Book Review: Web Design for Developers

A Programmer's Guide to Design Tools and Techniques
Author: Brian P. Hogan
Format: Paperback, 300 pages
Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1st edition (December 15, 2009)
ISBN-10: 1934356131
ISBN-13: 978-1934356135

While there can be some overlap between web designers and web developers, they tend to define their own specific worlds. However, what if a programmer would also like to be better at design? Where does he or she go? Turns out Brian Hogan and the folks at Pragmatic thought in that direction as well and came up with Web Design for Developers. I guess the title gives it away. But is this book just for programmers who want to learn design?

On the surface, the answer to that question seems to be "yes". You've created a killer web app but the appearance of said-killer app looks lousy...or at least doesn't look as good as you'd like it to be. Of course, you probably know someone who could help out with the design, but it might be nice to be able to do the job yourself. How to begin? The blurb on the back cover mentions magic words such as PhotoShop and CSS so I'm guessing that's where you'd start. I still can't imagine that a book like this is only for programmers, though. Let's dig a little deeper.

Well I'll be darned (or something). As I began looking through the book, the target audience seems to be folks who are cracker jack web developers but who really don't have much of a clue about how to actually design a web site. I point you to Chapter 9: Building the Home Page with HTML as proof of this. For people who've mastered the arcane intricacies of ASP, PHP, Python, and Ruby on Rails, I wouldn't think a simple markup language would be much of a chore, and for some programmers I know, it's not. Actually, for most programmers I know, it's not. On the other hand, while HTML might not be much of a basic challenge to a developer, creating a web site and making it look good could be an uphill climb, as it requires something of an artistic way of viewing the web.

That explains the earlier chapters in this book, which includes basics on style, color, fonts, and graphics. To my relief, Hogan did mention both GIMP and PhotoShop, so his book isn't a slave to proprietary software. That's good, because designing for the web can be done very expertly utilizing the world of open source tools. This also gets at what I was alluding to a few paragraphs ago. Do you have to be a programmer to benefit from this book? No.

What do at least some web developers and any one else who wants to design web sites but have little or not experience with the job have in common? The question provides the answer. There's nothing in the book's presentation of the topics involved that can only be understood by programmers. If a developer can read and understand font and typographic basics, so can the non-developer. The would-be web designer picking up this book will likely get the same information and skills practice as the programmer thumbing through the pages.

I particularly liked the section called Adding Graphics, which contained a number of chapters instructing the reader how to put together a mock-up site, focusing on structure and content. If you don't have experience making an image in your imagination turn into a real web site design, these chapters will help you operationalize your images and your dreams...and this comes before even one word about HTML and CSS.

Another nice feature in the book that I rarely (but not never) see is how to design for web browsers. The author slams Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and rightly so, but also addresses what you have to do to design for IE's tendency to work outside of accepted standards, particularly IE6 (which should just plain be abandoned). From designing for people who are visually impaired to designing for mobile devices, Hogan hits all the areas someone building for the web in 2010 needs to understand.

The mock-up site designed early in the book has a life throughout its pages and acts as an anchor for developing and refining all of the different tools and techniques practiced by the reader. Some content, such as testing and performance optimization (Chapter 20) might be more familiar to programmers than other folks, but, if you've gotten this far in the book, you'll probably be ready to tackle such tasks anyway.

I can't say the book is revolutionary or that I haven't seen its content in other books, but taken all by itself, Web Design for Developers is a good primer for anyone who would like to learn web design from a global perspective. From graphics, to color, to fonts, to HTML/CSS, and onward, Brian Hogan has written a solid little book that should get you off the ground and into web design, whether you're a programmer or not.

The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks

Author: Rachel Andrew
Paperback: 400 pages
Publisher: SitePoint; 3rd edition (July 28, 2009)
ISBN-10: 0980576806
ISBN-13: 978-0980576801

I previously reviewed the 2nd edition of this book, so I was interested in what was changed and/or added in its current incarnation. Of course, the release of Firefox 3 and IE 8 are enough to warrant an updating of "tips and tricks" relative to CSS and web design, but was there more? The back cover blurb didn't indicate such, but I looked further.

