If you are a web developer, you necessarily face complicated design issues from time to time. There are many ways to solve them like networking with web design community, visiting specialized forums, reading theme articles or books. Especially for you, I have done an in-depth research among expert web developers and arrived at the conclusion that one of the best ways to learn new web design tricks is to read books.
I mean real books, which you can borrow at the library or purchase online. It’s rather predictable that they are not free, thus, these books contain a monstrous amount of information, which will help you solve any of your design or development problems for sure. All of us are happy to live in the era of computers; however, this doesn’t mean that we should neglect real, paper books, the ones people enjoyed before.
Books are being replaced by their electronic equivalents. Some users consider this process positive, as they can do everything on the go, some miss the times when nobody was in a hurry and could relish reading an absorbing book from cover to cover in their comfy armchairs. E-books are 100% copies of the original ones, except for the nuance that you can’t touch their pages. There are plenty of devices for reading e-books on the market. Some of them give you a brilliant UX, others are not very convenient or not too reliable. And don’t forget that such portable devices need to be charged because it’s rather distressing when your “book” runs out of charge at the most interesting spot.
Hardcover books have always been loved by the enthusiastic readers. I won’t bet that they are very reliable either, but at least they can’t run out of the battery. Regular books are pleasant to read as you get not only visual but also haptic contact with the object.
The battle between classic readers and modern readers can last forever, but we don’t participate in it, right? I am here to show you the best books for advanced web developers, both electronic and hard cover. So, let’s start our list.
Web Form Design by Luke Wroblewski
Forms are extremely important for online interactions: checkout (commerce), registration (community), data input (participation and sharing), and any task requiring information entry.
In Web Form Design, Luke Wroblewski carries on an original research that involves his vast experience at Yahoo! and eBay as well as the perspectives of many other field’s leading designers to show you everything you need to know about designing effective and engaging Web forms.
Designing with Web Standards (3rd Edition) by Jeffrey Zeldman, Ethan Marcotte
This is a reincarnation of Jeffrey Zeldman’s classic, industry-shaking guidebook. It has been updated in collaboration with co-author Ethan Marcotte. This third edition covers improvements and challenges in the changing environment of standards-based design.
The book is written in the engaging and witty style, which makes even the most sophisticated information easy to digest. Designing with Web Standards will be your essential guide to creating sites that load faster, reach more users, and cost less to design and maintain.
Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS (2nd Edition) by Dan Cederholm
In Bulletproof Web Design, the author and web designer, Dan Cederholm outlines standards-based strategies for building designs that provide flexibility, readability, and user control – key components of every successful site.
The peculiarity of this book is that each chapter starts with an example of the unbulletproof site. The one that employs a traditional HTML-based approach which Dan then deconstructs, pointing out its limitations. He gives the site a make-over using XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), so you can learn how to replace bloated code with lean markup and CSS for fast-loading sites that are accessible to all users. Besides, he covers several popular fluid and elastic-width layout techniques and puts together all of the previously discussed pieces and components into a single-page template.
Handcrafted CSS: More Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm, Ethan Marcotte
This book explores CSS3 that works well in today’s browsers.
Whether you’re a Web designer, project manager, or a graphic designer wanting to learn more about the fluidity that’s required when designing for the Web, you’ll discover the tools to create the most flexible, reliable, and bulletproof Web designs here. After reading this book you’ll be able to persuade your clients to adopt innovative and effective techniques that make everyone’s life easier while improving the end user’s experience. Seven chapters of this book deconstruct various aspects of a case-study Web site for the Tugboat Coffee Company, focusing on aspects that make it bulletproof and demonstrate progressive enrichment techniques over more traditional labor-intensive methods.
Don’t Make Me Think! A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug, Roger Black
In “Don’t Make Me Think”, usability expert Steve Krug distills his years of experience and observation into clear, practical and amusing common sense advice for designers, programmers, writers, editors, and webmasters, project managers, business planners, marketing people and even the people who sign the checks.
Krug’s clearly explained, easily absorbed principles will help you understand that all the hard work input into your site is producing something that people will actually want to use.
The Shape of Design by Frank Chimero
Frank Chimero wraps up his ideas in a clear, strong voice that is witty and poignant at others. If you create things, the book’s insights will inform the way you think about your work, regardless of how you make your living.
