Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites

Amazon.com
In 160 pages of expert instruction, authors Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton put the essence of the Yale University Center for Advanced Instructional Media's wonderful online site design guide into traditional print.

The book begins the presentation of its helpful and forward-looking advice with a discussion of the overall process of defining the objectives and users of your Web site, as well as the goals you will use to measure your progress. The authors then use time-tested, traditional print concepts to clearly illustrate how to make your site interface welcoming and efficient. High-quality illustrations show how to design for overall style and professional appeal. The sections on typography and editorial style set this manual apart from many Web style guides with attention to the fine details that separate the good sites from the great.

Multimedia elements and cascading style sheets (CSS) are covered, but within the overall context of building a fine site--not with the usual hype. Media compression and delivery are addressed at a high level with concrete suggestions on formats, frame rates, and image sizes for a well-balanced approach to multimedia.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

This essential guide for Web site designers provides practical, concise advice on creating well-designed and effective Web sites and pages. Focusing on the interface and graphic design principles that underlie the best Web site design, this book offers invaluable help on a full range of issues, from planning and organizing goals to design strategies for a site to the elements of individual page design. This second edition includes guidelines on designing for accessibility, strategies for maintaining a Web site, details on using style sheets, and much more. This book grew out of the widely used and highly praised Web site on site design created by the Center for Advanced Instructional Media at Yale University (info.med.yale.edu/caim/manual/). At this site, readers will continue to find updated color illustrations and examples to complement and demonstrate points made in the book, as well as useful and current online references.

Author Biography: Patrick J. Lynch is director of Web Design and Development at the Yale University School of Medicine. Sarah Horton is instructional technology specialist in Curricular Computing at Dartmouth College. She is also the author of Web Teaching Guide, available from Yale University Press.

SYNOPSIS

This essential guide for Web site designers offers clear, concise advice on creating well-designed and effective Web sites and pages. Focusing on the interface and graphic design principles that underlie the best Web site design, the book provides anyone involved with Web site design - in corporations, government, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions - with expert guidance on issues ranging from planning and organizing goals to design strategies for a site to the elements of individual page design.

Shifting away from the emphasis of many authors on HyperText Markup Language (HTML) and glitzy, gimmicky graphics, Patrick J. Lynch and Sarah Horton discuss classic principles of design, how these principles apply to Web design, and the issues and constraints of designing complex, multilayered sites. They address the practical concerns of bending and adapting HTML to the purposes of graphic page design.

This book grew out of the widely used and highly praised Web site on site design created by the Center for Advanced Instructional Media at Yale University. At this site, readers will continue to find updated color illustrations and examples to complement and demonstrate points made in the book as well as useful and current online references.

Patrick J. Lynch is design director of the Center for Advanced Instructional Media at Yale University School of Medicine. Sarah Horton is multimedia applications specialist in Curricular Computing at Dartmouth College.

FROM THE CRITICS

Donald A. Norman

At last, a book on the design of Web sites with the viewer in mind.

Booknews

This guide focuses on interface and graphic design principles underlying Web site design, and gives advice on issues ranging from planning and organizing goals, to design strategies for a site, to elements of individual page design. Addresses practical concerns of bending and adapting HTML to the purposes of graphic page design, and discusses issues and constraints of designing complex, multilayered sites. Includes a wealth of technical information on graphics and multimedia, illustrated with b&w photos and examples. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

J.D. Biersdorfer - The New York Times

Staid and solid, the book is....sort of an Elements of Style for Webmasters, and the authors even invoke that classic handboook's injunction to "prefer the specific to the general, the definite to the vague, the concrete to the abstract."

WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING

At last, a book on the design of Web sites with the viewer in mind....[It] intelligently and succinctly discusses all those topics so badly neglected by most Web sites. -- (Donald A. Norman, author of The Design of Everyday Things and The Invisible Computer) — Donald A. Norman

One of the few resources that discusses organizing information on the Web in ways that serve users. This guide addresses a critical need in a practical way. -- (Craig Locatis, National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health) — Craig Locatis