"Homepages are the most valuable real estate in the world".

This is the opening line of the latest book by internationally renowned web usability "guru" Jakob Nielsen and one of his expert colleagues, Marie Tahir. The authors argue that, although usability should be a priority for all parts of a company's website, it is absolutely critical on its homepage. This is not only because the homepage gets more page views than any other page, but also because it serves as the company's "face to the world". It is for this reason that a book was written that hones in on usability issues relating specifically to the homepage, and that gives intricately detailed reviews of 50 well-known sites.

The book is structured in two main sections. In the first section the authors give a background to the principles they use to judge homepage usability. They not only give a comprehensive set of 113 guidelines (which will be easy to understand without any prior usability knowledge), they also give statistics based on extensive user testing they have performed to explain where the guidelines came from. Examples of areas the guidelines cover are usability characteristics of navigation, links, company information, search features, graphic design, widgets and advertising.

The second section constitutes the main part of the book. In this part the authors "deconstruct" 50 website homepages according to the guidelines they have presented. It is very interesting to see homepages with which we are all familiar (e.g. amazon.com, yahoo.com, about.com and microsoft.com) and some with which we may be less familiar (e.g. mtv.com, victoriassecret.com and disney.com) being put to the usability test.

This book is certainly an invaluable resource to many different types of professionals. For web designers and developers, it gives detailed guidelines to follow on how to design usable homepages. For business professionals, it gives an idea of how homepage usability can improve their bottom line and what guidelines their web team should be following. For usability professionals, it gives a comprehensive checklist of homepage characteristics that can be used to test for homepage usability. The book is clearly written and the idea of focussing it on examples is a clever method of illustrating usability concepts in a tangible way.

Deborah Abratt

<< October 2002