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Building A Library
Like most people, I spend far too long explaining the web medium to people who are climbing a steep learning curve.
To save my time, I've put together the following list of books and sites which communicate the bare essentials to those relatively new to all this:
Usability
- Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity, Jakob Nielsen.
The seminal 'Usability for newbies' book. - Usability Engineering, Jakob Nielsen.
This is the hard-core version of the above. - http://www.useit.com.
Jakob's site of the book. - http://www.webword.com/.
Nice usability blog.
Content
- http://www.cluetrain.com/.
Possibly one of the most influential arguments for real content produced by real people. - The Cluetrain Manifesto.
The book of the site.
Information Architecture
- Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville.
The O'Reilly Polar Bear book, which contains a good clear IA methodology. - Designing Large-Scale Web Sites : A Visual Design Methodology, Darrell Sano.
Considering that the main case study is the site for the 1994 World Cup, this stands up incredibly well. Structuring Information is something which doesn't go out of date, it seems. - Squishy's Information Architecture Tutorial.
This is the basic IA tutorial at WebMonkey, and is very short and very sweet.
Marketing
- Permission Marketing, Seth Godin.
Seth used to be VP Marketing at AOL, and really does know how marketing works online. It also contains a great explanation of why Spam is bad from a business perspective. If it's unavailable in the UK, try the US Amazon site. - loyalty.com, Fred Newell.
Another primer on how CRM works online. Strong on case-studies, and full of gems such as "You can't buy my loyalty with a bribe".
Odds and Sods
- How Buildings Learn, Stewart Brand.
Yes, this is a book about Architecture, but its central manifesto, that buildings have to be adaptable to meet changing circumstances is very applicable to web sites. - Funky Business, Jonas Ridderstråle & Kjell Nordström.
Could this be the way Web companies should work?
