Guidelines for Online Success

One of the best, if not the best, surfer of the web is back with yet another inspiring book on website technologies. Julius Wiedemann from Taschen has recently published “Guidelines for Online Success” (co-written with Rob Ford).

This book brings together the expertise and experience of the most highly acclaimed designers and developers from every corner of the world and in a step-by-step approach gives you advice on how to get a competitive edge over the websites of your competitors. I have read this book and really recommend it to everyone who wants to match up the success of their websites to the success of websites created by the world class designers.

The book is divided into 6 sections that discuss the dos and don’ts on the following topics:

1. Interface & Design, examples including:

• Do: “Use colours that add something to your work and give the design the right balance” (p. 24)
• Don’t: “Copy others – your work is much more valuable as the original” (p. 24)

2. Marketing & Communication, examples including:

• Do: “Clearly display a Contact link at all times” (p. 78)
• Don’t: “Fail to explain what makes your company special” (p. 82)

3. Technology & Programming, examples including:

• Do: “Test! Test! Test! Nothing is really done until it’s tested online in as many variations as possible” (p. 152)
• Don’t: “Make your flash navigation file size so large that it takes too long to download” (p. 168)

4. Technical Advice, examples including:

• Do: “Make smart design to display photographs to fit different screen resolutions” (p. 210)
• Don’t: “Make the interface too complex – simplicity is the key for users to access integrated content” (p. 202)

5. Content/Content Management, examples including:

• Do: “Keep the animated sequences short and sweet” (p. 240)
• Don’t: “Overload the layout” (p. 252)

6. E-Commerce, examples including:

• Do: “Keep it simple. Customers need to feel comfortable with a cart as soon as possible, or they will be discouraged from browsing through the products on offer” (p. 290)
• Don’t: “Use long questionnaires or surveys to gain information from the user” (p. 286)

If you want to have a quick look at what this book is all about, and you don’t really feel like rushing to the bookshop or filling up the mail order forms on Amazon, then you have the option of looking up the first 50 pages of the book at Taschen online.

Some of the other inspiring books created by Julius Wiedemann can be viewed here.