Key texts
What is Web Design? by Nico Macdonald
This is a gem of a book. For once, a book that treats web design as just another field of Design endeavor and talks about it intelligently within the context of the wider world of graphic and communication design. Many books on this topic tend to get bogged down by issues involving current and changing technologies. This book takes a much more objective look at web design and is much more rewarding as a result.
The author describes the book so: “Web design has much in common with other areas of design and this book begins by establishing general design principles and applying them to the web… This book doesn't advocate absolute rules, as rules are specific to particular scenarios. Likewise it advocates a general model for the design process rather than an absolute approach. It doesn't address technical issues such as coding and programming, as these change from month to month and can be better learned online.”
For more information, see the companion web site, which contains updates and links. What is Web Design? is available at Amazon.co.uk for £13.19
HTML, XHTML & CSS (sixth edition) by Elizabeth Castro
Elizabeth Castro's book is an excellent start for (X)HTML beginners. It assumes nothing and there is lots of context (in the form of an excellent introduction to the book and useful chapter introductions) to help you understand how things work even before you start with (X)HTML itself. This 6th edition has been completely rewritten and is printed in full colour. The book continues the transition, begun in the 5th edition, between old-style coding and modern coding. It treats XHTML and CSS as partners in the webpage design process. The only remaining vestige of old-style coding is in Chapter 16 on Tables where tables are considered as a way of structuring a page layout. However, in the introduction to that chapter, the author is very careful to put this into context. The book also encourages readers to consider working to the latest XHTML standards and explains the importance of the DOCTYPE. The logic and reasoning behind the various editorial decisions in this new edition cannot be faulted and the content is first rate.
The working sections of the book are simple and clear and slowly build to give the reader lots of confidence. Lots of good examples showing the (X)HTML code and the browser results help you make the conceptual link between the two. One might imagine that a book of this sort is very quickly out-of-date but the author has taken the very sensible decision to work with the forthcomming IE7 browser as well as the latest versions of FireFox and Safari so that it remains current for as long as possible. A number of chapters from the 5th edition have been dropped. Those on Frames and those on depreciated XHTML tags. This in itself is good news, even better news is that there are new chapters and sections on multimedia, SEO, handheld devices, syndication and podcasting.
This remains a truly excellent book and is by far and away the best single volume introduction to webpage design. For more information, see the companion web site, which contains a full table of contents and a short extract. HTML for the World Wide Web is available at Amazon.co.uk for £13.20
Design Basics Index by Jim Krause
This book is the perfect graphic design primer for those who have never previously had to think about where and how objects should be placed on a page. The book is designed as a quick reference but can easily be read through from start to finish (recommended). It covers all of the basic components of graphic design such as colour, image, typography, and the grid but it also takes a detailed look at various concepts such as heirarchy, flow, grouping and proportion.
This is a comprehensive but compact and accessible book. It is written in a clear and informal style and along the way there are numerous exercises for the reader that help to create a better understanding of the topics being discussed. Needless to say, the book itself is beautifully designed. Everyone should read this book. Design Basics Index is available at Amazon.co.uk for £9.89
Web Style Guide by Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton
The Web Style Guide (2nd Ed.) by Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton is a relatively slim volume (just 223 pages) but it packs a lot in. The book is concise and clear and covers all the basic considerations of site and page design. In fact, this is the book you should read first if you are considering building a web site. It covers topics such as site hierarchy, page layout, typography and web graphics to name but a few. The book contains lots of example sites and explanatory diagrams, illustrated in full colour. This is another very important text for the Webpage Design course and it perfectly compliments “Web Design in a Nutshell” by covering the non-technical areas of the course.
Despite the fact that this book is now a few years old, it is not out-of-date because the authors have been careful not to focus on the technologies used for building websites nor the browsers used for displaying them. Rather, they consider the generic design elements of webpage and website design. These basic design principles hold true, irrespective of the technological context.
This book is excellent and it's even available free on the web in a HTML version at www.webstyleguide.com. However, should you need a paper copy, you can buy it from Amazon.co.uk at £8.25
Web Design in a Nutshell (third edition) by Jennifer Niederst Robbins
Web Design in a Nutshell (3rd Ed.) by Jennifer Niederst Robbins gives a very useful overview of all aspects of the Website Architecture programme. It provides a one volume "bible" of almost everything you need to know in the technical spere of web design. Not so much a "nutshell" as an 800 page tome but very reassuring to have on your desk as a one-stop reference. This third edition has been completely rewritten for compliance with XHTML 1.0 and CSS 2.1. The book is in six parts:
The Web Environment is a comprehensive explanation of the context within which web design takes place, including discussions on web browsers, web standards, web servers, accessibility and internationalisation.
The Structural Layer: XML and (X)HTML, covers a lot of the same areas as the Elizabeth Castro book except that the information is presented for reference rather than for structured learning. It's always good to have a second opinion and I would not consider one book a replacement for the other. One surprising inclusion is the chapter on Frames but as you might expect, this is dealt with sensibly with a discussion of relevant DOCTYPEs and the various pros and cons.
