Deliver First Class Websites 101 Essential Checklists by Shirley Kaiser
reviewed by Chris Marshall
Sitepoint Publishing http://www.sitepoint.com/books/checklists1/ http://www.sitepoint.com/books/checklists/errata.php Released: July 2006 (1st Edition) $39.95 USD, $44.60 CND, Ł21.10 GBP, 30,00Ű Euro ISBN: 0975841904 Pages: 331 Audience: People with very little web development experience who arenŐt afraid to find out just how much they donŐt know. Strengths: Well-structured and the checklists make it easy to scan over what you need to know. Weaknesses: Switches between very basic advice and somewhat advanced detail. |
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What they say: Want to learn how to make your web sites usable and accessible? Want to ensure that your sites meet current best practice, without spending hours trawling through incomprehensible specifications and recommendations from dozens of different books, research papers, and web sites? Want to make sure that the sites you build are "right the first time," requiring no costly redevelopments?
Look no further: Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists is a comprehensive coverage of current best practice with over 100 checklists, containing over 500 individual checkpoints that cover areas such as design, usability, project management, SEO and much, much more.
Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists is a complete compendium of best practices drawn from the author's own experience and dozens of expert third-party references. It's the ultimate roadmap for web developers, project managers, and anyone involved in the process of building web sites. Each checkpoint is accompanied by an explanation and references as required, making this the most comprehensive and easy-to-understand guide to delivering high quality web sites.
Free access is provided to downloadable PDF versions of the checklists—streamlined to contain the checkpoints only, without explanations or references—for you to print and use in your own web projects.
1. LetŐs Get Started É but How?
* Planning to Stay on Schedule and Within Budget
o Effective Pre-planning
o Doing your Homework and Making Educated Decisions
o Developing a Web Site Style Guide
o Managing Like Magic: Effective Organization
o Working Together as a Team
* Summary
2. What to Find Out: Initial Questions to Answer
* Establishing your Target Audience
o Who will Visit and Why?
o How will they Visit?
* Identifying your Initial Goals
* Identifying your Budget
o Domain Name Costs
o Web Hosting
o Branding and Marketing
o Bringing in the Experts
o How Much is a Picture Worth?
o Ecommerce
o Computer Software and Hardware
* Summary
3. Preparing Web Site Content
* Gathering and Itemizing Content
* Providing Accessible Content
* Preparing Web Copy
* Preparing Images
* Summary
4. Managing all the Content
* Assessing your Web Site Content
* Determining your Content Management Needs
o Web Authoring Tool Features
o Content Management System Features
* Summary
5. Web Site Usability: Focusing on the User
* Creating a User-friendly Index Page
* Ensuring your Web Site Focuses on Users
o Providing Fast-loading Web Pages
o Accommodating User Abilities, Disabilities, Browsers, and Alternative Devices
o Ensuring Predictability
o Providing User-friendly Corrections for User Errors
* Summary
6. Color
* Preparing a Color-friendly Work Environment
* Choosing a Color Scheme
* Using Color to Enhance Functionality
o Using Color to Enhance Readability
* Summary
7. Information Architecture
* Laying the Foundations
* Improving Findability
* Organizing for Success
o Organization Schemes
o Organizing Content Structure
* Preparing Web Page Information Architecture
o Information Architecture for Ecommerce Pages
* Organizing Directories
* Using Friendly URIs, URLs, and Filenames
o Hiding Filename Extensions as Much as Possible
* Summary
8. Navigation
* Golden Rules for Effective Web Site Navigation
* Creating User-centered Global Navigation
* Creating Local or Section Navigation
* Providing Internal Page Navigation
* Adding Supplemental Navigation
o Creating Sitemaps
o Creating Site Indexes
o Creating Search
* Summary
9. Best Coding Practice: W3C Standards and Recommendations
* Magic Markup
o Separating Content from Presentation
o Ensuring the Integrity of your Markup
* Excellent XHTML
* Spectacular CSS
o Using Appropriate CSS Naming Conventions
o Beware of Browser Bugs and Problems
o Using CSS for Print
* Summary
10. Creating Accessible Web Sites
* The Bare Bones of Creating an Accessible Web Site
o Creating Valid, Structured, Semantic Markup
o Providing Accessible Navigation
* Color for the Masses
* A Thousand Words to Each Picture
o Accessible Image Maps
* Multi-purpose Multimedia
* In Good Form
* Sturdy Tables
* Summary
11. Web Site Optimization
* Creating Clean, Lean Markup
o Minimizing URLs
o Optimizing CSS
o Optimizing JavaScript
* Supporting Speedy Server Responses
* Optimizing Images, Multimedia, and Alternative Formats
* Summary
12. Search Engine Optimization
* Successful SEO in a Nutshell
* Working with Keywords and Keyphrases
o Using Keywords and Keyphrases in your Markup
* Being Search Engine-Friendly
* Avoiding Being Banned by Search Engines
* Getting Listed
* Creating an Ongoing Links Campaign
* Planning for Ongoing Maintenance
* Summary
13. Design
* Basic Design Principles
* Effective Typography
* Brainstorming
