Web navigation is, ideally, something you never have to think about as a Web site visitor or user. As a Web designer, however, it is among your primary concerns. If you need a good education on this particular subject, you'll find a great resource in O'Reilly's Designing Web Navigation. It's an outstanding guide to building effective, professional navigation for sites of all kinds.

Writing analysis

It's unfortunately rare that a technical book be well-written these days, but Designing Web Navigation bucks the trend. The writing is clear, and though it is generally concise, the author isn't afraid to go into detail when necessary.

Putting the book to the test

Also rare among technology books, Designing Web Navigation is in full color. Roughly half of the book's pages have a screen shot example to show a concept in action. Most of them are positive, though there are a few worst practices examples from current Web sites. I don't generally like "naming and shaming" in books like this, but the way it's done in Designing Web Navigation, sites that have bad design elements are shown as being successful despite those flaws.

This book is easy to read, exceptionally easy to understand because of the graphical examples, and fun to progress in because of the creative use of color and the excellent chapter summaries and questions. Designing Web Navigation is comprehensive in its coverage of its title topic. The book starts out explaining the purpose of navigation and the various ways it can be implemented, then progresses into planning, designing, and evaluating a good Web navigation scheme for every imaginable scenario.

Summary and conclusions

In all ways, this is a unique book. It was well planned, creatively executed, and its graphic-heavy style with colorized headings shows that the book itself has an effective interface. So not only is this book about creating user-friendly Web interfaces, but it is also an excellent example of good interface design. There is no doubt that you'll get an outstanding education in Web interface design from reading this book.