The Presentation Layer: Cascading Style Sheets occupies almost a quarter of the book and provides as much information on the topic as some of the dedicated titles currently available. Again, the information is structured for reference rather than learning but the content is invaluable.
The Behavioral Layer: JavaScript and the DOM is a relatively short section on JavaScript and DOM (Document Object Model) scripting. This provides a good introduction to the topic and there's even a brief look at AJAX but there are now a flood of new titles covering this area in more detail.
Web Graphics is another relatively short section, covering all the common raster file formats, including animated GIFs and provides just about all the information you need on the topic.
Media is a comprehensive look at the various common media types you might want to add to a webpage, with chapters on audio, video and flash. There is also a chapter on printing from the web which includes details on print style sheets, PDF and Flash printing.
In addition, there are five comprehensive appendices, which provide useful look-up tables for HTML, CSS, characters etc.
The strength of this book is in its depth and it's important to note that the author has not been shy of inviting contributions from others for specific areas outside of her domain. The chapters on accessibility and DOM scripting, for example, are written by experts in their field.
Although the book runs to almost 800 pages, none of them are wasted and the book does exactly what the author intended; it forms a superb one-stop reference. What else would you expect from a book that calls itself “Web Design in a Nutshell”? However, it is very much a reference book rather than a “how-to”. So, for example, although HTML is given good coverage, you may be better off with Elizabeth Castro's book if you need a “Quick Start”.
This third edition has been a while coming and although the second edition has been out-of-date for a few years now, this edition brings the book squarely back into the "must-have" category for all web designers.
Web Design in a Nutshell is available from Amazon.co.uk at £15.00
Web Standards Solutions by Dan Cederholm
OK, so you learned about XHTML and you learned about CSS and you even learned about how they can work together. But what about technique and method? What is the best practice for creating navigation bars? Never fear, Dan Cederholm is here to show you how.
In truth, many of the methods described in this book are now standard practice for the seasoned web designer but for the beginner who has just got to grips with XHTML and CSS, this book is invaluable. The book focusses on best practice coding for the most common page elements such as headings, navigation, forms, page layout, styling text and, of course, image replacement. The book is well written and although it deals with some complicated issues, it does so in an easy and engaging way.
Web Standards Solutions is available from Amazon.co.uk at £14.52
CSS Mastery (Advanced Web Standards Solutions) by Andy Budd
As its title suggests, this book picks up where Dan Cederholm's book leaves off. Essentially, Andy Budd gives us more of the same. More methods, more power, and being a more recent publication, more "now". The book covers many of the same topics as Designing with Web Standars but just takes them to the next level. The two books, though, are not interchangeable. Beginners are strongly advised to work with Dan Cederholm's book first and then move on to this one. There is lots of really nice stuff in this book but if I were pressed to pick one section over the others, it would be the two chapters on Styling Links and Creating Nav Bars. They contain some lovely methods with beautiful results.
CSS Mastery (Advanced Web Standards Solutions) is available from Amazon.co.uk at £15.83
Don't Make Me Think (second edition) by Steve Krug
This book, subtitled "A common sense approach to web usability" is just that. It makes a point of stating the obvious and the not so obvious in order to give a complete picture of website usability. The book is printed in full colour and is thoughfully illustrated - in fact, it's an object lesson in usability. Clear writing and wry humour make Krug's book a joy to read and he manages to get over some quite complicated ideas without you even noticing. There are also lots of excellent examples from real sites because as Krug points out "…you'll find that the sites I use as examples tend to be excellent sites with minor flaws. I think you can learn more from looking at good sites than bad ones." Well said.
If you follow all the excellent advice in this book, your websites will be a joy to use and your visitors will be able to find the information they are looking for, quickly and easily, with no blind alleys, no ambiguity and no frustration.
Don't Make Me Think is available from Amazon.co.uk at £16.49
Prioritizing Web Usability by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger
More than six years after the original "Designing Wed Usability", comes an entirely new book from web usability guru Jakob Nielsen with its trademark no-nonsense cover design. This time however, his views are less hard line and he seems to accept that there is a balance to be struck between the aesthetic aspects of web design and absolute usability. This is a good thing. This may, in part, be the influence of his co-author who, I suspect is more pragmatic in her approach. Between them, they have written an excellent book and one that is bound to become as well read as Nielsen's original 2000 book.
There is a great deal of depth to the topics discussed and a great deal of authority in the way in which they are presented. Essentially, the book is the result of hundreds of hours of usability testing on a wide range of websites (although it does have a bias towards commercial and e-commerce sites). It is based on real-world testing and real-world research and as such it is an extraordinarily valuable work. One does wonder why Neilsen Norman Group would want to pass all this on but it is clear that their clients are large corporate businesses and they will most likely continue to do business with the group. So we, the ordinary working web designers get to benefit from this material at a very reasonable price.
