Designing with Web Standards (3rd Edition) [Paperback]

Jeffrey Zeldman (Author), Ethan Marcotte (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0321616952 | ISBN-13: 978-0321616951 | Edition: 3

Best-selling author, designer, and web standards evangelist Jeffrey Zeldman has revisited his classic, industry-shaking guidebook. Updated in collaboration with co-author Ethan Marcotte, this third edition covers improvements and challenges in the changing environment of standards-based design.

Written in the same engaging and witty style, making even the most complex information easy to digest, Designing with Web Standards remains your essential guide to creating sites that load faster, reach more users, and cost less to design and maintain.

• Substantially revised—packed with new ideas

• How will HTML5, CSS3, and web fonts change your work?

• Learn new strategies for selling standards

• Change what “IE6 support” means

“Occasionally (very occasionally) you come across an author who makes you think, ‘This guy is smart! And he makes me feel smarter, because now I finally understand this concept.’” — Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think and Rocket Surgery Made Easy

“A web designer without a copy of Designing with Web Standards is like a carpenter without a level. With this third edition, Zeldman continues to be the voice of clarity; explaining the complex in plain English for the rest of us.” — Dan Cederholm, author, Bulletproof Web Design and Handcrafted CSS

“Jeffrey Zeldman sits somewhere between ‘guru’ and ‘god’ in this industry—and manages to fold wisdom and wit into a tale about WHAT web standards are, HOW standards-based coding works, and WHY we should care.” — Kelly Goto, author, Web ReDesign 2.0: Workflow that Works

“Some books are meant to be read. Designing with Web Standards is even more: intended to be highlighted, dogeared, bookmarked, shared, passed around, and evangelized, it goes beyond reading to revolution.” — Liz Danzico, Chair, MFA Interaction Design, School of Visual Arts

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

About the Author

Dubbed King of Web Standards by Business Week, Jeffrey Zeldman (zeldman.com) was one of the web’s first designers and bloggers. He publishes A List Apart “for people who make websites;” runs Happy Cog™, a leading web design studio; and co-founded An Event Apart, The Deck, and The Web Standards Project.

Versatile user experience designer/developer Ethan Marcotte served as a steering committee member of The Web Standards Project, and has worked with clients including New York Magazine, Harvard University, and the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Books to which he has contributed include Handcrafted CSS, Web Standards Creativity, and Professional CSS. Ethan writes and does technical editing at A List Apart, and is a popular educator and conference speaker. He would like to be an unstoppable robot ninja when he grows up (unstoppablerobotninja.com).

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: New Riders; 3 edition (October 25, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0321616952
• ISBN-13: 978-0321616951
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 0.8 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #89,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #4 in Books > Science & Math > Experiments, Instruments & Measurement > Measurement

More About the Author

Jeffrey Zeldman is among the best-known Web designers in the world. His personal site (www.zeldman.com) has welcomed more than than 16 million visitors and is read daily by thousands in the web design and development industry. In 1998, Zeldman co-founded The Web Standards Project (www.webstandards.org), a grassroots coalition of web designers and developers that helped end the Browser Wars by persuading Microsoft and Netscape to support the same technology in their browsers.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Shows Importance of Web Standards November 23, 2009

By Leah Hicks

Format:Paperback

During the prehistoric era of the internet, there was no real guideline for making a website. It was done how one pleased: put a table here and there and viola, you have your layout. But tables were not meant for layout, they were meant for tabular data. Examples such as these are seen in "Designing with Web Standards," and how they can lead to the detriment of the webmaster.

While "Designing with Web Standards" is not necessarily code-intensive, it provides plenty of real-life situations where web standards are important. It is not a guide to creating your website; rather, it is a guide to improve upon it. Jeffrey Zeldman demonstrates that web standards will, in the long run, save you a lot of trouble.

This book is a good read for those who wish to clean their websites and overall make the website less time-consuming and easier to manage.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Required Reading November 25, 2009

By Richard Fink

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

As used by Jeffrey Zeldman and co-author Ethan Marcotte in the third edition of Designing With Web Standards, the term "web standards" is a catchphrase that refers to writing web pages using, as a basis, a group of free and open technical specifications. The core specs being HTML, CSS, and Java­Script. Think of them as the three legs of a tripod upon which all else rests.
In no way futuristic, this has already happened. HTML, CSS, and Java­Script are at the heart of publishing in the 21st century. DWWS3 is largely about authoring with these and other related specs in smart and efficient ways that could, more simply and accurately, be labeled best practice. The first edition of DWWS in 2003 was in large part a work of advocacy. But six Internet years have passed and today it's main­stream. As I've labeled it on my blog, Readable Web - [...], the third edition is, simply, Required Reading.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Good but November 30, 2009

By Brian Edwards

Format:Paperback

Overall good but I question the intended audience of this book. It seems to be directed at people who already know a lot about web design but then goes on to explain the basics. It glosses over a lot of the important issues and seems to ramble on and on about the trivial. The book doesn't really get started until part II. Part 1 could be 1/3 the current size if it didn't repeat itself every few paragraphs. I do like the philosophical/theory type of talk that Zeldman delves into but it just needs to be tightened up. Maybe in the 4th edition?

Anyway, part II is where the book really shines. He explains a lot directly and indirectly by which I mean he selects examples that give you specific code but that also give insight into comprehensive design decisions even when doesn't directly address them. Chapter 17 is a perfect example of this. It makes you really ponder your design decisions.

All criticism aside, I ordered the companion book "Developing with web standards" because I like Zeldman's third edition so much.