Web Design Book Recommendations

Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability (Paperback)

Have you ever noticed that some websites are a lot friendlier than others?

On some websites you can find what you are looking for without much or any effort — it just jumps out at you. On other websites, you may be so swamped with information (e.g., the the new NOAA site) that you have trouble finding anything.

The term is “usability” — and most of us have not thought much about it. I have just found a highly-recommended website usability book called Don’t Make Me Think. It is fun, humorous and easy to read as well as giving great "good" and "bad" examples.

If you’re using FrontPage, get FrontPage 2003 The Missing Manual. FrontPage 2003: The Missing Manual offers help from the basics to meaty sections on advanced tasks.

FrontPage 2003: The Missing Manual includes “Up To Speed” sidebars with tips for beginners and “Power Users’ Clinic sidebars on advanced topics.

HTML for the World Wide Web with XHTML and CSS: Visual QuickStart Guide, Fifth Edition (Paperback)

This is an excellent book. Not only did I purchase the 3th edition, I also purchased the 5th edition — and consider that this was a good, worthwhile purchase.

I have a more detailed review of HTML for the World Wide Web in the book reviews section of my main site.

HTML for the World Wide Web, Tenth Anniversary Edition : Visual QuickStart Guide (Visual QuickStart Guides) (Hardcover)

If I hadn’t already purchased the paperback version of the Fifth Edition, I’d buy this Tenth Anniversary Edition.

HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS (Paperback)

Designing web pages and web sites using HTML and CSS, and without Tables! Excellent resource for beginners to Cascading Style Sheets, as well as for more advanced web designers.

The CSS Anthology (Paperback)

The CSS Anthology is designed to give you a number of cook-book CSS solutions to common web site design problems.

The PHP Anthology, Volume I: Foundations (Anthology) (Paperback)

The PHP Anthology is a resource book for PHP programmers. Wonder how to do something? You are likely to find it here. Folume 1 focusses on giving you a foundation in current PHP designs.

The PHP Anthology, Volume II: Applications (Anthology) (Paperback)

The PHP Anthology is a resource book for PHP programmers. Wonder how to do something? You are likely to find it here. Folume 2 focusses on building the PHP’driven applications.

Build Your Own Database Driven Web Site Using PHP & MySQL

Very good book that takes you step–by–step through the process of creating a web site, using PHP for scripting and the open-source MySQL database for storage of the site’s information.

DHTML Utopia Modern Web Design Using JavaScript & DOM (Paperback)

I recently purchased this book, but haven’t started reading it yet. I like the SitePoint books — they have the right mix of overview, detail, discussion and interleaved examples that make learning easy.