>Now that I have the correct address in the to line......
>
>I want to improve my web design skills (look and feel, not back-end
>programming). Can anyone recommend any good books out there for artistically
>challenged folks like me? Something with the current trends and
>technologies. I have the entire Macromedia Studio MX 2004 suite (Flash,
>Fireworks, Dreamweaver, Freehand, Homesite). I also have Photoshop 6 I
>believe.
I'm soooooo biased. Very, very, veeery biased. Be warned.
The best thing to do to improve your website design is to learn a little (or a
lot!) about usability.
Most "design" problems are actually usability problems: color choices, font
styles and size, display choices, etc.
When you see a nasty "myspace" site with all-centered, white text on a textured
black background screaming music while blinking you're looking at an ignorance
of usability in addition to a lack of design.
That's not to say that artistic talent isn't (greatly) beneficial: often the
best online artists follow usability guidelines almost instinctually. By the
same token a talentless artist that does follow usability guidelines will
always produce a better designed site than the one that doesn't.
At the same time artistic inclinations (especially those informed by
print-world traditions) do not make for usable web sites. Those pretty sites
with the itty-bitty, unreadable, graphics-based body text and the long,
time-wasting Flash intros? Those are done by artists that don't know anything
about usability.
That being said here's my "starter" list:
+) Don't Make Me Think! (Steve Krug)
This is a thin book and a very easy read (you can most likely read it in a
weekend). It's humorous (or at least not dry) and (following it's own advice)
written in clear, easy to understand language. The core of the book is about
eliminating the complexity that often faces users (and most often results in
turning them into somebody else's users).
+) Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity (Jakob Nielsen)
This is a wonderful book. He breaks down areas of concern into manageable
chunks and, most importantly, offers useful tools determine your success rate
(when was the last time you percentage mapped your pages into "content",
"advertising", "navigation" and "dead space"?)
+) Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed (Jakob Nielsen)
This one is getting dated, but should be seen as a companion piece to the
first. It's a coffee-table book that presents over 100 basic usability
guidelines then "grades" 50 popular home pages as to how well they've met them.
Then there are some books which really don't have anything to do with the web
but really have everything to do with it. They talk more generally about the
way people think and react and how design needs to understand that.
+) The Design of Everyday Things (Donald Norman)
The book looks at common, every day objects in a smooth, conversational tone
and examines what we like and dislike about them, how they help us to
understand them and how they hinder us.
+) Any of the Edward Tufte Books ("The Visual Display of Quantitative
Information", "Envisioning Information", "Visual Explanations: Images and
Quantities, Evidence and Narrative" and "Beautiful Evidence").
Any of these books are worth the effort (they are dense and somewhat scholarly)
but if possible read them in order of publication. His books (all beautiful,
self-published coffee-table-like books) each cover specific areas of design:
numbers, visualization of data, narrative, etc using a tremendously diverse
collection of examples.
I think these books, more than just about any other, have really helped me with
my web design: simplify, remove the "chart junk", make sure that
representations are consistent, etc.
If you've an option to, find and take one of his courses
(http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses). The price is really cheap: about
$350 last I did it and you get (included) ALL of his books and several other
things (posters, etc) bringing the "real" cost of the seminar down to under
$100. He's an incredibly engaging speaker.
Jim Davis
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