Designing with web standards

What Hacker News says

1. rkaregaranMay 2025
   Designing with Web Standards was the bible during the web's golden era. Peer's minds were being blown that we could lay stuff out without tables and spacers.
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2. shakabrahDec 2023
   here here. I am very thankful that when i started out a decade ago the first book i read was Designing with Web Standards. I still recommend it to noobs but i can’t necessarily blame them for not getting through it when there are more shiny things like React and Vite to learn about.

   To read that book now would be largely a history lesson because we no longer have to fight to maintain some quirk between a handful of browser versions. But man, knowing about semantic markup and really getting why that is a thing in the first place is super important.

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3. arkitaipMay 2011
   IMHO you first need to understand design, its various sub fields (i.e. typography, colors, layout), user experience design/interaction design/usability, and finally how all of this applies to the web. You can learn the basics by reading books but the only way to truly understand and master is by study this things in the world and by practicing them. Start thinking about design, analyze it in your daily life, do your own makeovers of sites you use, design a blog theme, etc, etc.

   As for web typography, you want to check of the latest generation of font embedding because that's where the real magic's at. The most known web font solutions are: CSS3 (font-face), typeface.js, cufon, flir, sifr, Google Font API, Typekit.

   Here's a list of quality books on design and typography:

       A History of Graphic Design
       Before & After Page Design
       Designing Brand Identity
       Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
       Graphic Design Solutions
       How Designers Think
       Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data
       Making and Breaking the Grid: A Graphic Design Layout Workshop 
       The Complete Manual of Typography
       The Designer's Guide to Color Combinations
       The Elements of Graphic Design: Space, Unity, Page Architecture, and Type
       The Elements of Typographic Style
       The New Typography
       The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
       Thinking with Type: A Primer for Designers
       Typography Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Using Type in Graphic Design 
   	

   Books on web design:

       About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design
       Ambient Findability: What We Find Changes Who We Become  
       Bulletproof Web Design
       Cascading Style Sheets: The Definitive Guide
       Designing Web Usability
       Designing With Web Standards
       Designing the Obvious: A Common Sense Approach to Web Application Design
       Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction
       Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability
       Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed
       Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-Scale Web Sites
       Information Architecture: Blueprints for the Web  
       Interaction Design: Beyond Human-Computer Interaction
       Rocket Surgery Made Easy: The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Finding and Fixing Usability Problems
       The Essential Guide to User Interface Design
       The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
       Thoughtful Interaction Design: A Design Perspective on Information Technology
       Web Form Design: Filling in the Blanks

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4. malandrewNov 2010
   Learn to Program.

   More specifically, learn HTML5 and CSS3. You need to know enough to be able to prototype your concept.

   Once you know enough to prototype the visual design, learn just enough javascript to make the front end behave the way it would for the end user.

   My suggestion is to start with "Designing with Web Standards, 3rd Edition" by Jeffrey Zeldman, then move on to a more complete HTML/CSS book like the Head First book on the topic. Finally, pick up the book DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith.

   Ideas are worthless without execution. Being able to prototype and model how the app will work in the hands of users is the kind of execution you should be capable of to create a minimum viable product.

   If you can do that and you can sell your vision, you should be able to attract a decent technical co-founder or at least one who can create your MVP.

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5. malandrewOct 2010
   Make sure you are writing good accessible semantic HTML to begin with. If your HTML isn't semantic, you are already starting with a huge disadvantage.

   Google is the most important blind user on the Internet. If the blind can't read and navigate your site, then Google can't index it.

   Check out Jeffrey Zeldman's book Designing with Web Standards, 3rd Edition, for advice on making sure you site is as accessible as possible.

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6. ilovecomputersDec 2009
   After learning HTML and CSS, a good followup book to recommend is Designing with Web Standards by J. Zeldman (http://www.zeldman.com/dwws/). Even though it's written for individuals who are designers or are serious about web design, it has many helpful tips and information such as the box model that the OP discussed.
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