The dissected screenshots of homepages spark ideas and creativity. It does get a bit repetitive after reading a few homepage critiques.
Nice looking book overall!A must for everyone invloved in web design An excellent book that takes on the top sites in the world and offers them advice on where they might still be going wrong. Can't fault it at all.
The first fifty pages (or so) is devoted to homepage guidelines... the statisical review could be very useful for redesigning a homepage around best practices. The final 200+ pages are devoted to critical analyses of specific homepages including staple homepages from Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, and Yahoo, to a more eclectic selection like the Art Institute of Chicago Museum, Asian Cuisine, and the Florida Department of Revenue. The reviews were about 4-6 pages each with at least two full screen prints. The second screen print also had an enumerated "key list" with a corresponding pithy description on each usabilty issue.
There are a few usability 'motifs' that stand out in the analyses. I think you will find the issues cover a wide range of "common" usability problems.
Some of critical comments felt a bit like nitpicking or perhaps the author being a bit "hyper-critical", but most were spot on. Slavishly "fixing" every item mentioned in usability critique doesn't necessarily improve homepage usability, fixing the majority will ... and there are plenty of useful tips, and good advice to take back to the design shop.
There are some guidelines which I felt were objective dislikes rather than real usability problems, e.g. not putting a "powered by xxxx" label on the home page. But this makes it all the more interesting for the user who needs to understand the issues as they apply to them.
Overall a great read, with lots of good information. Good solid stuff.