Product Description

Let's admit it: Things will go wrong online. No matter how carefully you design a site, no matter how much testing you do, customers still encounter problems. So how do you handle these inevitable breakdowns? With defensive design. In this book, the experts at 37signals (whose clients include Microsoft, Qwest, Monster.com, and Clear Channel) will show you how.

Defensive design is like defensive driving brought to the Web. The same way drivers must always be on the lookout for slick roads, reckless drivers, and other dangerous scenarios, site builders must constantly search for trouble spots that cause visitors confusion and frustration. Good site defense can make or break the customer experience.

In these pages, you'll see hundreds of real-world examples from companies like Amazon, Google, and Yahoo that show the right (and wrong) ways to get defensive. You'll learn 40 guidelines to prevent errors and rescue customers if a breakdown occurs. You'll also explore how to evaluate your own site's defensive design and improve it over the long term.

This book is a must read for designers, programmers, copywriters, and any other site decision-makers who want to increase usability and customer satisfaction.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #274560 in Books
• Published on: 2004-03-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 264 pages

From the Back Cover

Let's admit it: Things will go wrong online. No matter how carefully you design a site, no matter how much testing you do, customers still encounter problems. So how do you handle these inevitable breakdowns? With defensive design. In this book, the experts at 37signals (whose clients include Microsoft, Qwest, Monster.com, and Clear Channel) will show you how.

Defensive design is like defensive driving brought to the Web. The same way drivers must always be on the lookout for slick roads, reckless drivers, and other dangerous scenarios, site builders must constantly search for trouble spots that cause visitors confusion and frustration. Good site defense can make or break the customer experience.

In these pages, you'll see hundreds of real-world examples from companies like Amazon, Google, and Yahoo that show the right (and wrong) ways to get defensive. You'll learn 40 guidelines to prevent errors and rescue customers if a breakdown occurs. You'll also explore how to evaluate your own site's defensive design and improve it over the long term.

This book is a must read for designers, programmers, copywriters, and any other site decision-makers who want to increase usability and customer satisfaction.

About the Author

Chicago-based 37signals (www.37signals.com) is a team of web design and usability specialists dedicated to simple, and usable, customer-focused design. 37signals popularized the concept of contingency/defensive design in various articles and white papers and via the web site DesignNotFound.com. The team also has conducted workshops and presentations on the topic for a variety of conferences and companies.

37signals clients include Microsoft, Qwest, Monster.com, Clear Channel, Panera Bread, Meetup, Performance Bike, and Transportation.com. Work has been featured in the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Washington Post, on CNN, and in numerous other publications. Team members have appeared as featured speakers at AIGA Risk/Reward, Activ8, South By Southwest, HOW Design Conference, ForUse, and other conferences. Additional information can be found at www.37signals.com.

This book is authored by Matthew Linderman with Jason Fried. Other members of the 37signals team include Ryan Singer and Scott Upton.

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Customer Reviews

Not so technical, but lots of pretty pictures..
Defensive Design for the Web: How to Improve Error Messages, Help, Forms, and Other Online Crisis Points, by 37signals, Matthew Linderman and Jason Fried, really should be called "Examples of Bad Error Messages, Forms, etc" because although there were lots of pretty screenshots in the book, there wasn't much in the way of real solutions -- technical or otherwise..

In the book, there were no solid examples of what we should definitely do or not do, and using advice from the sites given a thumbs-up was not necessarily a great idea because the ratings were inconsistant: on page 62 nordstrom.com were given a thumbs down for specifying the format of user-inputted telephone numbers (no hypens or spaces) and yet on page 69, expedia.com and etrade.com were given a thumbs up for doing exactly the same thing (stating that social security numbers must contain the hypens). If nordstrom must accept telephone numbers in multiple formats, surely etrade should do the same with SS numbers?

One of the most annoying things about the entire book was the constant use of the incorrect term "alt tags". Tags are surrounded by < and >, alt is not, therefore alt is an attribute. This is the kind of basic HTML-related stuff that I would expect an 'expert' web-based company such as 37signals to know. What's more, there was an entire chapter dedicated to the lack of alt "tags" on various websites, and yet no clear instructions on what good alt text should say.

Throughout the entire book there was only one teensy-tiny paragraph on international forms and the need to accept multiple types of data, and yet this book is sold worldwide. America is not the only country in the world and so I would have liked to have seen more advice offered for those who're unsure on how to approach forms for a larger audience (particularly as I'm a Brit myself).

Overall, despite the varying negative points, the book itself is relatively decent. It brought up some little things that I have missed on my own website, such as, what to do if a visitor returns 0 results from a search (i.e. offer suggestions/alternatives instead), but generally contained nothing but screenshots. I would have liked to have seen more specific advice, and a little less focus on American based websites/forms.

A very disappointing beginners book.
The authors use 40 guidelines to tell you things that even starting web developers already know. In fact throughout the whole book â€" which is extremely light reading, since nearly all the pages contain mostly white space and screen shots â€" I haven't come across a single noteworthy solution to design problems.
Indeed, all this book does is list commonly known mistakes, which would perhaps be interesting for the total novice, yet, it provides zero solutions.

Four major things are wrong with this book:

1) Most of the advice is truly gratuitous, like “Guideline 6: Keep text brief and easy to understand�, or “Guideline7: Be polite�, or “Guideline18: Use ALT tags for images� or “Guideline 24: Answer emails quickly and effectively. That is stating the obvious like “check your spelling�. Yes, they advice this as well.

2) Only a small part of the book deals with international issues and most part only applies to local American websites with local target groups. A lot of the examples of websites they approve of, wouldn't stand a change when a Frenchman, Italian, Arab, etc. visits. This book gives an all but global perspective on accessibility.

3) Some design rules they propose are actually very debatable at least. Moreover, quite a few guidelines contradict each other.

4) They mention some major problems like; missing 404 pages, lacking form validation, etc. Yet â€" and this is absolutely inexcusable â€" abide from some screen shots, they provide no real solutions, you are totally left in the dark.

So, after 236 mostly empty pages all they have told me that it is better to have a better website.

Clear, concise and inspiring
Murphy's Law applies just as much in the online world as in the physical one: if something can go wrong, it will. How we deal with those situations is what makes the difference between good web designers and great web designers.

37signals' book throws its readers straight in there, no messing about: screen grabs of sites, pointing out the bad design decisions and highlighting the good. Simply laid out, 37signals' book allows the examples to speak for themselves, adding just enough information to back up their reasoning and no more.

Peppered throughout the book are a selection of "head-to-head" comparisons: on the left-hand page, a site that makes a fundamental mistake; on the right, a competitor that gets it right.

This book can't make a bad designer a good one. But if you're a good designer, it will help you improve no end.