A solid reference of the latest features in HTML5 and CSS3. Weyl’s clear, approachable writing makes it easy to understand for beginners and practical for more advanced front-end developers. Good to have on hand for mobile web designers and developers.
The first section of Sue Apfelbaum and Juliette Cezzar’s new book gives an informative primer for editorial design and its elements such as format, identity and typography. The book then jumps right into case studies and interviews, which are the bulk part of the book. While the real-world examples are useful, the book is missing the entire practical aspect of designing the editorial experience, something that I was hoping to read and learn when I decided to make the purchase.
As with his excellent JavaScript: A Beginner’s Guide, John Pollock makes jQuery approachable and easy to understand. Pollock not only clearly explains the concept of jQuery, he also walks you through step-by-step tutorials of how to use it. He builds each exercise gently from one to the next. jQuery: A Beginner’s Guide is a required read for anyone who wants to add rich user interaction to the web.
A thorough and approachable guide to UX design. In addition to McKay’s clear writing, do-and-don’t examples make UI is Communication a required read for students and novice designers.
A historical overview of typography in the twentieth century. Blackwell’s accessible writing, clear organization, each chapter covers a decade of the development of type, and rich visual illustrations make the complex revolution of type and typography approachable. While the new, revised edition is completely redesigned with updated information, the original version is much easier to read. The first edition is set in large Gill Sans with just one column. The revised version set in tiny Helvetica with two columns. If you can still find a copy of the original release, I highly recommend it.
A typographic reference that focuses on breath rather than depth. It’s a comprehensive guide you can flip through to find quick answers, practices and inspirations on typography for your projects. Keeping it on your shelf is not a bad idea.
David Karlins’s book should have titled Developing Mobile Websites with jQuery. The book is essentially about making a mobile website using jQuery and jQuery Mobile. I am still not convinced that developing a mobile site with jQuery is better than a responsive site. Right out of the box, you have to include a jQuery mobile CSS, a jQuery library and a jQuery Mobile library. If you want your own design, you have to add another custom CSS. On the other hand, if you design a responsive site from scratch, you can just have one CSS with only the styles you need and one JavaScript file with only the functions you need.
As far as a book on learning jQuery Mobile, this one is a bit too long. jQuery Mobile isn’t that hard to learn and Kris Hadlock’s jQuery Mobile: Develop and Design is much more concise in getting the job done. It’s a bit older, but the concepts still applied.
Perhaps Clarissa Peterson’s Learning Responsive Web Design comes a bit too late into the responsive movement. If you’re still new to the game, however, you might want to scoop this comprehensive guide for beginners. The chapters on responsive content and performance are highly recommended.
An intriguing psychological introduction to user-interface design. The chapter on how we read alone is worth checking out. Although the design of the book could be better, real-world illustrations and practical guidelines make it an essential read for web and interactive designers.
Writing web content is hard. Writing clear, useful, and friendly web content is much harder. Fortunately, Nicole Fenton and Kate Kiefer Lee’s Nicely Said, a concise, practical writing guide, will help you to accomplish that with ease. Whether you’re a designer or content strategist, you’ll learn finding your voice and writing how you speak. Required reading for anyone who works with content.