Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS - Softcover

Cederholm, Dan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0321346939 ISBN 13: 9780321346933

Publisher: New Riders Pub, 2006

Synopsis

No matter how visually appealing or packed with content your Web site is, it isn’t succeeding if it’s not reaching the widest possible audience. If you get this guide, you can be assured it will! By deconstructing a series of real-world Web sites, author and Web designer extraordinaire Dan Cederholm outlines 10 strategies for creating standards-based designs that provide flexibility, readability, and user control—key components of every successful Web site. Each chapter starts out with an example of what Dan refers to as an “unbulletproof” concept—an existing site that employs a traditional approach and its associated pitfalls. Dan then deconstructs that approach, noting its downsides and then making the site over using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). By the end of each chapter, you’ll have replaced traditional, bloated, inaccessible page components with lean markup and CSS. The guide culminates with a chapter that pieces together all of the page components discussed in prior chapters into a single page template.

About this title

Review

Book Description
No matter how visually appealing or content-packed a Web site may be, if it's not adaptable to a variety of situations and reaching the widest possible audience, it isn't really succeeding. In Bulletproof Web Desing, author and Web designer extraordinaire, Dan Cederholm outlines standards-based strategies for building designs that provide flexibility, readability, and user control--key components of every sucessful site. Each chapter starts out with an example of an unbulletproof site one that employs a traditional HTML-based approach which Dan then deconstructs, pointing out its limitations. He then gives the site a make-over using XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), so you can see how to replace bloated code with lean markup and CSS for fast-loading sites that are accessible to all users. Finally, he covers several popular fluid and elastic-width layout techniques and pieces together all of the page components discussed in prior chapters into a single-page template.

Guest Reviewer: Jeffrey Zeldman

Modern web design is user-centered, accessible, and standards-based. In other words, it's completely different from the stuff we did in the 1990s. There are two vital aspects to designing with web standards:

(1) understanding why
(2) knowing how

Know-how is what Dan Cederholm has in spades, and in this updated edition of his essential text, he shares that knowledge with humor and clarity.

Dan's is one of the smartest minds in CSS and HTML. He is internationally known as a deep and innovative coder. But his background is in design and production, working on real-world sites for no-nonsense businesses like Google, ESPN, and Fast Company, Inc.

This grounding in practical user interface design and daily production issues makes Dan a great teacher of CSS, because he never loses sight of the things designers want to do (not to mention the things designers' clients and bosses demand of them).

From multi-column layouts that stay crispy in milk, to maintaining fine control of web fonts and sizes without alienating users: just about every problem a modern web designer faces is examined, with solutions ranging from good to better to best.

This second edition includes everything you need to know about taking Internet Explorer 7 into account. Little else has changed. And that's as it should be, for this book is a classic. It belongs on every web designer's shelf.

-- Jeffrey Zeldman, author, Designing With Web Standards 2nd Edition

About the Author
Dan Cederholm is a Web designer and author living in Massachusetts. He's the founder of SimpleBits, a tiny design studio. A recognized expert in the field of standards-based Web design, Dan has worked with Google, MTV, ESPN, Fast Company, Blogger, Odeo, and others. He embraces flexible, adaptable design using Web standards through his design work, writing, and speaking. Dan is the author of two best-selling books: Bulletproof Web Design (New Riders) and Web Standards Solutions (Friends of ED). Dan also runs the popular weblog SimpleBits, where he writes articles and commentary on the Web, technology, and life. He also plays a mean ukulele and occasionally wears a baseball cap.

About the Author

Dan Cederholm is an award-winning Web designer as well as the founder of the design and development consulting firm SimpleBits. 

Edition details

• Publisher: New Riders Pub
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0321346939
• ISBN 13: 9780321346933
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 270