Sep 15, 2007 | Filed in: Reviews
Author: Dan Cederholm.
Publisher: Friends of Ed.
Another popular CSS book at our office is Dan Cederholm’s ‘Markup & Style Handbook’ providing a sound foundation of best practices for CSS & XHTML web design. In a similar way to The CSS Anthology, this book asks a question, such as, “What is the best way to mark up a numbered list of items?” or “How can I use CSS to replace text with an image?” However, this book really becomes it’s own, by proceeding to suggest 3 or 4 methods with clear and concise examples, before summarising with the pro’s and con’s of each method.
It’s sectioned into chapters including lists, headings, forms, tables and layouts with the familiar Friends of Ed thumb-indexing for quick and easy access. This is one of those books that you’ll keep on your desk for regular reference rather than gather dust on your shelf.
Buy Web Standards Solutions at amazon.co.uk
Buy Web Standards Solutions at amazon.com
Sep 15, 2007 | Filed in: Reviews
Author: Dan Cederholm.
Publisher: New Riders.
A best practice CSS & XHTML book aimed at the intermediate-advanced web designer. If you’re a beginner looking to learn CSS web design I suggest you look at The CSS Anthology, CSS Mastery or Web Standards Solutions books first, then come back to this book to polish your skills.
The book dives straight into common approaches to everyday techniques. It makes an explanation as to why it may not be the best solution and suggests ‘a bullet-proof approach’ and justifies its reasoning. The book is one of few with colour illustrations which is nice and makes for clearer example images. The book concludes with a chapter demonstrating all the examples in a single website. There are some good techniques in this book and there’s bound to be something new even for the seasoned CSS web designer.
Buy Bulletproof Web Design at amazon.co.uk
Buy Bulletproof Web Design at amazon.com
Sep 15, 2007 | Filed in: Reviews
Author: Steve Krug.
Publisher: New Riders
Since reading the first edition some years ago, I always refer to this book during usability presentations and recommend it to not only designers and developers, but also consultants, project managers and even clients. When the second edition was released in 2006 I purchased a few copies for the office and made it essential reading for everyone!
It’s a very easy read and doesn’t complicate matters with technical jargon, but instead relates to everyday tasks such as likening finding a product on a website to looking for a chainsaw in a hardware store. It examines the way we use the internet, it highlights that people don’t use websites the way the designer intended and that we don’t ‘read’ websites, we scan them. It covers popular, common-sense solutions to these issues and uses clear, well-illustrated examples. It also talks about simplifying usability testing so you do enough of it, and uses some real-world examples to demonstrate.
It is an essential purchase for anyone involved in website creation and there are three new chapters in the second edition that help justify a new purchase if you already own the first edition.
Buy Don’t Make Me Think at amazon.co.uk
Buy Don’t Make Me Think at amazon.com