The Preface seemed a likely place to start. There is no What has changed in this book section. The What's Covered in this Book? portion is a detailed summary of the TOC, but doesn't mention how chapters here compare to those in the prior edition. The Who Should Read this Book? piece is as you might expect: aimed at people who need to use CSS, such as designers and developers, and who don't need a lot of hand holding. Sorry if that sounds "snarky", but this book has always been about getting up to speed fast and dispensing with high level explanations and theory.

Chapter 1 is actually a quick tutorial on CSS, if you need a bit of a refresher. That shouldn't really include the main audience for this book, but there will be people who buy Andrew's text who might benefit. Chapter 2 also tends towards "the basics" as the title indicates: Text Styling and Other Basics. Fortunately, this chapter is also the start of the "anthology" content of the book, offering information formatted as Question, Solution, and Discussion. The Discussion part of each "tip" is certainly the largest, containing information on any specifics, curve-balls, and gotchas that may be contained in the particular technique involved.

Chapters are organized into functions such as Navigation, Tabular Data, Forms and User Interfaces, and so on, so if you have an area of interest or need, just shoot right to the relevant chapter, and then find the required task. Chapter 6 is the "Forms" chapter, but is really only half the story. Yes, it covers the browser end of forms, but of course, they won't really work unless you have the server side configured as well (think PHP, for instance). In that sense, the chapter and the book operate as one piece in the larger puzzle of web design and development. It's also a reference by design, so don't imagine that it's the first book you'll need to learn CSS.

I was mainly interested in Chapter 7: Cross-browser Techniques, since that's the primary reason for issuing another edition of this book. Designing websites for different platforms requires the designer to think in very broad terms, depending on the designer's audience. You have to address the most widely used browsers (unless you're serving a niche market), plus consider both PC/Mac, and mobile device platforms, if you care about that sort of thing. A common newbie designer mistake, is to create a site and test it on only one browser (and only one version of that browser), and only one OS. I've created what I thought of as a beautiful site when viewed in Firefox on Linux, but that turned out to be a "problem child" when I looked at it in IE 7 on XP. Andrew includes a nice little table on page 220, outlining the various browser and OS platforms to consider, including Safari, Chrome, and Konqueror, so a lot of thought has been given to this matter.

Chapter 7 is the "testing" chapter, instructing the reader on the options for being able to view their creations on Windows, Linux, and Mac (Linux live CDs, dual booting options, and so on). We are all some kind of "user". I tend to be a Linux user, but my wife exclusively uses Windows, and my daughter tends towards Mac. Developers have preferences as well, but letting those preferences dictate how you design and test can be a critical mistake, especially if you're doing this for money, and your company wants your product to work equally well for all customers.

I've read bad reviews on the previous edition of this book but, in my opinion, it was the reviewers who made the mistake. Their basic assumption was that they could learn CSS, more or less from scratch, by reading Andrew's text. This is not the intent of this book. If you know little or nothing about web design in general, and CSS in particular, acquire those skill sets first. This book is intended to help the reader solve specific problems, relative to the latest OS, browser, and hardware platforms, not to be a general introduction to the topic.

SitePoint offers a couple of forums to support the book, which is great, since I sometimes have questions about content that I can't get answered any other way. I did find the pop-ups on the forums rather annoying, though. Nice that you want to market your books, SitePoint, but if I'm on your site, I'm already aware of them and interested. Don't kill the "magic" by being too commercial.

If previous reviews of a book are good (as is the case with this book), then usually (unless the publisher or author decided to completely throw a monkey wrench into the machine) subsequent editions will maintain the quality. Fortunately for SitePoint and Andrew, the 3rd edition is up to snuff. If you fit the audience profile, and need to update your CSS skills for the most current browsers and so forth, The CSS Anthology: 101 Essential Tips, Tricks & Hacks should be on your wish list.

