Customer-Effective Web Sites

By Jodie Dalgleish

Build e-Commerce sites that help customers achieve their goals better, smarter, and faster with 17 customer directives every site must follow to succeed. In this book, Dalgleish, a leading Gartner... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0130878278
• ISBN13: 9780130878274
• Release Date: May 2000
• Publisher: Pearson P T R
• Length: 274 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.8" x 7.3"

Customer Reviews

Important for e-commerce managers

I get the feeling that this book may immediately appear as most suited to Web designers. Actually, this book is about A LOT MORE than Web design. In fact, Dalgleish covers the full gamut of the process for both businesses and their suppliers (including Web designers). The reader is lead through the process from beginning to end - and e-commerce managers who are on the line for the delivery of results, need to know everything about what is coming, and the pitfalls to avoid. And what's unique about the book is that the end-to-end process is customer-driven, from the very questions businesses need to ask themselves when writing their strategy right through to the Way a Web designer translates the business' service offering into tangible navigation design, for example. Dalgleish makes it clear that the book was written for the whole community seeking to create Web experiences for customers; a community that needs to integrate its efforts to really deliver to the customer for competitive advantage to business and better lives for people - and that includes e-commerce managers like me. A must read.

Gems

This book deserves two or three reads. There are some real gems to be discovered. The easy-to-read writing style might disguise some really unique thinking and concepts. The author presents the concept of "theming" (where customer scenarios create "doing threads" around which navigation, metahor, utility and dialogue are wrapped) for example as a whole new way to approach Web design. The author also shows how a company can do research to identify what customers need to do on their Web site and why - and how that gets communicated to the Web designer and incorporated into a "theming" approach throught the development and testing process. The author also presents new project management and business process design techniques. Not to mention the no-nonsense way the author establishes the fact that Web sites are currently falling way short of customer expectations (without berating the point and giving tangible examples). I was also intrigued by the fact that this book was written a few months before the .com crash - much of what was foretold has come about - the point in the last chapter about "the quick and the valued" and the need for companies to establish real customer value instead of thrashing the latest fad was well made. This book should be read by everyone involved in eBusiness, across the spectrum, for a reality check, and for some fresh thinking.

Best book by far on "customer based" web development

Like Nielsen on usability and Siegel on project management, this one will become THE classic work on web development for "customer effectiveness." Thoughtful, thorough, carefully written, extremely useful for its consistent customer focus. Valuable insights on almost every page. I'm making this one required reading. This is THE book for the "post crash" web company.

Excellent guide!

If you are designing web sites for either business or pleasure - you need to read this book. It highlights what you need to be aware of in your target audience. Where do their eyes move on the page, how do you keep them from clicking off your site (no, it's not only speed).. how do you design the online experience to hold your visitors and keep them coming back? This book is really good! I have read waaaay too many of these articles in tech journals. There is no 'sponsor', no products being sold - just solid recommendations on getting an effective site up. As we know - putting a web page up is easy. Getting people to come once, and again is the challenge. Some of this information may be intuitive to those with experience, but for someone beginning to design corporate sites for ecommerce - better check this book out! Customers have very concrete expectations from an online presence ... and if you don't meet those expectations - all it takes is a click and your site is history. Very enjoyable, easy to read and very pertinent to today's web page designer.

Absolute Stroke of Genius!

I bought this book not too long ago and it has really helped my business web site. The tips it gave me were well thought-out and were incredibly helpful. All the info in this book incresed the quality of our web site and our customer interaction so much that we are getting more customers than we ever have. If you have a website involving customers, then I recommend you get this book as soon as possible as it is the most worthwhile book I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Great stuff!