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Title: Designing With Web Standards by Jeffrey Zeldman ISBN: 0-7357-1201-8 Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 14 May, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.25 (64 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Easier, Faster, Cheaper
Comment: Jeffrey Zeldman makes a very compelling case for designing using web standards. None of the technologies he talks about are particularly new, yet designers and developers have been slow to embrace them.
Zeldman takes us on a brief history lesson to give context to the good stuff that follows. Real world examples are then used to demonstrate the power and simplicity of using standards to create web documents. With clear explanation, backed up with learned commentary and sensible compromises, Zeldman introduces the reader to XHTML and CSS. Forward-thinking techniques, such as rules-based design, show the reader how easy it is to create documents that work in any web device, not just Internet Explorer.
This book will be useful to any designer or developer who wants to make their life an awful lot easier, and is an excellent partner to Eric Meyer's "Eric Meyer on CSS," by the same publisher, where more of the techniques discussed in the book are explored.
Rating: 1
Summary: Useless book, don't waste your money
Comment: This is the worst technical book I've ever read (and I've read thousands in my career).
It starts with 150 pages of advocacy: why it's a good idea to design with web standards. Mr Zeldman: if I wasn't already convinced that designing with web standards was a good idea, why would I buy a book called "Designing with Web Standards"?
The author is one of those humor-impaired people who think they are witty. Example: "If changing tag fashions were all there was to it, ...this book would be filled with delicious tofu recipes. Like tofu honey pie with blueberries. Yum! It's even better if you use cream cheese instead of tofu. And sugar - lots of sugar. And butter and eggs - don't forget the eggs."
If you enjoy reading drivel like that, you might like this book. Perhaps it should have been titled "Jokes that never made it to the Tonight Show". But if you want to read about designing with CSS and XHTML, don't waste your time on it.
Rating: 5
Summary: Possibly one of the best web design books I've ever read...
Comment: Target Audience
Web designers who want to move towards coding pages according to standards and forward compatibility.
Contents
This book examines the use of CSS and XHTML for web page coding in order to adhere to standards and make pages that are readable on all platforms.
The book is divided into the following chapters:
Part 1 - Houston, We Have a Problem - 99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete; Designing and Building with Standards; The Trouble with Standards; XLM Conquers the World (And Other Web Standards Success Stories)
Part 2 - Designing and Building - Modern Markup; XHTML: Restructuring the Web; Tighter, Firmer Pages Guaranteed: Structure and Meta-Structure in Strict and Hybrid Markup; XHTML by Example: A Hybrid Layout (Part 1); CSS Basics; CSS in Action: A Hybrid Layout (Part 2); Working with Browsers Part 1: DOCTYPE Switching and Standards Mode; Working with Browsers Part 2: Box Models, Bugs, and Workarounds; Working with Browsers Part 3: Typography; Accessibility Basics; Working with DOM-Based Scripts; A CSS Redesign
Part 3 - Back End - Modern Browsers: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly; Index
Review
Even though I'm a developer, I hate books on web design. Simply put, they all seem to be written by "experts" who push their opinions and studies as hard-core truth, and woe to all who don't design based on their recommendations. I really dislike dogmatic ranting in tech books, and I must admit I was not looking forward to this book with much enthusiasm. I knew I needed to read it, but it was going to be one of those things that was "good for me", but not enjoyable. Imagine my surprise when I found myself actually liking the book! There's some really good material in here...
Zeldman approaches the subject of standards-based web design from a pragmatic viewpoint. By using XHTML and CSS correctly, you can design pages that render beautifully in modern browsers, but degrade gracefully when you view them in older browsers or other devices like PDAs. The goal isn't to write pages that render exactly the same in all platforms, but to use XHTML to structure your page content, and allow CSS to control the presentation aspects of the page. By maintaining that structure/content division, other browser devices can adequately display the core content of your site without losing all page visibility. And by using CSS to control the presentation of the site, you can dramatically cut the size of your pages down, thereby reducing your overall bandwidth usage.
What I appreciated most about the book was Zeldman's humor and practicality. For instance, using nested tables to control a unique page design is bad. You can do the same thing with CSS. But rather than absolutely declare tables as being bad, he suggests a hybrid approach that may use a basic table for simple layout that would be difficult to do in pure CSS. Rather than being dogmatic about it, he focuses on what's practical to get the job done. And the writing style is very humorous and enjoyable. He definitely writes "to the reader", and there are plenty of asides and jokes that make the book approachable and "real", the perfect antithesis to other web design standards books written by "experts".
Conclusion
Quite possibly the best web design book I've read, and one that will completely change the way I write web pages.
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Title: Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design by Eric A. Meyer ISBN: 073571245X Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 28 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide by Eric Meyer ISBN: 1565926226 Publisher: O'Reilly & Associates Pub. Date: 15 May, 2000 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Cascading Style Sheets 2.0 Programmer's Reference by Eric A. Meyer ISBN: 0072131780 Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media Pub. Date: 20 March, 2001 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title: Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization by Andrew B. King ISBN: 0735713243 Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 14 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $39.99 |
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Title: Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug ISBN: 0789723107 Publisher: New Riders Pub. Date: 13 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
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