Sexy Web Design: Creating Interfaces that Work

Author: Elliot Jay Stocks Format: Paperback, 172 pages Publisher: SitePoint (March 28, 2009) ISBN-10: 0980455235 ISBN-13: 978-0980455236 There are just about a ton of web design books on the market. Better make that two tons. What makes this one so different that yet another book on the topic graces the shelves of our local bookstores...I mean, besides the fact that it's "sexy"? In terms of design (and a lot of other things), the term "sexy" doesn't quite mean a scantily clad curvy woman or buff man (although I suppose it could). It means a design that is highly attractive and appealing to the eye. Erotic imagery is used to sell everything from cars to sunglasses because it attracts attention. Anything that attracts (positive) attention to your web site design can be considered "sexy". Is this book "sexy"? Does it teach "sexy" design? Let's find out. I suppose it helps that the object on the book's cover is a two-tone '57 Corvette Stingray. Classic sports cars are "sexy", and I think the classic lines of a jet black 'vette are totally hot. However, Jina Bolton uses the word "sexy" at least eight times on the first page of the Foreword. Perhaps she's just trying to define the author's terms, but overuse of this particular vocabulary word could make it, and the concept, old fast. Who should read this book? Glad you asked. According to the Preface, the field is wide open. Anyone, from the web design newbie who has just installed Dreamweaver on his or her PC for the first time, to the seasoned design veteran who is an expert at the nuts-and-bolts of web design but needs help in the "art department". That's usually the kind of book you want to write when you want your book to appeal (be sexy) to the widest possible audience (and thus sell to the widest possible audience). As I was thumbing through the book's front matter, I was still waiting to see if the hype was worth the price of the content. I saw that the book was supported by a web page on the SitePoint site. Having recently had a bad experience with a supporting (or rather non-supporting) site for a book I'd reviewed, I decided to check this one out right away. No promise of being able to download the source code for the book (you'll see why later in the review), so I didn't bother looking for that. There was the promise of an errata page which I found, but the book's only been available for a month, so I wasn't surprised that nothing had been submitted as yet. Otherwise, the site hosted "the usual suspects" including a sample chapter, the TOC, much of what I'd already read in the front matter, and so forth. Like other, similar web design books (including ones published by SitePoint), the book is written to appeal to the artist or, in the author's words, "The reason I'm a designer is a simple one: I like making stuff look pretty". This actually is a better book for the non-artist who usually needs more help in designing an attractive website, as opposed to mastering the mechanics of building a website. Even if you know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to the best of your ability and can do web design while doing the ironing, taking out the trash, and watching American Idol (you poor thing), you may still not be able to design an attractive website. Frankly, no one is going to marvel at your technical excellence in web design if your sites look ugly or even just "ho hum". On the other hand, you will be marvelled at (and hired) if your sites are technical wonders and look fabulous. Chapter one is all about the description of the design process, beginning to end. I've seen this in a number of other books, but it is sometimes neglected when it should be required. It's not enough to know the technical aspects of the various languages involved; you also need to understand planning and intent of a site. The chapter, though small (and the whole book is less than 200 pages), is packed with examples of each of the author's points. In fact, in each page's footer is the URL to the sites used as examples, so you can view them in your web browser as you're following along in the book. While Chapter one is a summary of the entire process, Chapter two focuses more on the specifics of the research involved in web design. So far, there is no hint at even a scrap of code, so much of what goes on in the first 43 pages is conceptual. I was expecting to see some code pop out at me in Chapter 3, but such was not the case. Instead, next on the agenda was a chapter outlining site structure. Again, information was presented from a conceptual rather than "practical" point of view. So far, all the tools you really need to work with this book and to learn its lessons are a pad and a set of markers. Sketching and diagramming both the form and substance of a site are emphasized, but don't expect to see a bit of HTML and CSS at this point. In fact, will it ever appear? Actually, no. This book doesn't teach you how to produce the various design effects it describes in terms of using HTML and CSS but rather, how to plot, plan, and scheme what makes a sexy site sexy. From this perspective, the book doesn't stand alone, particularly for the design newbie who has just installed Dreamweaver on their PC but hasn't done anything else. Yes, it is important to understand every single word of what this book describes if you truly want to create more than just a standard, run-of-the-mill site, but if you don't know how to translate your planned design into an online reality by using the necessary technologies, you might as well just hang all of your drawn designs on your bedroom wall and call them "art". This actually isn't a slam against the book. As I said, the concepts it teaches are highly valuable, especially for the technically adept web designer who may have only gotten a "C" in their "Introduction to Art" class. That said, you'll still need to be technically adapt in order to make any practical use of what the book teaches, particularly since Stocks doesn't actually teach how to turn his "pretty" designs into web pages that'll display in a browser by referencing the necessary code samples. Master the craft first, then buy this book to study the art.

