Product Description

Best-selling author, designer, and web standards evangelist Jeffrey Zeldman has updated his classic, industry-shaking guidebook. This new edition--now in full color--covers improvements in best practices and advances in the world of browsers since the first edition introduced the world to standards-based design. Written in the same engaging and witty style, making even the most complex information easy to digest, it remains an essential guide to creating sites that load faster, reach more users, and cost less to design and maintain.

Readers will learn from Jeffrey's insights as he demonstrates how web standards are driving search engine friendliness ("findability") and the Web 2.0 applications that have reinvigorated the medium and the online marketplace. Readers will discover new techniques to make CSS layouts work better across multiple browsers and ways to make web content more accessible.

Designing with Web Standards is an AIGA Design Press book, published under Peachpit's New Riders imprint in partnership with AIGA.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26553 in Books
• Published on: 2006-07-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

Amazon.com
Standards, argues Jeffrey Zeldman in Designing With Web Standards, are our only hope for breaking out of the endless cycle of testing that plagues designers hoping to support all possible clients. In this book, he explains how designers can best use standards--primarily XHTML and CSS, plus ECMAScript and the standard Document Object Model (DOM)--to increase their personal productivity and maximize the availability of their creations. Zeldman's approach is detailed, authoritative, and rich with historical context, as he is quick to explain how features of standards evolved. It's a fantastic education that any design professional will appreciate.

Zeldman is an idealist who devotes some of his book to explaining how much easier life would be if browser developers would just support standards properly (he's done a lot toward this goal in real life, as well). He is also a pragmatist, who recognizes that browsers implement standards differently (or partially, or not at all) and that it is the job of the Web designer to make pages work anyway. Thus, his book includes lots of explicit and tightly focused tips (with code) that have to do with bamboozling non-compliant browsers into behaving as they should, without tripping up more compliant browsers. There's lots of coverage of design and testing tools that can aid in the creation of good-looking, standards-abiding documents. --David Wall

Topics covered: Why Web standards (such as XHTML, CSS, ECMAScript, and DOM) are good for everyone, and why site designers and browser makers should move towards standards compliance.

Review
"Jeffrey and his web standards coconspirators have made it possible for those old enemies--beauty, usability, and accessibility--to play nice together in any website."  -- Louis Rosenfeld, publisher, Rosenfeld Media

"Zeldman explains complex technologies in a way that designers can not only understand, but actually get excited about.  If you are serious about web design, you need this book.  -- Hillman Curtis, author, MTIV: Process, Inspiration and Practice for the New Media Designer

From the Publisher
If ever there were an author who could make web standards exciting, it’s Jeffrey Zeldman. His light and humorous writing style make for such an engaging read. It’s only after you stop reading that you realize how much you’re learning. What’s more, you’re not just learning -- you’re learning from THE ABSOLUTE BEST web standards guy there is.

Daily, Zeldman practices what he preaches, and in this book, he openly shares all he knows. In no time, you’ll be saving time and money by creating faster, leaner, more compatible web pages. Not longer after that, you'll find you have more free time, having been spared the endless cycle of coding and re-coding web pages for every possible browser/system scenario. You might even find you have enough free time to join Zeldman on his never-ending quest to convince others that web standards is THE ONLY WAY to go.

Customer Reviews

Kindle Edition: Overpriced
Is this Kindle edition price accurately listed? $20 seems a lot to ask for an edition that has $0 resale value. Is there something in this Kindle version that outshines the majority of other Kindle books? From the sample, I see a poorly formatted TOC, and no index (or "searchable terms" index alternative). I think the author and/or publisher should reconsider this listing.

Groundbreaking Work
This was a groundbreaking work when first written. Zeldman was one of the early advocates for web standards and especially browser standards for CSS, what is now the underpinning of most quality websites. Without his work, and that of a few others (Eric Meyer among them), the web would not look quite as well as it does, and the design code would not be kept as separate from the content.

If you are already using CSS in your web pages, this book will be below your knowledge level and unnecessary to creating sites. If you are new to CSS, it is a kind, gentle, and thoroughly explicating introduction. It is a pleasant and easy read. It doesn't lay out dozens of ways to do things, but it explains a methodology and the raison d'etre. It is a must read introduction if you are contemplating a switch to CSS. Zeldman's website at zeldman.com is also useful support for this undertaking.

A must read
This book is a must read for anyone associated with a website. Designer, developer, manager.