Defensive Design for the Web: How to Improve Error Messages, Help, Forms, and Other Crisis Points
by Jason Fried (Author), Matthew Linderman (Author), and Toby Braun (Technical Reviewer)
![[Book Cover] Defensive Design for the Web: How to Improve Error Messages, Help, Forms, and Other Crisis Points](/system/books/images/70/large/defensive-design-for-the-web.png?1234188041)
Let's admit it: Things will go wrong online. No matter how carefully you design a site, no matter how much testing you do, customers still encounter problems. So how do you handle these inevitable breakdowns? With defensive design. In this book, the experts at 37signals (whose clients include Microsoft, Qwest, Monster.com, and Clear Channel) will show you how.
Defensive design is like defensive driving brought to the Web. The same way drivers must always be on the lookout for slick roads, reckless drivers, and other dangerous scenarios, site builders must constantly search for trouble spots that cause visitors confusion and frustration. Good site defense can make or break the customer experience.
In these pages, you'll see hundreds of real-world examples from companies like Amazon, Google, and Yahoo that show the right (and wrong) ways to get defensive. You'll learn 40 guidelines to prevent errors and rescue customers if a breakdown occurs. You'll also explore how to evaluate your own site's defensive design and improve it over the long term.
This book is a must read for designers, programmers, copywriters, and any other site decision-makers who want to increase usability and customer satisfaction.
Other Books by New Riders Press
- Fluid Web Typography
- The type that designers use can say as much to their audience as the actual words on the page. But until now, Web designers have had an extremely limited palette of typefaces from which to choose&738212;essentially, Arial (yawn), Times (yawn), and Georgia (yawww...
- Content Strategy for the Web
- If your website content is out of date, off-brand, and out of control, you're missing a huge opportunity to engage, convert, and retain customers online. Redesigning your home page won't help. Investing in a new content management system won't fix it, either. So...
- Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design
- There’s a real connection between craftsmanship and Web design. That’s the theme running through Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design, by bestselling author Dan Cederholm, with a chapter contributed by renowned Web designer and developer Etha...
- Building Findable Websites: Web Standards SEO and Beyond
- This is not another SEO book written for marketing professionals. Between these covers you'll find practical advice and examples for people who build websites aiming to reach their target audience. Each chapter will introduce you to best practices and fresh per...