Review: The Principles of Successful Freelancing

Author: Miles Burke Format: Paperback, 200 pages Publisher: SitePoint; illustrated edition (December 28, 2008) ISBN-10: 0980455243 ISBN-13: 978-0980455243 When I think of SitePoint, I think about books on topics such as HTML, CSS, and various programming languages. I also reviewed a SitePoint book on project management, so I know they can step outside of that "sphere" on occasion. On the other hand, what does a book on freelancing have to do with the technical subjects normally put out by this publisher? I was a tad surprised to find out that Toby Somerville, one of this book's technical editors, has been "a web applications architect and a freelance web developer". Maybe this book isn't as "generic" as it sounds. Author Miles Burke has been a web designer for over a decade and created his own web company a few years back. Perhaps, with the background of some of the "players" being what it is, the book will focus on freelancing relative to web design and development, rather than for other fields. I suppose I should take a step back from this review and explain that, for a number of years, I worked as a freelance technical writer, author, and editor. It wasn't entirely by choice, since people in my field don't often find "in-house" jobs that pay a salary with benefits, but you take the work that you're offered. That said, now that I have a "day job" that I'm well satisfied with, I continue to pursue other projects, both to develop multiple income streams and to maintain my professional flexibility. I should be well suited to review Burke's text. According to the blurb in the front matter, this book was written for people who want to freelance and like it. The target audience includes someone currently in a "day job" who wants to "be their own boss" (and all the headaches that entails) or someone who has recently graduated and is concerned that getting a job won't be all that easy to do. I know first hand that freelancing isn't an easy lifestyle. Burke's book is intended to address the struggling freelancer and organize their efforts into a career. Another part of the blurb confirmed that Burke wrote his book specifically with web designers and developers in mind, but that the principles should apply to just about any job-type that can be done freelance. Interestingly, the book starts out with a definition of the term "freelance", complete with references to Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. I would have thought if a history lesson was in order, it would be about the modern development of the freelance career model. The Ivanhoe "medieval mercenary" reference was OK, though. Kind of makes the freelancer feel like a "Ronin" in feudal Japan (notice my tongue is now firmly in my cheek). The book reminded me somewhat of the SitePoint Project Management book I mentioned before. Essentially, although the book's content can be applied to all freelance careers, the thrust of the book examines applying the freelance "principle" in a technical context. Another way to look at it is, the book is most aimed at the technical person who wants to apply their skill sets to the role of freelancer. The project management book was very similar, with the technical person having an eye on the role of project manager. With all that in mind, it's appropriate for this text to be reviewed and presented in various technical venues such as this blog, but for those of you who don't know HTML from CSS, you can still get plenty out of what's being presented. Burke does dig into his own experiences and references the company he founded by example, so he isn't speaking just "in theory". There are also "case studies" at the end of each chapter, citing real world examples of freelancers. The real value I see in this book is that it organizes the topics a freelancer has to consider and act upon to build such a career path. It's not that it would be impossible to come up with the same information on your own after doing your research, it's just that Burke puts a large amount of the research results between this book's covers. You'll still need to do more work developing a plan that relates to your specific skills, goals, and career field. This book can't be all things to all freelancers. It can just give you a leg up, so to speak, as to what you are facing and how to deal with those issues. Another advantage this book presents is as a way to help the reader decide if freelancing is for him or her. Some people, especially after a bad day at the office, might overly romanticize the idea of "being your own boss" (think of the "Ronin" analogy I used before). It sounds really appealing after you've been "chewed a new one" by your manager over one thing or another. Burke's book brings it down to Earth and lays out the nuts and bolts of what freelancing takes. Freelancing's not for everyone. For the cost of this book though, you can get enough practical advice to help you decide if you want to pursue a freelance career or part-time freelance gig. You don't have to step into it blind. While Burke's book is good, I don't think it can take the place of doing a lot of the footwork yourself. You're still going to have to see what the demand is for your skill sets in the freelance market in your area, determine the specifics of where you need to pump up your training, and do the rest of the analysis that will tell you if what you have to offer is significantly valued in your environment. You'll need to perform that work to see if what you've got will pay off for you as a freelancer. Of course, this book will give you some very good places to start, and a foundation on which to build your data and your conclusions. Be glad Miles Burke wrote this book. It'll save you some steps.