Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS 1st Edition

by Dan Cederholm (Author)

86 ratings

ISBN-13: 978-0321346933

ISBN-10: 0321346939

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Bulletproof Web Design: Improving Flexibility and Protecting Against Worst-Case Scenarios with HTML5 and CSS3 (Voices That Matter)
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Provides information on successfully designing a Web site using XHTML and Cascading Style Sheets.

About the Author

Dan Cederholm is an award-winning Web designer as well as the founder of the design and development consulting firm SimpleBits.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ New Riders Pub; 1st edition (July 29, 2005)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 270 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0321346939
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0321346933
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.22 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.25 x 0.5 x 8.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #6,935,383 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #154 in XHTML Software Programming Computer
- #323 in CSS Programming
- #5,634 in Data Processing

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86 ratings

About the author

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Dan Cederholm

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Dan Cederholm is a Web designer and author living in Massachusetts. He's the founder of SimpleBits, a tiny design studio. A recognized expert in the field of standards-based Web design, Dan has worked with Google, MTV, ESPN, Fast Company, Blogger, Odeo, and others. He embraces flexible, adaptable design using Web standards through his design work, writing, and speaking. Dan is the author of two best-selling books: Bulletproof Web Design (New Riders) and Web Standards Solutions (Friends of ED). Dan also runs the popular weblog SimpleBits, where he writes articles and commentary on the Web, technology, and life. He also plays a mean ukulele and occasionally wears a baseball cap.

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2 star		6%
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Nate Klaiber

A must for any web developers library!

Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2006

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Bulletproof Web Design does an incredible job of teaching, step-by-step, how to make your website `Bulletproof.' The author introduced the book by defining what it means to have a bulletproof website. He used the example of a police officer wearing a bulletproof vest. No, it is not 100% protection against a bullet - but it decreases the chances and is extra protection. When applied to a website, this means that your website can handle the `bullets' being thrown at it. These are things like text resizing, use of assistive devices, no CSS, no images, and a few other examples.

The thing I liked most about this book is that it wasn't preaching web standards - It was simply walking you through each chapter - with each chapter building on the last - and showing you techniques that WORK. The book itself does an incredible job of keeping your attention through the use of images, highlighting, and full code listing. For those who can't quite grasp CSS (especially positioning and the like), this book is extremely helpful through its thorough explanations and visuals. Screenshots are provided each step of the way to let you see your progress.

Each chapter introduces you to new ways of handling things like text display, link display, navigation, list elements, layouts, floating, positioning, and a few others. Each chapter first take an example of a website (or aspect of a website) that is NOT bulletproof, then re-constructs that example with semantic XHTML and CSS to show you the results. The last chapter of the book brings it all together and shows you how it could be used in a production environment, with each piece of the puzzle being put together. The author doesn't dwell on the array of hacks and filters - but simply lists the ones that he uses and how they get the job done (and why they are needed).

Using proper XHTML and CSS is sometimes misunderstood. This is where many will start with a bad case of classitis and divitis and start going crazy adding extra markup. The author does a great job of creating very lean, structured, semantic XHTML. This is the XHTML that is friendly to browsers and other devices alike, as well as rich in meaning. Using proper elements to get the job done is vitally important to the meaning of the website itself. He focuses on this aspect, and with each chapter discusses the importance of the structure and not adding unnecessary presentational markup to your pages. It is this separation of presentation and content that ultimately makes using proper CSS a wise choice.

Quite frankly, this is one of the best CSS books I have read - and would recommend it to both the beginner and advanced CSS developer. This review doesn't even do the book justice - mainly because you need to buy it and read it to really enjoy the context as a whole. There are many things I could explain in more detail, and there are many different things that I learned through reading this book (some of which were things that were needed immediately). This is a no-fluff CSS book that brings everything together nicely, and a must have for any web developers bookshelf!

25 people found this helpful

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ohmysohopeless

Very practical and offers excellent practices

Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2008

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I have been a so-called "table monkey" and have been longing to become a human being. So I picked up this book.

Throughout the text, the emphasis is placed in creating an XHTML/CSS page that does not break, when the user environment and/or the browser setting are not what the site designer expect or anticipated. At first I was a little skeptical of the author's rather strict adherence to the design that does not break in situations such as, say, a user uses a very large font setting for better readability; such a consideration may be of little importance nowadays, since even Firefox 3 now "zooms" in and out the entire page contents by default, not just text fonts. Furthermore, for many web developers under pressure to produce web sites that just work "well enough" for most reasonable cases, it does seem like the practices that are recommended in this book seem to take a little more care and time than desired.