Mobile First by Luke Wroblewski
This book is a complete, strategic guide to mobile web design. Former Yahoo! design architect and co-creator of Bagcheck Luke Wroblewski knows a lot about mobile experience and packs all this knowledge into this entertaining, to-the-point guidebook. Its data-driven strategies and battle tested techniques will make you an expert of mobile and improve your non-mobile design, too!
Kaizen: The key to Japan’s competitive success by Masaaki Imai
This is a comprehensive handbook that covers 16 Kaizen management practices for professional managers or students of management. KAIZEN uses more than 100 examples in action and contains 15 corporate case studies, which considerably simplifies the process of studies.
HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible by Steven M. Schafer
The book teaches to speak the right language to conquer the Web by means of deciphering the code and using the right tools. This comprehensive guide demystifies HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) so you can create sophisticated and interactive Web pages, robust applications, and as many other ways of interacting on the Web as you can think of. You’ll also learn to code cool content for many mobile devices that include a browser.
CSS Cookbook by Christopher Schmitt
Get past CSS theory that will allow you to give web pages more structured and a more sophisticated look.
Head First Web Design by Ethan Watrall, Jeff Siarto
Want to know how to make your pages look beautiful, communicate your message effectively, guide visitors through your website with ease, and get everything approved by the accessibility and usability police at the same time? “Head First Web Design” will help you master all of these complex topics, and understand what’s really going on in the world of web design.
With this book, you’ll learn the secrets of designing effective, user-friendly sites, from customer requirements to hand-drawn storyboards all the way to finished HTML and CSS creations that offer an unforgettable online presence.
The revised two-color edition of this book includes a free online version of the chapter on web color as well. You can easily access this chapter at Oreilly.com once you register your book.
Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design by Robert Hoekman Jr.
“Designing the Obvious” belongs in the toolbox of every web designer and developer. “Designing the Obvious” explores the character traits of great Web applications and uses them as guiding principles of application design so the end result of every project instills customer satisfaction and loyalty. These principles include building only what’s necessary, getting users up to speed quickly, preventing and handling errors, and designing for the activity.
Designing the Obvious does not offer a one-size-fits-all development process; in fact, it lets you use whatever process you like. Instead, it offers practical advice about how to achieve the qualities of great Web-based applications and consistently successfully reproduce them.
The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web by Dave Shea, Molly E. Holzschlad
This inspiring book uses examples from the landmark CSS ZenGarden site as the foundation for discussions on how to create beautiful, progressive CSS-based Web sites.
By using the Zen Garden sites as examples of how CSS design techniques and approaches can be applied to specific Web challenges, the authors Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag provide an eye-opening look at the range of design methods made possible by CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). By the time you’ve finished perusing the volume, you’ll have a new understanding of the graphically rich, fully accessible sites that CSS design facilitates. In sections on design, layout, imagery, typography, effects, and themes, Dave and Molly take you through every phase of the design process – from striking a sensible balance between text and graphics to creating eye-popping special effects.
Web Design in a Nutshell: A Desktop Quick Reference (In a Nutshell (O’Reilly)) by Jennifer Niederst
Web Design in a Nutshell, is one of the first books to capture the new web landscape with an edition that’s been completely rewritten and expanded to reflect the state of the art. In addition to being an authoritative reference for (X)HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, this book also provides an overview of the unique requirements of designing for the Web and gets to the nitty-gritty of JavaScript and DOM Scripting, web graphics optimization, and multimedia production. It is an indispensable tool for web designers and developers of all levels.
Organized in a way that readers can find answers quickly, Web Design in a Nutshell, Third Edition helps experienced designers come up to speed quickly on standards-based web design, and serves as a quick reference for those already familiar with the new standards and technology.
There are many books for web designers, but none that addresses such a wide variety of topics.
PHP OOP: Quick & Dirty for Advanced Learners by Subhash Chandran
This is a quick introduction to PHP Object Oriented Programming for readers familiar with OOP concepts and having basic knowledge of PHP. The book covers syntax, namespace, dependency management, packaging, unit testing and documentation aspects.
Source code referred in the book can be downloaded: books.wiztools.org/php-oop-book/code.zip
This is my list of best web design books for beginners and advanced designers, both hard cover and electronic ones. If you know any more great books, or disagree with my choices, let me know! I appreciate every single line of feedback you leave. I hope that you liked my list or even bought one (or several) of the books to improve your web design knowledge.
