In Web Redesign 2.0, Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler present a one-size-fits-all overview of web development they call “the Core Process.” It seems “the Core Process” is some kind of proprietary methodology, but it’s really just some good things to remember when working on web development projects—mostly common sense. There’s a lot of jargon, and the “2.0″ in the title gives you an idea of the authors’ desire to sound trendy and high-tech.
The list of contributing experts (heavyweights such as Eric Meyer, Jakob Nielsen, and Jeffrey Zeldman) might lead you to believe that this is an important book, but those sections seem like canned content that could be dropped into any book on web development.
Some of the technical information is really strange. In this excerpt the authors are trying to explain what an include is.
“An include (noun, not verb) is a chunk of text coded and stored separately but applied globally so that it only needs to be edited once. A JavaScript include is a repeating functionality. Rather than plugging the repeating code into every page, simply reference an external file that is saved on the server separately from the HTML page. No complicated nested frames are necessary.”
“Chunk of text?” Javascript isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I think of includes, and I have no idea how frames got involved.
There are lots of positive reviews for this book on Amazon, so I could be totally wrong. This is definitely a book for scanning over coffee at Barnes and Nobel.
3 Responses to “Review: Web Redesign 2.0 by Kelly Goto and Emily Cotler”
August 1st, 2008 at 11:35 am
By the way, it’s pure coincidence that the book cover art color scheme matches my logo so well…
March 18th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
Eric, just happened upon this because of the obama image and wondered how recent this review was. The history of the book was when web companies would not share methodologies and I thought transparency and sharing was the key. So back in 1996 it started as a PDF and was then downloaded some 2,000 times. The book came to life with Emily Cotler who has her way with words (thus the ‘chunk’ of Javascript) and was originally published in 2001 – with a release party scheduled for none other than Tuesday, September 11th (we didn’t have a book party, BTW.) We were asked to re-write and update the book and did so in 2005 – but I have to say that the term “2.0″ used in the title was coined for the book BEFORE the term “2.0″ was coined by the industry. That said, MANY updates have occurred in our own workflow and thinking since that time. Currently, a combination of Agile Methods + UCD (User Centered Design) best practices are recommended as part of a enhanced and revised process. Iterative steps with ongoing testing are also part of the process. It is more of a toolkit to choose from as needed within your specific project or company. Lynda.com has some updated videos, but these are still from 2006/2007. I am currently working on a new book which will hopefully be out at the end of this year – please stay tuned and thank you for posting a thoughtful review for a book that is more than a few years old now. Still some good tips and thoughts, but it is rather straightforward at this point, I agree. Best, Kelly Goto
March 19th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Hi Kelly,
I’m honored to have your comments. I’ll definitely stay tuned.