Neuro Web Design by Susan M. Weinschenk

A concise and compelling read, this slim volume tells you the A B Cs of marketing, with reference to web design. I can’t say I agree with some of her introductory comments: the book in general is somewhat simplistic and reads like a child’s primer on experimental psychology, so I suppose a few sweeping statements and controversial interpretations may be inevitable. The intended audience is clearly a non-technical one – in the sense of neuropsychology, that is. The irony being that many of the same people will happily read technical manuals and documentation by the cartload. Oh well.

Personally I would rather have tried to tackle some of the more challenging aspects of the subject matter, and not presumed the disinterest of my readers in the fascinating and weird world of neurons. After a particularly cringe-worthy moment where several paragraphs were spent expounding the theory that what makes us human is interconnectedness of front- mid- and hind-brains (it’s not) things settled down into an altogether more sensible thesis, which was nicely segmented into bite-size gobbets of essential info, together with key points highlighted by a friendly graphic. This layout will make it transform nicely into a handy desk reference, especially for those working on e-commerce sites.

Conclusion: a must-read for all those concerned with the commercial side of web design, or even for the casual reader who wants to have a little taste of psychology today.

Buy Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click? (Voices That Matter) from Amazon

Tags: books, brains, design, experimental psychology, handy desk reference, interconnectedness, neuro, neurons, neuropsychology, psychology today, technical manuals, useability, weinschenk, what makes us human

This entry was posted on Monday, February 1st, 2010 at 3:18 am and is filed under books, neurology, web design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.