I searched for a while but I couldn't find a question that exactly covered this topic. I'm looking for a web design book that covers both the design part and the front-end development part. What I mean by that is a book that teaches me about UI, color theory, typography, use of illustrations, etc (the design part) and also how best to work with rounded corners, forms, call to action buttons, JavaScript (incl. frameworks, AJAX) etc. I know this is a very wide topic so there might be more than one book about it, but what I'm not looking for is the generic "welcome to web design, this is tag" book or the generic let's start building a rails app book. Something to connect the dots. I hope this makes sense.
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I don't know of the best book that covers all you want to know, but one helpful book is Don't Make Me Think, about the usability part of web design.
Kathy Van Stone
2010-06-24 16:32:59
In fact there's a similar question on another stackoverflow thread:http://stackoverflow.com/questions/718186/the-best-webdesign-book.And they seem to reach to the same conclusion, Steve Krug's "Don't make me think" is at least one of the best books on UI design. Jeff Atwood (one of the founders of stackoverflow :)) is also a big fan of "Don't make me think".http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2005/08/dont-make-me-think-second-edition.htmlYou may also find this other review by Jeff interesting:http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/04/usability-on-the-cheap-and-easy.html
Diego Pino
2010-06-24 17:14:52
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I haven't read it yet, but Web Design for Developers is on my list to check out
Jason
2010-06-24 16:45:42
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Not a book but http://alistapart.com is a useful resource for front end development.
Noufal Ibrahim
2010-06-24 16:50:52
Absolutely! So are Smashing Magazine, CSS-Tricks, NetTuts, and many more blogs. The problem with them is the content is unstructured. Maybe, StackOverflow needs to come up a 'list of topics to dive in to X' wiki pointing to books/blogs/resources about that topic. That would help people just starting out, like me, a great deal!
Gaurav Dadhania
2010-06-24 17:09:54
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JavaScript recommendations, from heavy and thorough to light and introductory:
1) JavaScript: The Definitive Guide by David Flanagan. This is the grand-daddy of all JS books, the one you'd want if you were trapped on a desert island with only one book and needed to learn JS to get off. It has both a good walkthrough and a thorough reference. If you buy it, make sure you get the latest edition (fifth, I think).
2) SitePoint's JavaScript Anthology by James Edwards and Cameron Adams. I'd say it's somewhat more accessible than #1, if less thorough (but, then again, they all are), and focuses on walking you through more or less what you'd need to know to build something like a modern DOM manipulation / animation JavaScript library.
3) JavaScript and Ajax for the Web: Visual QuickStart Guide by Tom Negrino and Dori Smith. This book won't probably won't make you a JavaScript programmer on its own, but if you're coming from a place where you've mostly done design and HTML, I think it's a good gentle introduction.
Some other notable books:
Some people will also recommend Douglas Crockford's work... probably JavaScript: The Good Parts. I'm definitely a fan, but I think this is a second or third book on JavaScript, not a first. It focuses on how to understand the merits of the language and wield it elegantly, not really on introducing its usage in getting things done in a web browser.
Also... you might consider replacing recommendation #2 with one of John Resig's books. Some people have told me he does the same thing (walk you through what you need to know to build a modern JS library... and he should know, as the creator of jQuery) and better. I suspect his books might also be better as a second or third book on JavaScript as well, though.
Weston C
2010-06-24 16:56:12