* Finalizing the Design
* Summary
14. Testing
* Getting Started
* Good Testing Practice
* General Testing
o Solid Security
* Accessibility Testing
o Conducting a Preliminary Review
o Conducting a Comprehensive Review
o Testing with a Graphical Browser
o Testing with a Voice or Text-only Browser
* Usability Testing
* Summary
15. Preparing for Launch
* Conducting Final Checks
o Checking Templates and Markup
o Checking Layouts
o Finalizing Content
o Checking Functionality
o Checking Server-side Requirements
* Conducting a Soft Launch
* Launching the Web Site
* Completing your Web Site Handover
o Checking and Finalizing Project Documentation
o Creating a Handover Package
o Archiving Project Documentation and Files
* Summary
16. Post-launch Follow-up
* Conducting a Post-launch Review
* Completing Initial Post-launch Tasks
* Orientating New Staff
* Getting Attention
* Managing Maintenance
o Undertaking Daily Duties
o Conducting Monthly Minding
o Performing Periodic Processes
o Conducting Annual Activities
* Collecting Data
o Collecting and Using Quantitative Data
o Collecting and Using Qualitative Data
* Summary
17. A. Ecommerce Checklists
* Assessing Ecommerce Content Usage and Management Needs
* Features to Seek in a Shopping Cart Program
What I say: Communication and delivery in arranging delivery were excellent, and if the web site is to be believed they have a very good customer service department which is always encouraging.
I was looking forward to reading the book as I have dabbled with developing a few personal web sites in the past, nothing commercial, and have had my fair share of good and bad web surfing experiences. The summary of the chapters was very encouraging and demonstrated a good approach and layout. I liked the idea of the checklists, although they soon became too repetitive and Ňchecklist for checklist sakeÓ.
My initial thoughts after reading the first 3 or 4 chapters was that I really couldnŐt believe that people developing web sites needed this basic level of information e.g.
- visually group similar kinds of information together,
- visually separate different information.
(Surely this is the same thing and isnŐt it pretty obvious anyway?)
I then thought about the diet industry. Strange I know, but every month we see Top 10 lists on how to lose weight and they seem so obvious; i.e. donŐt fry food, eat more fish, and each time I canŐt believe that people need to be told this, but with c 1billion obese people in the world it is obvious that people do. Whilst I doubt there are c 1billion badly designed web sites in the world there are enough for to me agree that the basics havenŐt been covered in previous developments.
At times, parts were very useful, for example the chapter on color was very good, with a good amount of technical and valuable details e.g. yellow is the brightest and most reflective of the primary colors, while red causes the most active physiological responses, BUT they then let themselves down with black and white examples which didnŐt work at all.
At other times, chapters seemed to cover similar questions and subjects and maybe it would have been better to concentrate on really key bits e.g. buying off the web, registering on a web site etc. As such I sometimes felt that the tone of the book was a little condescending, at others I felt like I was drowning in technical details. It was a real rollercoaster of a ride to be honest and I was left feeling a little queasy and disorientated.
For us Mac Geeks, there were a few good tips (pages 247/8) regarding the fact that type displays at a different size on a Mac to a PC, and which type of fonts to try and use.
Back to the diet industry analogy. I once read a 120 page report called ŇThe US Weight Loss and Diet Control Market – Introduction, Executive Overview and Demographics of Dieters Part 1Ó that summarized that to lose weight, people needed to eat less and exercise more, and that is sort of how I felt at the end of this book – I was left with a ŇI know thatÓ feeling, which is always a little disappointing when you hoped to learn a lot.
In summary: Not worth the price. Personally I would study the amazon.com web site in detail as they mention it so many times as an exceptional site and buy yourself a book on general project management.
They suggest that the people that should read their book require no technical knowledge ŇThis book is ideal for anyone involved in the process of building web sites. Whether youŐre a web developer, a project manager, or youŐre looking to commission someone to build web sites for you, the information contained in these checklists will prove invaluable. You donŐt need any technical experience to benefit from this bookÓ and I just canŐt agree with them. The middle chapters – 9 onwards do require a fairly high level of understanding just to understand what they are saying, never mind to actually implement their suggestions.
Fundamentally the book is a solid concept, but suffers from trying to cover too much and as such never actually covers anything in enough depth. The large amount of suggested reading and references are useful and prove the depth of subject, but at the same time reinforce that the book just isnŐt worth $39.95. At $19.95 it would be a more attractive proposition, but if I would much prefer to see it divided into two levels, basic and intermediate, and released as two books.
