Every stage in the design of a new web site is an opportunity to meet or miss deadlines and budgetary goals. Every stage is an opportunity to boost or undercut the site's usability. This book tells you how to design usable web sites in a systematic process applicable to almost any business need. You get practical advice on managing the project and incorporating usability principles from the project's inception. This systematic usability process for web design has been developed by the authors and proven again and again in their own successful businesses. A beacon in a sea of web design titles, this book treats web site usability as a preeminent, practical, and realizable business goal, not a buzzword or abstraction. The book is written for web designers and web project managers seeking a balance between usability goals and business concerns. * Examines the entire spectrum of usability issues, including architecture, navigation, graphical presentation, and page structure. * Explains clearly the steps relevant to incorporating usability into every stage of the web development process, from requirements to tasks analysis, prototyping and mockups, to user testing, revision, and even postlaunch evaluations. * Includes forms, checklists, and practical techniques that you can easily incorporate into your own projects at http://www.mkp.com/uew/.

Solve your traffic troubles and turn browsers into buyers When web design expert Ben Hunt set out to quantify the difference between an ordinary web site and a great one, he expected to find the key in design simplicity. But when his team more than doubled the conversion rates for a wide range of sites, they identified simple yet powerful solutions involving design, copy, appropriate analysis, classic optimization techniques, and targeted testing. You'll find the fixes easy to implement, and they're all right here. Understand the essentials - your market, your proposition, and your delivery. Create a site that is seen by the right people, provides a compelling experience, and generates the desired action. Learn how to use testing to improve your site's conversion rate. Discover the holistic nature of web site optimization and why multiplicity matters. Examine dozens of simple techniques for building traffic, engaging your audience, and crafting effective calls to action. Combine creativity with analysis for the best possible results. Ben Hunt is Principal Consultant for Scratchmedia Ltd. He operates webdesignfromscratch.com, which provides tutorials and advice to over 120,000 web developers each month. Ben has been designing, coding, and producing web sites for clients worldwide for more than 15 years, and is considered a leader in the web usability industry. Forewords by Ken McCarthy, founder of the System Seminar, and Drayton Bird, Drayton Bird Associates.

Introduces new Web authoring technology while reviewing design and marketing fundamentals.

This title follows a road tested experimental methodology to expose the critical steps to planning, budgeting, organising, and managing a Web design or redesign project from conceptualisation through to launch.

These eBooks are the long-awaited digital version of our bestselling printed book about best practices in modern Web design. They share valuable practical insight into design, usability and coding, provide professional advice for designing mobile applications and building successful e-commerce websites, and explain common coding mistakes and how to avoid them. You'll explore the principles of professional design thinking and graphic design and learn how to apply psychology and game theory to create engaging user experiences.

The revolutionary guide that challenged businesses around the world to stop selling to their buyers and start answering their questions to get results; revised and updated to address new technology, trends, the continuous evolution of the digital consumer, and much more In today’s digital age, the traditional sales funnel—marketing at the top, sales in the middle, customer service at the bottom—is no longer effective. To be successful, businesses must obsess over the questions, concerns, and problems their buyers have, and address them as honestly and as thoroughly as possible. Every day, buyers turn to search engines to ask billions of questions. Having the answers they need can attract thousands of potential buyers to your company—but only if your content strategy puts your answers at the top of those search results. It’s a simple and powerful equation that produces growth and success: They Ask, You Answer. Using these principles, author Marcus Sheridan led his struggling pool company from the bleak depths of the housing crash of 2008 to become one of the largest pool installers in the United States. Discover how his proven strategy can work for your business and master the principles of inbound and content marketing that have empowered thousands of companies to achieve exceptional growth. They Ask, You Answer is a straightforward guide filled with practical tactics and insights for transforming your marketing strategy. This new edition has been fully revised and updated to reflect the evolution of content marketing and the increasing demands of today’s internet-savvy buyers. New chapters explore the impact of technology, conversational marketing, the essential elements every business website should possess, the rise of video, and new stories from companies that have achieved remarkable results with They Ask, You Answer. Upon reading this book, you will know: How to build trust with buyers through content and video. How to turn your web presence into a magnet for qualified buyers. What works and what doesn’t through new case studies, featuring real-world results from companies that have embraced these principles. Why you need to think of your business as a media company, instead of relying on more traditional (and ineffective) ways of advertising and marketing. How to achieve buy-in at your company and truly embrace a culture of content and video. How to transform your current customer base into loyal brand advocates for your company. They Ask, You Answer is a must-have resource for companies that want a fresh approach to marketing and sales that is proven to generate more traffic, leads, and sales.

In the first wave of e-commerce, the challenge for designers was to create new websites for clients. Now that challenge has changed. To meet the shifting demands of the digital marketplace companies are asking designers to help them upgrade of revamp their existing sites - an entirely different and often much more difficult proposition. Featuring in-depth case studies of 22 redesigned websites, this book uses a before-and-after model to reveal the purpose of the original site, the reasons it was no longer effective and the specific ways each designer solved those problems through redesign. Screenshots illustrate the old and new designs for each site and useful sidebars address more general themes: determining how drastic a redesign should be, orchestrating a site redesign following a merger and changing the central purpose of a site (such as changing from an interactive site to an informational one).