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Designing With Web Standards
You code. And code. And code. You build only to rebuild. You focus on making your site compatible with almost every browser or wireless device ever put out there. Then along comes a new device or a new browser, and you start all over again.
You can get off the merry-go-round.
It's time to stop living in the past and get away from the days of spaghetti code, insanely nested table layouts, tags, and other redundancies that double and triple the bandwidth of even the simplest sites. Instead, it's time for forward compatibility.
Isn't it high time you started designing with web standards?
Standards aren't about leaving users behind or adhering to inflexible rules. Standards are about building sophisticated, beautiful sites that will work as well tomorrow as they do today. You can't afford to design tomorrow's sites with yesterday's piecemeal methods.
Jeffrey teaches you to:
- Slash design, development, and quality assurance costs (or do great work in spite of constrained budgets)
- Deliver superb design and sophisticated functionality without worrying about browser incompatibilities
- Set up your site to work as well five years from now as it does today
- Redesign in hours instead of days or weeks
- Welcome new visitors and make your content more visible to search engines
- Stay on the right side of accessibility laws and guidelines
- Support wireless and PDA users without the hassle and expense of multiple versions
- Improve user experience with faster load times and fewer compatibility headaches
- Separate presentation from structure and behavior, facilitating advanced publishing workflows
You can get off the merry-go-round.
It's time to stop living in the past and get away from the days of spaghetti code, insanely nested table layouts, tags, and other redundancies that double and triple the bandwidth of even the simplest sites. Instead, it's time for forward compatibility.
Isn't it high time you started designing with web standards?
Standards aren't about leaving users behind or adhering to inflexible rules. Standards are about building sophisticated, beautiful sites that will work as well tomorrow as they do today. You can't afford to design tomorrow's sites with yesterday's piecemeal methods.
Jeffrey teaches you to:
- Slash design, development, and quality assurance costs (or do great work in spite of constrained budgets)
- Deliver superb design and sophisticated functionality without worrying about browser incompatibilities
- Set up your site to work as well five years from now as it does today
- Redesign in hours instead of days or weeks
- Welcome new visitors and make your content more visible to search engines
- Stay on the right side of accessibility laws and guidelines
- Support wireless and PDA users without the hassle and expense of multiple versions
- Improve user experience with faster load times and fewer compatibility headaches
- Separate presentation from structure and behavior, facilitating advanced publishing workflows
350 pages, Paperback
First published May 24, 2003
37 people are currently reading
1,198 people want to read
About the author
Jeffrey Zeldman
14books742followers“King of Web Standards”—Bloomberg Businessweek.
Employer Brand at Automattic. Blogging since 1995. Founder & Publisher, A List Apart for people who make websites (since 1998). Co-founded the multi-city user experience design conference An Event Apart with Eric Meyer in 2005. Founder of studio.zeldman, a web and interaction design studio in New York. Founder Emeritus of Happy Cog, an award winning digital design studio. Publisher and co-founder of A Book Apart—brief books for web and interaction designers.
Have written two books, notably the foundational web standards text, Designing With Web Standards, currently in a 3rd Edition co-authored with Ethan Marcotte. It has been translated into 15 languages, including (for the last edition) Italian, Chinese, Hungarian, Polish and Portuguese.
Founding faculty member on the MFA Interaction Design program at School of Visual Arts, New York for 10 years. Co-founder and host of the internet radio program The Big Web Show (“Everything Web That Matters�), which has twice been named Podcast of the Year by .net Magazine.
Former freelance journalist, The Washington Post & City Paper. Former copywriter & art director (DeVito Verdi, CME, Grey Entertainment, others). Played Casio in DC’s Insect Surfers. Owner, Red Flowers Studio, Washington DC (R.I.P.).
In 2012, was the first designer inducted in the SXSW Interactive Hall of Fame.
Employer Brand at Automattic. Blogging since 1995. Founder & Publisher, A List Apart for people who make websites (since 1998). Co-founded the multi-city user experience design conference An Event Apart with Eric Meyer in 2005. Founder of studio.zeldman, a web and interaction design studio in New York. Founder Emeritus of Happy Cog, an award winning digital design studio. Publisher and co-founder of A Book Apart—brief books for web and interaction designers.
Have written two books, notably the foundational web standards text, Designing With Web Standards, currently in a 3rd Edition co-authored with Ethan Marcotte. It has been translated into 15 languages, including (for the last edition) Italian, Chinese, Hungarian, Polish and Portuguese.
Founding faculty member on the MFA Interaction Design program at School of Visual Arts, New York for 10 years. Co-founder and host of the internet radio program The Big Web Show (“Everything Web That Matters�), which has twice been named Podcast of the Year by .net Magazine.
Former freelance journalist, The Washington Post & City Paper. Former copywriter & art director (DeVito Verdi, CME, Grey Entertainment, others). Played Casio in DC’s Insect Surfers. Owner, Red Flowers Studio, Washington DC (R.I.P.).
In 2012, was the first designer inducted in the SXSW Interactive Hall of Fame.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
June 25, 2014
A masterpiece.