However, all the design ideas presented in this book are very well thought out, and it actually does not take much extra effort to implement, once a designer gets used to them. I am in the process of updating my web design skills from what I knew as a table monkey, and I assure that this book offers plenty of enlightenment to those in similar situations as I am. Good thing is that once I learned the techniques presented in the book, I can come up with other effective ways to use CSS to fine tune layouts. Using HTML tables still offer some advantage if you need to support older nonstandard-compliant (Microsoft) browsers, but the flexibility of CSS just cannot be beaten if the site designs require extreme attention to detail.

The only drawback is that the presentation of the XHTML/CSS codes is slightly too meticulous and verbose for someone who is already very proficient in reading them. It is also not a cheap book for the amount of contents. Highly recommended, especially considering that the good CSS support in most modern browsers has started allow us to transform ourselves from table supermonkeys to CSS subhuman.

2 people found this helpful

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Anon y. mous

No brainer. Definite MUST-HAVE.

Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2007

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I hope knocking down to 4 stars doesnt hinder people from buying this book, it is fantastic and should be in every web designer's library. Its concise, filled with well-explained and well-illustrated CSS strategies. The author's writing is one of the best I've ever seen in a technical book. Fun to follow and a great sense of humor, but very clear about what he's teaching.

I knock it down a star for two reasons, one it does focus a bit too much on people with screen readers. I know this sounds awful to say, but before I get crucified let me explain: as a designer my medium is mainly visual. While I do think it is important to keep your audience in mind for general public sites, I think for a design book the visual should be a bigger focus only because as designers we are trying to "wow" clients visually.

The other knock is that it is fairly small for a list price of $39.99 but price is an issue I have with most computer books. I would've maybe also like to see a chapter or two of random Tips & Tricks. Stuff like making text look weather-beaten by putting a GIF of "splotches" over it that I recently saw online. Maybe that's too gimmicky for this book, but you get the idea.

Despite the knocks this is a must-have CSS book and should be a definite purchase for all web designers out there. One of those you will come back to over and over.

One person found this helpful

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IfeellikeAhSaid

You need this book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 20, 2008

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I have to say that I'm suprised at one reviewer saying that it was confusing.Not at any point did I find it confusing.This book is a very very good example of how to write reusable bulletproof code. Obviously the code supplied from the website,as with ALL coding books, is not quite the same as the written examples, but hey! the point is that YOU write the code,not cut and paste.And yes he does point to others websites as examples of how they can be improved with DECENT code,bloody right, there's far too many people still writing sloppy xhtml and css,with sites that belong in the dark ages.Get with it! and get some standards.

2 people found this helpful

DAZ

Essential For All Web Designers

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 30, 2006

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Dan Cederholm's second book is a must-have for all web designers. This is essentially a 'cookbook' that uses a problem and solution approach to solve oft-encountered situations (such as creating navigation tabs). Each chapter begins with a new situation and the 'old school' (tables, spacer-gifs etc) way of doing it before explaining why this is wrong and then constructing a step-by-step bullet-proof solution. Bulletproof basically meaning that the code is more flexible, accessible and easier to maintain. This mainly involves trimming down the XHTML markup to its bare essentials and then adding everything else using CSS.

Dan's writing style is very easy to follow and the presentation of the book sets new standards for this type of book - full colour, glossy paper means that all the code examples are easier to follow and there are some excellent diagrams and screenshots.

Highly recommended.

13 people found this helpful

B. Eaton

A must for developers, designers, and hobbyists.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2005

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If you design or develop web sites then you really have to read this book. You may, as I did, think that you know a thing or two about putting together a website. Well this book in combination with Mark Pilgrim's dive into accessibility guide, and Dave Shea's CSS Zen Garden, have taught me otherwise.
While other texts explain the why, this explains the how - and it does it very well too. This is a hands-on book that takes a number of websites, points out what is wrong with them, and re-creates them using web standards. That is not to say the book preaches in a condescending tone about standards - it simply points out why the bad way is bad and the good way is good. It then does what so many standards evangelists fail to do and actually give practical guidance on how to improve websites.
Even if your eyes haven't been opened to the negative effects of poorly marked-up and low-accessibility websites you will not regret buying this.

31 people found this helpful

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Bulletproof Web Design: Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS 1st Edition

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