Lunch With George!

Another LWG User Group Book Review:

 
This fairly technical work is called a "must read" by nearly all who own it. MIT's Philip Greenspun cuts through the crap and delivers highly useful chapters on building a web site that really works. He encourages the reader to think about Web content and functionality as something designed to help visitors answer questions or do something useful. The first chapter is called "Envisioning a Site That Won't Be Featured In suck.com"! Many illuminating examples appear throughout.

He doesn't tell you what HTML to use or solve technical issues for you. Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing instead provides more strategic suggestions. For example, Greenspun urges site developers to prototype the entire site as text pages that are fully functional-- the graphics and layout can wait until your and your customer agree on how the site should work. He also makes suggestions about your operating environment that can help you avoid poor user response times.

I have only read two chapters so far, but once I get all the way through I'll write a complete review!

Last modified 10/12/2003.