Documentation is important in any line of work, but it is even more important in the world of web design. I recently finished reading Communicating Design: Developing Web Site Documentation for Design and Planning by Dan M. Brown. This book takes you through the proces of preparing and presenting all kinds of project documentation from writeframes and sitemaps to flow charts and user profiles. The style of the book is not really to say that you need to be doing this or that, but offer guidelines on how to create the documents that you may need for your particular project. The…
Communicating Design
Book Review: Programming Windows Presentation Foundation
I recently read Programming Windows Presentation Foundation from O’Reilly Media. The book was written using WinFX Beta 1. Since the writing of the book, there have been some changes to WinFX including a name change to .NET 3.0. Some of these framework changes will mean a few modifications to the examples in the book in order for them to work properly. For the majority of examples the changes are not extensive. Although the version used in the writing of the book is not the current version, the concepts in the book have not changed and provide an excellent introduction to…
Book Review: Flickr Hacks
I just finished reading Flickr Hacks from O’Reilly Media. Whether you are new to Flickr or are a long-time user of the online photosharing service, you can find something in this book of 50 hacks to help make your Flickr experience more enjoyable. The book is split into 7 chapters that group the hacks into common tasks such as sharing photos, participating in the Flickr community, and making use the Flickr API. As with other books in the Hacks series, each hack is rated as to how complex it is. Starting with chapter 1, the book talks about the many ways that…
Book Review: Don't Make Me Think
I just finished reading the second edition of Steve Krug’s Don’t Make Me Think. The book is short by design which makes it an easy read. In the words of the author, “you can read it on a flight.” Although there are 12 chapters, most of them are fairly short, with only two chapters taking up more than 5 or 6 pages. The author writes with a style that is engaging and witty, which keeps you interested in the book. He starts out with a brief explanation of why he wrote a second edition and what has changed in this book…
Book Review: Firefox Hacks
By Nigel McFarlane First Edition March 2005 ISBN: 0-596-00928-3 In the 6 months since it was first released out of beta, Mozilla’s Firefox browser has easily become one of the most popular open source projects in existence. It has also shaken up the browser industry, claiming roughly 8% of the market share and chipping away at Internet Explorer’s dominance. Most people are content with installing Firefox and never changing a thing, so long as it blocks pop-ups and malware. For some people, they like to be able to really dig into the guts of the software and tweak every little thing they can,…
Book Review: Defensive Design For The Web
I have just finished reading Defensive Design for the Web, written by the fine folks at 37signals. The book is divided into 10 chapters, the first 9 broken down into 40 “guidelines”. The guidelines cover all areas of defensive design, or “contingency design”, as mentioned throughout the book. These guidelines are used to drive home the overall purpose of the chapter. The writers keep the technical talk to a minimum, and really focus on what contingency design is, how it helps users, and how it is implemented in various sites around the web, if it is implemented at all. It also…