The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5) - Book recommendation for state of art Web Design

Book recommendation for state of art Web Design

Can someone recommend me the best book available these days for designing world class web pages ?

Is there any general book which talk about (good/great) design in general ?

NOP (No Ordinary Programmer) ;-)
Sunday, March 7, 2004

If you go to a major bookstore, you'll discovered that just about everyone has an opinion about what makes for good web design and how everyone should do it. You might want to check out some blogs though to see what exactly is worth buying. There are TONS. I have always purchased elemental books that teaches me how to fish instead of giving me the fishes:

For typography in a succinct little book: The Elements of Typographic Style - Robert Bringhurst

Color is impossibly complex. So far I have cheated on color and bought books like the Designer's Guide to Color published by Chronical books. Others understand it much better than I do.

For form and usability, get Joel's and Tuft and other useful books of that semblance that will teach you how to think.

Li-fan Chen
Sunday, March 7, 2004

If you're a programmer, I would say web _design_ also requires lots of talent and not all of it comes from a book. If you're anything like me, you might not have the time or inclination to produce an original design that's 'state of the art'. On the other hand some will argue reasonably that all you need is an accessible website...

Seun Osewa
Sunday, March 7, 2004

Depends on how you measure "world-class". Today, graphical design contributes very little (if anything) to website's overall success.

"Cool" design may often impress, but it won't buy you repeat vistors, sales, link popularity, or anything for that matter, since today's surfers realize that graphical designer's skills have completely nothing to do with the value site provides.

If you want to build websites that people will love to use, become good at web usability and writing. These are key values in practically any website.

Egor Shipovalov
Sunday, March 7, 2004

"Designing With Web Standards" by Jeffrey Zeldman

"About Face 2.0, The Essentials Of Interaction Design" by Alan Cooper & Robert Reimann

But don't forget the wealth of free examples, tips and design advice at the Macromedia and Adobe websites.

Joe Hendricks
Sunday, March 7, 2004

NOPe

Sunday, March 7, 2004

> Depends on how you measure "world-class". Today, graphical design contributes very little (if anything) to website's overall success.

I would like to go out on a limp to rationalize these kinds of sentiments: the company I work for gets most of its design inspirations based partly on strategic objectives and user feedbacks--the creatives might keep the typeface consist or get the right color theme for the audience, but they are limited in what they can do to win the next web design award.

The people approving these design decisions or commenting on them aren't always graphics designers, but with immediate group review (Code Complete talks about trying your GUI to the guy in the next cubicle) it is possible to get the right kind of GUI situable for a large audience (say 50 milllion people).

Li-fan Chen
Sunday, March 7, 2004

If you want to design good websites, then surf the internet a lot.Seriously.

You will discover what you like, and don't like. You will run into problems with browser incompatibility, and bandwidth limitations. You will have problems with dodgy javascript and pointless java applets.

You will find it difficult to find information on pages because the search is bad, and because of webpage clutter. You will have to read a page 4 times to understand because of idiot speak, and you won't be able to click on links because someone decided it would be funky to use CSS to remove underline from links.

You will get Repetetive Strain Disorder from clicking so many times on sites where someone decided to up their hits by only having one paragraph per page. You will go through about four boxes of paper because someone did not bother to have a print friendly version of the pages.

You will get lost due to poor site structure, and image navigation menus with no ALT tags. Google will be your friend because you will not be able to bookmark interesting pages because some little shit decided to use frames.

You will give your address more times than a hooker, because some idiot decided you need to register on his site before you can view his fourth grade art!

You will have to buy a whole lot of curtains, because of all the popup and popunder windows that might be making someone somewhere money, but are definitely annoying everyone else.

Only when you know, and have removed all these impediments from your site, will you have a truly world class site.

Tapiwa
Monday, March 8, 2004

Re: Zeldman

His site http://www.alistapart.com/ transformed the way I think about design.

MacSqueeb
Monday, March 8, 2004