What was your criterion for picking the websites featured in the book?
There are so many reasons why a web site can be good or bad. As an art publisher, we ended up choosing a lot of web sites that were beautiful aesthetically. I divided the book into chapters covering the various areas we publish. Because of that we have art, advertising, architecture, film etc. So some web sites were chosen because they're very useful in these areas. With fashion, for instance, you have sites such as Jean Paul Gaultier's, which is important but also beautiful.
How long did the book take to research? I was surfing a lot, visiting various portals and getting recommendations to sites for around six months. One criteria was for sites that were useful or functional. If you're doing a book for people who want to take something from the web, the beauty of the site may not be their first priority.
Do you agree with Jakob Nielsen's drive for better usability on the web? I have to agree with Nielsen, as his points for better usability are so clear. One problem, though, is that the web is already so big that you have a lot of people designing sites deliberately not to be linear. If you move in the creative circles, then you'll find that their site designs have less to do with logic - they tend to be more experimental. The usability is important if you want people to learn very quickly what your site's about and how to use the tools, but there's also room for sites that are more experimental. It's like having big major studio movie productions and also more experimental art-house movies.
Flash, Shockwave et al? I think all technologies that allow you to show something you couldn't do before are helpful. Of course, all these tools are much more useful when you're connecting to the web via broadband. It's difficult to give an opinion on a site using Flash if you have to wait five minutes for everything to load! All the new software, resources and languages that you can aggregate to the internet are very useful.
So you think broadband's helping to realise more of the net's potential? I have a great example of that. I'm originally from Brazil and I still keep in touch with the news from home. Now Globo, the biggest Brazilian TV channel, is putting most of its programmes online shortly after they're broadcast. They wouldn't be possible to watch with a 56k modem! Because I have a DSL connection at home and the office, I can subscribe to the service and see great quality programmes from Brazil - not TV quality yet but we're getting close.
Will digital publishing ever replace traditional publishing? Take a look at the new prototype Sigma Book from Toshiba, which is an advanced version of the eBook. Their first version didn't succeed but they're using this one to display Manga comics.
Visit: Taschen.com
