20 Useful Web Design Books Worthy of Your Collection
If you’re in search of books on the topic of web design to expand or start up your book collection, here’s 20 web design books worth considering.
All books are linked to their Google Book Search page so you can see previews, reviews, and other related works associated with it.
1) Web Standards Creativity: Innovations in Web Design with XHTML, CSS, and DOM
Web Standards Creativity features innovative examples of beautiful and feature-rich web designs that are fully web standards compliant and includes entries by some of the world’s top web designers.
2) Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design
Designing the Obvious offers pragmatic solutions and ideas for developing web application designs to make the users’ experience more effortless and less unproblematic.
3) Designing With Web Standards
Written by the highly-accomplished designer and editor in chief of A List Apart, Jeffrey Zeldman’s Designing With Web Standards covers intermediate to advanced techniques to help you create designs that comply with current web standards.
4) Don’t Make Me Think!: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
Don’t Make Me Think! is a very popular web usability book that covers viable techniques and concepts that you can apply to a winning web design.
5) Designing Web Navigation: Optimizing the User Experience
An ineffective navigation scheme can confuse viewers and reduce the likelihood that they’ll navigate outside of the landing page. Designing Web Navigation is an in-depth book on the topic of web navigation.
6) Bulletproof Web Design
Bulletproof Web Design by Dan Cederholm talks about creating designs that cater to a large variety of situations. With websites being viewed in non-traditional ways (such as mobile devices), it’s imperative to develop accessible designs.
7) Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns
Written by the world-renowned author Michael Bowers, Pro CSS and HTML Design Patterns talks about advanced CSS/HTML models and formulas. Expect to read about browser box model differences, explanation of the different doctypes, and much more.
8) The Zen of CSS Design: Visual Enlightenment for the Web
Authors Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag discuss key design ideas for creating a visually-appealing web design. The book features designs from css Zen Garden and is a great read for anyone looking to be inspired.
9) Adapting to Web Standards: CSS and Ajax for Big Sites
Using the work of premier talented designers in its dialogue, Adapting to Web Standards discusses the application of standards-compliant designs and code that can be adopted into high-traffic websites.
10) Web Redesign 2.0: Workflow That Works
Web redesign 2.0 offers methods for web redesign workflow management. It discusses logistical constraints and how to effectively analyze feature requirements to reach the company’s goals.
11) The Design of Sites: Patterns For Creating Winning Web Sites
The Design of Sites is a very thorough and sensible book on the topic of customer-centered designs. It discusses formulas that lead to powerful web designs.
12) Web Design: Studios 2
Web Design: Studios 2 is a collection of some of the best web designs. If you’re looking for a book to inspire you on your own projects, check this one out.
13) Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance
Many projects require compliance to section 508 (especially true for government work and accessible websites). Web Accessibility shares vital information on the subject of accessibility on the web.
14) CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions
CSS Mastery is about modern CSS best practices and solutions. Two hypothetical websites are included at the end to hammer down concepts covered throughout the book.
15) HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible
Most of the books featured here aren’t comprehensive reference books, but it’s a good idea to own one that’s complete and easily-searchable. If you’re interested in purchasing one, have a look at HTML, XHTML, and CSS Bible.
16) CSS Cookbook
This book is 500+ pages of professional-grade CSS design patterns. CSS Cookbook covers all elements of a web page (including navigation, page layout, and typography) and is appropriate for intermediate to advanced CSS developers.
17) The Essential Guide to CSS and HTML Web Design
The Essential Guide to CSS and HTML Web Design is geared for beginning to intermediate web designers, or designers wanting to catch up on modern design patterns and standards-compliant coding.
18) Advanced Professional Web Design: Techniques & Templates
Advanced Professional Web Design uses a "teaching by showing" methodology. The book is accompanied by loads of customizable designs that you can use to jump start your learning.
19) Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design
Targeted for web designers who want to improve their understanding of CSS, Transcending CSS provides visual examples and talks about design workflow.
20) Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning
Designing websites involves more than just the design itself, it’s also about managing and presenting information to the client. Communicating Design offers tips on presenting designs and developing usability tests, amongst other things.
18 Comments
Zack
April 6th, 2008
Wow, great list! I’ve got a little light reading ahead of me now ;)
I can also absolutely recommend, “Prioritizing Web Usability” by Jacob Nielsen. It’s an updated and expanded version of his 2000 “Designing Web Usability”.
Jacob Gube
April 6th, 2008
@Zack: I’ve read and re-read “Prioritizing Web Usability“, I agree that it’s an excellent and ground-breaking book.
I’m a big fan of Dr. Nielsen (as I’ve confessed in my article, “20 Websites That Made Me A Better Web Developer), but I felt that I already had too many “web usability” books featured here.
For those interested, I do highly recommend checking out both books that Zack mentioned.
Here’s the link to the Google Book Search entries:
Brian Moschel
April 7th, 2008
This post made me realize how badly I need to read a CSS book. While learning CSS by experimentation, Googling, and necessity are great, books are usually a better method for learning things.
On the topic of web books, the only programming book I’ve ever actually enjoyed was the O’Reilly JavaScript guide:
http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/jscript4/
That’s a good standard on technical writing that somehow doesn’t bore readers to tears.
Sarah
April 7th, 2008
I love the css and html web design book.
Virtual Assistant
April 9th, 2008
wow! this is a great list of reading materials about web designing… but I would just like to ask you personally.Which among the list can you consider the most suitable for novice web designers like me?…
Tony
April 9th, 2008
Great list of books, have ordered “Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design”. For those that live in the UK I have ordered this from http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/ for £13.59 Delivered [Great Price]
Jacob Gube
April 9th, 2008
@Virtual Assistant: I recommend starting with “The Essential Guide to CSS and HTML Web Design” first, then buying a book on CSS such as “CSS Mastery” (which I own and love) or “CSS cookbook”.
@Tony: Thanks for giving people a heads up on the price!
Sumit
April 9th, 2008
thank you
i bought http://books.google.com/books?id=RquuwRm-l7YC
thanks
taylan
April 13th, 2008
Great books for HTML and CSS.
greg
June 18th, 2008
One of my fav’s that’s not on your list is Jeremy Keith’s “DOM Scripting” http://domscripting.com/book/
He does a fantastic job of explaining what the DOM is and how to use it.
J.Glow
June 18th, 2008
If only I had this last week – I *just* bought 4 books from Amazon (and they’re not on here!): Web Standards Solutions, Learning Web Design - A Beginner’s Guide…, Stylin’ with CSS and Build Your Own Website the Right Way Using HTML and CSS. I’m quite new to web design and these books had great reviews on Amazon. I hope I don’t have buyer’s remorse when I get them in the mail. I’ll definitely look into your suggestions, thanks!
Arthur
June 19th, 2008
although a little bit older, but still a great book: The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman
Gayle Bird
June 19th, 2008
Oh, I’ve got some validation! Several of the books I chose for our web design course are on here. Phew! :)
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