Customer Reviews

Web Style Guide, 3rd edition: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites (Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

My impression after relying on 2nd edition to teach web design all these years is similar to the 2-star reviewer who wrote this version is laced with jargon and a difficult read. It seems this book has gone from a fundamental primer on basic web design principles that served as an excellent introduction to web design for novices to some kind of "introduction to large-scale web design" that throws newcomers off into the deep end of "analytics," "metrics," and "wireframes." I am seriously reconsidering if I can use this book in my beginning web design course anymore. I understand design tools have evolved and the Internet has become much more dynamic, and that it is certainly a challenge to know where to draw the line between "basic" and "advanced" web design concepts, but this 3rd edition seems to have over-corrected and gotten away from its core strengths. I may just stick with the 2nd edition as it seems to cover the basics much better without the addition of the new content in this 3rd edition...

...your project starts with content, business requirements, then business case and information structure; then branding, workflow, layout, usability, navigation, behavior, "look and feel", wireframes... Sarah and Peter deliver an amazing story to anybody who plays a role in a project. You may own hundreds of books that cover practically every aspect of web design and development. Or, you may get this one. So treat yourself. With every chapter you get more engaged, the examples look familiar, the information is consistent, practical, accurate, realistic, and tremendous fun. It's a web design bible.
Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites, 3rd Edition

Although this book is available online, it is nice to have a hard copy to write notes and mark up. I use this book all the time developing sites and take it with me to work and school.

This was the text book for the Information Design course I'm in. It was very affordable, informative, and easy to read. If you're taking a Web design course, or just want to get the basics so you can create a more professional looking web page, it's a great manual.

This book is great, but... as technology changes books normally cant keep up. Most of the pricipals are still in existance however some of the ideas and theorys have changed. I probably wouldnt have purchased this book if it wasnt for a class that I was taking in college.

I needed this book in two days to keep up with my online web class. Not only is this a great book for beginning or experienced web designers, Amazon handled my order very professionally and I received it on time.

So far, I am pleased with the third edition of the Web Style Guide by Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton. It is well organized and written in such a way that both the novice and the expert website designer can read it and gain helpful information. The language level is not too "techie" for the novice and is not condescending for the expert. I like that it is not married to a particular HTML editor application, but contains solid advice for designers who use any application or do all their own coding. In short, I think the Web Style Guide is well worth the price.

This book covers virtually everything you should know about planning, designing and building a web site. It's one that any web designer should have nearby. It covers a variety of topics, like usability, design, page layout and structure and content. And when initially planning your site, you should always create a mock-up of it first. If you're part of a large design team planning a site, rather than going with what you personally think is the "best site possible," you should instead go with the team's consensus idea about a site. Even if some competitor's site may be better in one or two areas, the best sites generally are ones that encompass the best overall designs.

Another concept I agree with is keeping site content clear and to the point. Do you really need to add flashy graphics if it prevents a user from quickly accessing the information they need? The same holds true with navigation. You want to insure a user can easily and quickly find the information they seek on your site. A lot of the concepts the book discusses seem like common sense advice, but in the haste of building a web site, common sense gets easily thrown aside.

The book also contains numerous screenshots of existing sites and diagrams that help to illustrate the points the authors are trying to make. I found this book to be highly informative and one I wish I'd known about a decade ago when I was first creating my own sites.

Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton's WEB STYLE GUIDE is filled with detailed instructions for how to create an attractive and functional web site. Overall it is one of the more intelligible works on the subject. But it has one major flaw: through out the material they stress into redundancy that the web designer must always keep the user of the site in focus. Who is the target audience?
This is the question which remain in my mind as I read.
Who is the target audience of the book?
Is it a college freshman who is just beginning his academic career?
Is it a someone at home who has an interest, but little formal training?
Is it a business owner who has a product to sell?
These are legitimate questions because comprehension of this material is essential to web design. Yet when the text is sprinkled with sentences of 50 or more words, which have three and four syllables it is impossible without breaking them down into smaller segments. My devious mind has to wonder why they didn't follow their own pontification and do market research as to who was reading their work since this is the third edition.
Nash Black, author of Indie finalists WRITING AS A SMALL BUSINESS and HAINTS.

The quality with all my books I've purchased through Amazon has been excellent. I would be spending double if I went through my school. Thank you for offering great deals to college students!