Learning Web Design. A Beginner's Guide to HTML, Graphics, and Beyond [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

Originally a graphic designer, in 1993 Niederst became one of the very first web designers when she worked on the world's first commercial website (O'Reilly & Associates' Global Network Navigator, which is no longer in publication but you can see samples of it on Niederst's own website if you want; write me for the URL). Since then she's been one of the best-known web designers around and she's written other books on the topic -- notably _Web Design in a Nutshell_, which I highly recommend you get as a followup to this one (but wait for the new second edition, due out in October 2001). Since Al Gore didn't even _invent_ the Internet until 1993, that makes Niederst the nearest thing there is to an "old-timer" in what is, after all, a pretty new profession.

Niederst has said in interviews that this book is the one she wished she'd had to give her web-design students. It won't take you long to see why; it's painstakingly thorough and detailed, just the ticket for somebody who has never written a speck of HTML code before and is a little fuzzy on just what this "Internet" thing is.

But it's also helpful to people at other stages of knowledge. The coverage (mostly HTML and graphics, with a little bit of appetite-whetting overview at the end about more advanced techniques like cascading style sheets, JavaScript, and XML) is so complete that if, like me, you learned this stuff on your own, it will fill in _lots_ of gaps in your education. (Over the last year or two I've gotten pretty proficient with text but I knew almost zilch about graphics until I read this book.) And even if you already know all this stuff cold, this book will probably still be handy as a reference and a source of helpful advice.

Then, too, it's also a handy rough-and-ready guide to the sorts of application software you might want to acquire if you're getting seriously into web design. Niederst not only introduces the major players among authoring tools and graphics packages, but steps through her examples more than once to show you how they work in, e.g., Dreamweaver and GoLive.

The style is breezy and chatty but with no loss of accuracy. You'll find out why Niederst thinks "web design is cool" and you'll learn some of "Jen's pet peeves" (e.g. spinning-globe graphics and rainbow bars), but you'll also get a thorough and accessible introduction to the nuts and bolts of web design.

If you're just getting started on the creation of web pages, this is the book to use first. As I noted above, you'll probably also want to get Niederst's _Nutshell_ book as a sequel. After that, you'll be well qualified to decide what else you need.

Niederst covers HTML and graphics in depth. With HTML, she teaches how to create a page, how to format text, how to insert graphics, how to create links, etc. The graphics section may be the strongest in the whole book. It is exactly what I was looking for as a resource to explain how graphics are edited for the Web. CSS and JavaScript get only passing attention, but that is probably to be expected.

There are a few "modern" tricks that are missing from the book. There is no discussion of the .PNG standard for web graphics. There is no discussion of the "link title" tag, which can create a rollover effect with just an HTML tag.

Niederst also spends some time on the basics of obtaining server space and putting files onto a server. I think that this is very important, because this can be the most confusing part about getting started in Web design, and other books generally omit it.

I can give this book my strongest recommendation to other teachers of web design courses. I am sure that I will refer back to it constantly.

For students, I'm afraid that it might be too broad, and for beginners my guess is that it would be too overwhelming. For example, on p.10-11 in discussing what software you need to buy, Niederst lists 3 web authoring tools, 2 text editors, and 5 graphics tools. Nowhere does she make it clear that you do not need all 10! As an experienced web designer, I know that it would be silly to work with Dreamweaver(tm) and Frontpage(tm) at the same time. But that may not be obvious to a beginner. Nor would it be obvious that if you choose an authoring tool you would not use a text editor.

This breadth of information runs throughout the book. I would think that a beginner would be better off starting with a shorter book that teaches a single approach to page construction, rather than a book that tries to cover multiple approaches at once.

The book is the cornerstone of O'Reilly's Web Studio Series of books created for newcomers to the world of the Web design. One upcoming book in the series is "Designing with JavaScript" by Nick Heinle (our former JavaScript columnist). Jennifer calls this a "prequel" to her Web Design in a Nutshell book of the same publisher. Jennifer says:

"I wrote Web Design in a Nutshell because it was the book I needed as a professional Web designer. Learning Web Design is the book I wished I had to give out as a coursebook to my classes on beginning Web design."

Part I takes you through what Web design skills you need (information architecture, interface design, graphics, HTML, JavaScript etc.), how the Web works, FTP, Web vs. print design, and the design process. Part II teaches you basic HTML and color, and III covers creating and optimizing common Web graphics formats (GIF, JPEG, & GIF89a). Part IV "Form and Function" fuses these fundamentals together to create more "advanced" techniques like fancy bulleted lists, vertical rules, sliced images, and pop-up windows.

My favorite parts of the book were the later chapters. Part IV continues with a short usability chapter that has some good advise for first-timers (site structure, metaphors, navigation design [breadcrumbs, toolbars, etc.]). Chapter 19 has some Web design dos and don'ts like keeping file sizes small, above the fold advice, chunking, fluid design, etc. The final chapter "How'd They Do That: An Introduction to Advanced Techniques" briefly covers forms, audio/video, CSS, JavaScript/DHTML, and Flash.

There's nothing here experience developers haven't seen before, but this is one of the few books that you can hand to beginning Web designers and be confident they'll be on the right track.

I have two minor quibbles with the book. The author keeps referring to style sheets, but gives them little coverage in the last chapter. Jennifer says that based on her years of teaching beginners aren't ready for CSS yet, and can barely handle HTML:

"I've gotten similar comments about the lack of CSS in the book. It was a tough decision where to cut the line for "beginners," especially since I am so pro-standards (style separate from content and all that) myself.

But in the end, it came down to audience. I based the decision on my experience teaching beginning web design courses. The people who sign up for my classes (the same people who might buy this beginners book) are NOT ready to handle style sheets. They think that Netscape owns the Internet. Even simple HTML tagging is fairly overwhelming to them. And frankly, for the types of sites they are trying to learn to make (personal sites, small organization sites, etc.), creating standard-compliant code with style information in CSS is overkill. They just want an overview of how to make sites. I teach them practical techniques that work today but make reference to style sheets as a more robust and "proper" way to go. I also provide pointers on where they can learn more about CSS on their own.

Keep in mind that the book is intended as an introduction (albeit a darn thorough one) to Web design for absolute beginners. The professional set will get a lot more out of Web Design in a Nutshell which covers CSS more thoroughly."

So I can see now why she emphasizes tables. My other quibble is in a minor technical error in the GIF compression/optimization section. The author says "GIF compression works by condensing rows of identical pixel colors." This is not technically correct, LZW works by condensing rows of identical pixel *patterns,* which would include identical colors. Jennifer says this is intended to be "a layman's description of LZW compression" as she's done in her past books.

Other than these two minor quibbles the book is a great introduction for fledgling Web designers. From WebReference.com.