Anyone who has managed the process of developing or redesigning a Web site of significant size has likely learned the hard way the complexities, pitfalls, and cost risk of such an undertaking. While many Web development firms have fantastic technical expertise, what sets the topnotch organizations apart is the ability to accurately manage the planning and development process.
Web Redesign: Workflow That Works directly addresses this crucial area with a specific, proven process.

This brief but important book lays out a specific five-step strategy–called the Core Process–that can always be applied to the development of Web sites and fine-tuned to almost any type of project. Each step–defining the project, developing site structure, visual design and testing, production and QA, and launch and beyond–contains three related but distinct tracks. The text begins with a brief overview of each of the steps, then delves deeper into each with detailed explanations as well as specific forms and project-management strategies. This book does not cover back-end, server-side programming. Instead, it focuses primarily on the visual, conventional components of a Web site.

Authors Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler compiled this book in an attractive, easy-to-read format. This process guide uses numerous full-color screen shots to illustrate site examples, as well as plenty of site diagrams and sample forms. The book even has a companion Web site with downloadable forms in PDF format to put the Core Process into immediate action

The book begins with a chapter of precise guidelines that serve as a checklist of the features and functionality to include on your home page. The specifics found in categories such as “revealing content through examples” and “graphic design” will quickly hook you and whet your appetite for more. These guidelines are followed up with hard statistics and an examination of the ominous Jakob’s Law: “Users spend most of their time on other sites than your site.” Here you’ll find some interesting statistics about how various conventions like search, privacy policies, and logos are used.

All this leads up to the showcase element of the book–a systematic deconstruction of 50 of the most popular home pages on the Web. The authors painstakingly pick apart each in an uncompromising autopsy of usability. Each site is graphically analyzed for its use of real estate and summarized with the frankness only found from true experts. Then each section of the home page is bulleted and analyzed for potential improvements.

The Internet puts a wealth of information at your fingertips, and all you have to know is how to find it. Google is your ultimate research tool–a search engine that indexes more than 2.4 billion web pages, in more than 30 languages, conducting more than 150 million searches a day.

The more you know about Google, the better you are at pulling data off the Web. You’ve got a cadre of techniques up your sleeve–tricks you’ve learned from practice, from exchanging ideas with others, and from plain old trial and error–but you’re always looking for better ways to search.

It’s the “hacker” in you: not the troublemaking kind, but the kind who really drives innovation by trying new ways to get things done. If this is you, then you’ll find new inspiration (and valuable tools, too) in Google Hacks from O’Reilly’s new Hacks Series.

A great book on guerilla marketing via memetics.

“The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life,” writes Malcolm Gladwell, “is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.” Although anyone familiar with the theory of memetics will recognize this concept, Gladwell’s The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject.

We Blog begins with a complete overview of blog history, the different kinds of weblogs that exist today, and more. It further explains how to create, expand, and promote your own blog, from getting the most out of a variety of blogging tools and services to building a blog for business and expanding your audience through syndication

Leo Laporte, TV and radio’s most recognized and prolific technology personality, has sought out the best of the best in everything technology and put it all into Leo Laporte’s 2005 Technology Almanac. You’ll have something to look forward to every day as one page is dedicated to each day of the year to bring you anecdotes, tips and factoids about the machines and technology at the center of your life. Learn about everything from ergonomics to processor overclocking to tips on using discount-travel websites, all while discovering how to keep your PC hassles to a minimum. Leo’s musings on the world of technology are sure to keep you entertained throughout 2005!

The title of the book is its chief personal design premise. All of the tips, techniques, and examples presented revolve around users being able to surf merrily through a well-designed site with minimal cognitive strain. Readers will quickly come to agree with many of the book’s assumptions, such as “We don’t read pages–we scan them” and “We don’t figure out how things work–we muddle through.” Coming to grips with such hard facts sets the stage for Web design that then produces topnotch sites.

This is the type of book you can blow through in a couple of evenings. But despite its conciseness, it will give you an expert’s ability to judge Web design.