From a project management point of view this book serves as the basis for a work breakdown structure (WBS), and the project sequencing. I was able to quickly develop a generic project planning template that contained a relatively detailed WBS, project phasing, roles and responsibilities matrix and activity diagram. These tools were easy to extract from the book because of how well the authors have thought out the key elements of a web project and the development workflow.
Among the things I most like are: (1) the care that was lavished on the layout and design of this book has resulted in more than mere aesthetics - as I read through it picking out the project elements I found myself inspired by the sheer beauty of the book, and actually felt more creative. Since I am more disposed towards technical aspects than art I was amazed by the influence the book's design had over me. It also made it easy to go through the book and find things. (2) completeness - while the authors do not go very deep in any one topic, they do cover all of the key points in a thorough manner. I found no gaps in coverage, and did not see the superficial treatment of the technical topics as a problem. In fact, this book is ideal for non-technical project managers who need to concern themselves with the project-oriented aspects of a web project. For the more technical members of a project team there is ample material covering every aspect of the technical approach. (3) sequencing - the phases of the project and associated workflow evidences the authors' extensive experience in web development projects. A lot of thought went into this and I couldn't help but think of the hard lessons learned on prior projects that resulted in such a refined workflow. (4) expert topics - the insets titled imparted a lot of useful information, making this book all the more valuable.
For detailed project planning and deeper look at technical issues I will always recommend Web Project Management by Ashley Friedlein. However, after reading this wonderful book I am now recommending that this book be read before tackling Mr. Friedlein's book. I also recommend that this book be provided to all key members of the project team because it shows the big picture and gets everyone pulling in the same direction. In my opinion, this book is an essential read for anyone involved in web projects.
How do you get content from the client? How do you budget for site tasks versus site team? How do you know a good client from a bad client? How do you understand your target audience? "Web Redesign Work Flow That Works" answers them all. Every site project has these issues and not going through every step as stated in this book could make or break a project. It's all about the user not only the company.
My company has developed many sites. I only wish I had this book as a resource in 1998 when I first founded my business. I would have saved thousands of hours and heart ache. This book is easy to follow and provides quick links to downloadable forms that help implement the site development process referred to within the book. I recommend this book to any and all involved in developing a site project. IT IS AN EXCELLENT BOOK!!!
I was particularly impressed with how the authors presented user research and needs analysis, and then proceeded to translate that into a functioning design which addressed those discovered needs.
Another point that I really enjoyed was the breadth of skill sets it appealed to. They talked about the need for user profiling, which would imply cultural anthropomorphic research, and also talked about staging areas and versioning control to appeal to the techies. Not only does this serve to show the various disciplines how they interoperate, but also helps to keep the readers attention and gives everyone a sense of position in the process.
Finally, they covered most bases of design, but did it in a way that it is really done. For example, in the design section, the use of thumbnail sketches and page grid layouts are shown to illustrate how you begin to build a site. While these methods are entirely personal to the designer, they offer a method of understanding to those who have no context, and a starting point to those learning.
All in all, this is a great "road map" to building a site from A to Z. While it may not drive to the depths of any particular skill or discipline, it does a fabulous job of talking about all of them and how they interoperate to accomplish the goal of building a web site.