Let's admit it: Things will go wrong online. No matter how carefully you design a site, no matter how much testing you do, customers still encounter problems. So how do you handle these inevitable breakdowns? With defensive design. In this book, the experts at 37signals (whose clients include Microsoft, Qwest, Monster.com, and Clear Channel) will show you how. Defensive design is like defensive driving brought to the Web. The same way drivers must always be on the lookout for slick roads, reckless drivers, and other dangerous scenarios, site builders must constantly search for trouble spots that cause visitors confusion and frustration. Good site defense can make or break the customer experience. In these pages, you'll see hundreds of real-world examples from companies like Amazon, Google, and Yahoo that show the right (and wrong) ways to get defensive. You'll learn 40 guidelines to prevent errors and rescue customers if a breakdown occurs. You'll also explore how to evaluate your own site's defensive design and improve it over the long term. This book is a must read for designers, programmers, copywriters, and any other site decision-makers who want to increase usability and customer satisfaction.

Getting Real details the business, design, programming, and marketing principles of 37signals. The book is packed with keep-it-simple insights, contrarian points of view, and unconventional approaches to software design. This is not a technical book or a design tutorial, it's a book of ideas. Anyone working on a web app - including entrepreneurs, designers, programmers, executives, or marketers - will find value and inspiration in this book. 37signals used the Getting Real process to launch five successful web-based applications (Basecamp, Campfire, Backpack, Writeboard, Ta-da List), and Ruby on Rails, an open-source web application framework, in just two years with no outside funding, no debt, and only 7 people (distributed across 7 time zones). Over 500,000 people around the world use these applications to get things done. Now you can find out how they did it and how you can do it too. It's not as hard as you think if you Get Real.

"Jason Fried and David Hansson follow their own advice in REWORK, laying bare the surprising philosophies at the core of 37signals' success and inspiring us to put them into practice. There's no jargon or filler here just hundreds of brilliantly simple rules for success. Part entrepreneurial handbook for the twenty-first century, part manifesto for anyone wondering how work really works in the modern age, REWORK is required reading for anyone tired of business platitudes." --Chris Anderson, New York Times bestselling author of THE LONG TAIL and FREE "House-husband, housewife, Fortune 500 CEO, cab driver, restaurateur, venture capitalist -- this is 'the book for you,' a book of true wisdom, business wisdom, life wisdom. The clarity, even genius, of this book actually brought me to near-tears on several occasions. Just bloody brilliant, that's what!" --Tom Peters, New York Times bestselling author of IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENCE, THRIVING ON CHAOS and LEADERSHIP "If given a choice between investing in someone who has read REWORK or has an MBA, I'm investing in REWORK every time. This is a must read for every entrepreneur." --Mark Cuban, co-founder of HDNet and Broadcast.com and owner of the Dallas Mavericks "Inspirational...REWORK is a minimalist manifesto that's profoundly practical. In a world where we all keep getting asked to do more with less, the authors show us how to do less and create more." --Scott Rosenberg, Co-Founder of Salon.com and author of DREAMING IN CODE and SAY EVERYTHING "The brilliance of REWORK is that it inspires you to rethink everything you thought you knew about strategy, customers, and getting things done. Read this provocative and instructive book—and then get busy reimagining what it means to lead, compete, and succeed." --William C. Taylor, Founding Editor of Fast Company and coauthor of MAVERICKS AT WORK

The “work from home” phenomenon is thoroughly explored in this illuminating new book from bestselling 37signals founders Fried and Hansson, who point to the surging trend of employees working from home (and anywhere else) and explain the challenges and unexpected benefits. Most important, they show why – with a few controversial exceptions such as Yahoo -- more businesses will want to promote this new model of getting things done. The Industrial Revolution's "under one roof" model of conducting work is steadily declining owing to technology that is rapidly creating virtual workspaces and allowing workers to provide their vital contribution without physically clustering together. Today, the new paradigm is "move work to the workers, rather than workers to the workplace." According to Reuters, one in five global workers telecommutes frequently and nearly ten percent work from home every day. Moms in particular will welcome this trend. A full 60% wish they had a flexible work option. But companies see advantages too in the way remote work increases their talent pool, reduces turnover, lessens their real estate footprint, and improves the ability to conduct business across multiple time zones, to name just a few advantages. In Remote , inconoclastic authors Fried and Hansson will convince readers that letting all or part of work teams function remotely is a great idea--and they're going to show precisely how a remote work setup can be accomplished.