Designing with Web Standards

by Jeffrey Zeldman

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... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0735712018
• ISBN13: 9780735712010
• Release Date: January 2003
• Publisher: New Riders Publishing
• Length: 436 Pages
• Weight: 1.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 7.0" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

Entertaining, witty, easy to read, insightful. An excellent book

The title (Designing with Web Standards) of Jeffrey Zeldman's book says it all - this book promoted accessible, usable, search engine friendly web design and development through the use of XHTML and CSS while debunking the myths surrounding web standards. Zeldman is a well recognized name among web developers and designers - he's the the founder of A List Apart, and co-founder of The Web Standards Project (WaSP). His writing is entertaining, witty, easy to read, and insightful - it's very much like the content we're used to reading at A List Apart. It's also fair to mention that this book has been edited by industy experts and influencial writers like Eric Myer. Any developer that works with the web should read this book along with JavaScript: The Good Parts by Douglas Crockford.

After two years, already a classic

The problem with reviewing a technology book that is over two years old is that chances are high it is no longer accurate, much less relevant. That fear is largely unfounded when it comes to Zeldman's Designing with Web Standards. Granted certain realities have change - we no longer worry about doing ANYTHING for Netscape 4.x - but most browsers still in use at least pay lip-service to, if not flat out aspire to, Web Standards compliance and there are no shortage of sites or designers who have yet to answer the Web Standards call. Designing with Web Standards makes the practical, professional and business case for Web Standards. Zeldman lays out what has brought web development to the point it finds itself at today and shows how the standards will help you plan intelligently for what is yet to come. He takes you through some compelling cases illustrating the impact a move towards Web Standards can have on your site but does so with eyes open. His chapter "The Trouble with Standards" confronts the obstacles and frustrations that await those starting down the Web Standards path. This plain-speaking balance, along with a dry sense of humor, made me feel like he was more a co-worker sharing a new technique rather than a teacher delivering a lecture. Zeldman breaks down the "trinity" of Web Standards - structure, presentation & behavior - clearly enough to get a novice going and provides enough detail to teach the more experienced webmaster a thing or two. The book is comprehensive while not getting bogged down in too much detail. He gets technical enough for developers to feel he is speaking their tongue while really addressing those with the eye for creative design. The book's steady progression from transitional or "hybrid" design layouts to a full CSS redesign helps designers learn to gradually change they way they think about design challenges. It shows how to make measured steps in current sites without feeling like the move to Web Standards has to be all or nothing. Don't misunderstand, it is not a full-fledged "project book" like Meyer's Eric Meyer on CSS, but it does get you going in the right direction. One thing I really liked was his inclusion of a chapter on accessibility. This critical component of modern web design is often left out of Web Standards discussions. Often its only mention is that Web Standards makes it easier to make pages more accessible. While this is certainly true, Zeldman spends some time showing how. However this is a spot where the age of the book shows a bit. For example, he talks about Flash versions 4 & 5 and their lack of accessibility. While he gives Flash MX a nod for its improvements in that area, it would insightful to see the chapter revised for newer versions of the tools and technologies he mentions. The industry, and players like Macromedia in particular, have recognized the need for greater accessibility and in the intervening years have worked to improve their products. The book's appendix, or "

Book Changed My Life

For the record, I seldom give any book 5 stars period. However, this book is very well organized, witty, and is simply a well written piece of work. Be warned, if you are looking for a dry boring tech book to get you to sleep, this book won't do it, because you'll be laughing from every page.Jokes aside, underlying the creative and humorous words, there is a very serious message about how web standards saves time, money, energy, grief, and makes web sites more accessible to a bigger audience as well as those with impairments.In this book, there are practical methodologies on how to migrate into web standards using many of the little know techniques like two style sheets (one for bad browsers, one for good browsers), how to trick IE5/6 into really doing correct CSS-P, and more fun stuff. Additionally, there are many examples and references to many other excellent resources out there on the net that can help you successfully use web standards in an inspiring non-constrictive way.Admittingly though, there are a few subtle mistakes, and some of the latest and bleeding edge techniques aren't in the book, but these I discovered through the many good links Zeldman sprinkles throughout the book for us to explore. In conclusion, this book is a must have, even if you aren't interested in web standards. It's a fun read.

<h2 class="review">Designing With Web Standards</h2>

review { information: priceless format: real-world, example-based; clarity: crystal; history: eye-opening; audience: essential reading for ALL web profesionals; humor: witty and wise as always; timing: perfect - now is the time for standards and accessibility - zeldman explains why and how; why: save money, time and do the right thing; how: tons of techniques and proven tactics with real world examples; bottom-line: actively using dwws as a tool to move my agency and my clients towards standard compliant practices; }

Wholeheartedly recommended

New Rider's slogan "Voices That Matter" is one that I generally take with a large pinch of salt. In Zeldman's case, that's true. If Tim Berners-Lee is the father of the internet, Zeldman and the team at the Web Standards Project are the net's midwives. The W3C wrote the standards (or recommendations as they apologetically and coyly them), whilst Zeldman and his gang set about the hard, political and (until now) thankless task of bullying (browser-beating?) Netscape and Microsoft to conform to the standards that they'd helped set. Having brokered the end of the Browser Wars, they turned their attentions to the WYSIWYG tools like Dreamweaver, GoLive and (ahem) FrontPage, actually advising Macromedia on how to make DMX conform to Web Standards.And now, this time, it's personal. Zeldman and the WaSP warriors are coming for you."Though today's browsers support standards, tens of thousands of professional designers and developers continue to use outdated methods that yoke structure to presentation".This book is part of the campaign to educate us, the Web Professionals. It's part polemic, and part tutorial. Polemic because so many of us are yet a-standard (or even anti-standards), and tutorial because there's so much talk of why standards that a lot of us are saying "We know they're important. We know it's evil and wrong to use tables, and we know every time we use a deprecated tag a fairy dies somewhere - but how do we sew the DOM, XHTML, CSS and Accessibility all together?"This book tells you how, and - because Zeldman is a real-life designer, just like us, he isn't pontificating from an ivory tower. This reader has read enough standards-fascists shouting "Ignore the real world!" and wonders if those authors actually do the stuff they're frothing about. Zeldman tells us that "My bias [is] toward getting work done under present conditions - a bias I believe most of this book's readers share". (page 3). Inevitably, there's a forest of three-letter acronyms, and a lot of frankly rather dull stuff to get through, but Zeldman is (to this reader) as much a writer as he is Standards Samurai. There's a lot of jokes in the book. This reader is the first to admit that Accessibility, CSS, XHTML isn't the most fertile ground for thigh-slappin' gags, but there's enough wry smiles and flashes of personality to keep you turning the pages.That's enough of the tone; what's the structure? Well, the first half of the book is the polemic. If you aren't a standards convert, this will make you one. If you're already a convert, but your boss/ client isn't, strategically leaving this book on the corner of their desk could result in your professional relationship with that boss suddenly becoming a whole lot easier. Like many polemic computer books, though, there's the danger of the first half of the book preaching to the choir.The second half of the book is where the meat is. We go step-by-step through hybrid XHTML layouts, DOCTYPEs Standards Mode, Typography and Accessibili