, planning the site itself and what you want from the website. Chapter 4 helps you develop the sites structure including the content, organisation, navigation and wire framing. Chapter 5 details the visual interface design and shows you how to start the creative process, review your goals, testing functionality, making style guides and creating graphic templates. Chapter 6 explains how to build and integrate the website through guidelines, optimisation and populating pages. Chapter 7 helps you through the process of launching your site through documentation, maintenance, going live "things to know", search engine optimisation, measuring success and confirming site security. Chapter 8 shows how to test the usability of this new site and gives a general overview of how to use this information. Chapter 9 explains how to work with complex functionality and gives you a good guide to how to build a specification and implementation plan for producing the end result. Finally Chapter 10 details Analysing your competition and how to improve your site based upon it.
This book is suitable for the following types of people interested in website development:
- Established website designers and developers wishing to add more structure to their production.
- People who have a background in website development who wish to act more like a business.
- Students who are learning to produce websites or those who wish to Start-up a web company.