Prioritizing Web Usability is printed in full colour with many excellent examples and is well structured and clearly written (well, what would you expect from experts in usability). Topics covered in the book include; the web user experience, searching, navigation, typography, writing for the web etc. There is very little to criticise here and they appear to have thought about everything relevant to the subject and more. Although he book covers many of the same topics as Steve Krug's but it takes a much more analytical approach and between them, the two books give a good balance.
Prioritizing Web Usability is available from Amazon.co.uk at £17.99
Designing with Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman
This is a very important book. In Designing with Web Standards, Jeffrey Zeldman describes the way websites were coded in the twentieth century, clearly explains why this is now wrong and demonstrates how twenty-first century websites should be coded.
The common perception is that designing websites to web standards is onerous for the designer and transparent to the user - naturally, many designers choose to ignore web standards. Zeldman demonstrates that working with standards, creating semantically correct XHTML in conjunction with structural CSS is, in fact, liberating rather than oppressive.
Some may fear that this book will give them a hard time and that Zeldman (standards guru) will push web standards for the sake of web standards. Nothing could be further from the truth. Zeldman is himself a website designer and as such, he delivers a very pragmatic approach to coding. The examples in the book are mainly based upon XHTML 1.0 Transitional (not Strict). Zeldman even covers the use of tables for page structure, heresy to most hard-line standards coders. The truth is that Zeldman is the best sort of evangelist. One who tells you it's OK not to go by the book if that seems impractical and you won't burn in hell as a consequence.
The book is also very instructive in the way it describes the development of web browsers and helps the reader to make sense of the many peculiarities that some browsers exhibit.
This may all sound rather dull but Zeldman has a very personable approach to technical writing. He is aware of the arcane nature of much of his subject matter and does a very good job of making it accessible and occasionally humorous.
This book has changed the way many web designers think and design. Whether you are a web design beginner or a seasoned professional, this book must be read; it will help you form opinions on web coding and will certainly help you to create better sites.
Designing with Web Standards is available from Amazon.co.uk at £19.25
What is Typography? by David Jury
Like "What is Web Design?", this book is another in RotoVision's excellent Essential Design Handbooks series. David Jury is a world renowned typographer and this book is the best single volume introduction to the subject that I have seen. The book covers all the basics in surprising detail and it is clear from the ease with which he does it that the author has the experience of theaching this subject over a number of years.
The book is printed in full colour, using excellent examples to illustarte the points being made in the text and the writing is clear and easy. Although the book covers all the normal typographic conventions, David Jury is obviously a typographic liberal of the "everyone is a typographer now" school. This is a good thing. The author is accepting of the fact that, today, everyone has access to very powerful typographic tools on their computer and the aim of the book is to help the reader control this power and explain the logic behind rules and conventions and the principles of readability and legibility.
The book is divided into 3 sections:
Issues, sets contemporary typography within its historical and cultural context.
Anatomy, breaks down the discipline to look at individual tools, processes and methods.
Portfolios, illustrates the work of a number of designers and design houses.
All-in-all, it's about as complete a picture one could hope for in a single book.
What is Typography? is not specifically written for web designers (although there is a section on hypermedia) but in a sense, it's more important to know what can be acheived through typography and consequently how limiting current web design practice is in this regard rather than to focus on what a designer can do with CSS.
What is Typography? is available from Amazon.co.uk at £16.50
Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design
Andy Clarke’s “Transcending CSS”, sub-titled “the fine art of web design”, is a fantastic book. I very much hope that it is the first of a new breed of web design primers – books that consider web design as a synthesis of the artistic and the technical. As Molly Holzschlag says in the forward to this book, “One of the greatest challenges Web designers and developers face is to bridge the communication gap between highly visual and highly linear thinkers. It’s only the rare individual who has been able to show a balance between sophisticated, innovative design and progressive, complex technical issues.” Clearly, Andy Clarke is just such a person.
The book itself is full of great examples of web design accompanied by code snippets and Clarke’s cogent commentary on how they relate and why such an approach is considered good practice. Each example is also there to make a point and to carry the book forward. This is not a “tips’n’tricks” book, it is structured in a logical way and explains and demonstrates a number of important principles (such as the importance of semantic markup) in a clear and confident manner. Neither is this a beginner’s book. Clarke assumes a basic understanding of XHTML and CSS and the books aim is to take the web designer to a higher plane.
The book is divided into 4 sections; Discovery;, which introduces Clarke’s concept of “transcendent CSS” and includes many of the contemporary ideas about the use of CSS. Process considers an approach to web design that perfectly integrates graphic design with coding and focuses on finding coding solutions to graphic design problems. Part 3, Inspiration is a novelty for a book on web design; with little or no coding, its main focus is on the art and graphic design process and there is a very good section on the use of grids. The final part, Transcendence considers the use of some advanced CSS techniques with a particular emphasis on positioning and the arrangement of images and rounds off with a look at the future and CSS3.
This is a book that no web designer should be without and I fully expect to have to buy a second copy in 12 months time when the pages start falling out through overuse. If I were asked to encapsulate this book in as few words as possible, the best I could come up with would be “moodboards and markup”. The best DESIGN book for web designers by a country mile.
Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design is available from Amazon.co.uk at £23.75