August 25, 2016
Forward-compatibility. Reduced site maintenance. Increased extensibility. More users. And big cost savings. That's what this book is about. Jeffrey Zeldman (of the The Daily Report) leads readers through the why's and hows of building web sites using the established standards of Structure (XHTML), Presentation (CSS), and Behavior (ECMAScript, DOM). Since most web site decision-makers don't yet grasp the significance and business reasons for moving to a pure, standards-based design, Zeldman spends the first 100 pages giving them no room for arguing against this approach (ESPN got the message--and saved tens of millions of dollars by converting their 1 billion hits per month site). The remainder of the book is spent in the trenches, providing exacting detail about how to upgrade existing sites or build new ones around standards. It doesn't hurt that Zeldman's humor and light writing style will speed you through this book. It may be the fastest read of any technical book to date--and that would be one of Zeldman's points.
September 30, 2011
I heard this book was like web standards Bible. Well... Let's just say I was seriously underwhelmed. Sure enough, it came out a long time ago, when web standards wasn't something every web professional had heard about, and in my humble opinion it should have stayed as 1st edition, if the re-release was going to be as lazy as it turned out to be. I read 3rd edition and it's just ridiculous: a 2009 book talking about IE5, Netscape, table-based layouts, and spending well over hundred of pages on convincing readers why they should pay attention to web standards. "Witty" humor falls flat when the things it's poking fun at are no longer valid. Heck, even some recommendations are no longer valid.
As for actual web standards, this book is completely void of detail. You won't learn how to design with web standards from it; you will only learn why you should do it. As such, it's only good for people who are just starting their adventure with web development... although it still makes me wonder, as it might be too dated even for that.
As for actual web standards, this book is completely void of detail. You won't learn how to design with web standards from it; you will only learn why you should do it. As such, it's only good for people who are just starting their adventure with web development... although it still makes me wonder, as it might be too dated even for that.
March 22, 2010
Jeffrey Zeldman & Ethan Marcotte's Designing with Web Standards (3rd Edition) provides an excellent overview of the issues involved in designing for the web using a modern, standards-based approach. It is by no means a comprehensive treatise on the technologies that must be mastered (that would require 1000s of pages). It does serve admirably as a guide for experienced designers intent on upgrading their skills, or beginners that need an overview of the field.
As such, a significant portion of the book is devoted to advocating the web-standards approach to web design. The authors clearly feel that strong encouragement is still needed to convince some people in the field to make the switch.
Some readers will not like the colloquial tone and tongue-in-cheek humor of the text. Others will. However, it is well written with a good flow. As well, it has the least number of typos and other errors of any technical book I've read in years. It is a pleasure to read a computer tech book that is so polished.
And although it is not comprehensive, it provides a wealth of pointers to more in-depth books and links to web sites with a wealth of additional information. Read it in front of a web browser, and check out those references, to get the most from it.
As such, a significant portion of the book is devoted to advocating the web-standards approach to web design. The authors clearly feel that strong encouragement is still needed to convince some people in the field to make the switch.
Some readers will not like the colloquial tone and tongue-in-cheek humor of the text. Others will. However, it is well written with a good flow. As well, it has the least number of typos and other errors of any technical book I've read in years. It is a pleasure to read a computer tech book that is so polished.
And although it is not comprehensive, it provides a wealth of pointers to more in-depth books and links to web sites with a wealth of additional information. Read it in front of a web browser, and check out those references, to get the most from it.
October 5, 2011
I have been building websites since tables were the latest and greatest in the web and animated gifs were everywhere.
I have seen some reviews here that think this book is out of date and not relevant and that is the undermine it's importance. Once this book came out I had an argument with employers and clients as to why things had to be done differently because it was finally a discussion of web standards to a much larger audience.
If you are in the web design and development field today it might be easy to look at this book and say "well of course!" but if it weren't for and things like it might not be the case... or such important things like web standards would have taken a lot longer to take hold.
I have seen some reviews here that think this book is out of date and not relevant and that is the undermine it's importance. Once this book came out I had an argument with employers and clients as to why things had to be done differently because it was finally a discussion of web standards to a much larger audience.
If you are in the web design and development field today it might be easy to look at this book and say "well of course!" but if it weren't for and things like it might not be the case... or such important things like web standards would have taken a lot longer to take hold.
March 1, 2011
Skip the first 43 pages if you've never built a website before, they're written as a justification as to why to design with web standards and their arguments range from lame and antiquated like using the cost of T1s as the justification for more concise html to common sense ones that make you think "Yeah, well, Duh. Did I really have to spend 10 minutes reading this argument? I agree, move on".
Correction. The first four chapters of this book are fluffy reasons why to design with web standards. I get it, now teach me the fucking standards.
Correction. The first four chapters of this book are fluffy reasons why to design with web standards. I get it, now teach me the fucking standards.
January 19, 2011
A lot of the issues raised in this book are sort of irrelevant to someone DIY-ing websites, but I still learned a whole ton about semantic markup and how one would effectively incorporate behavioral aspects into web sites. The reason standards based web design is so important, after all, is because in the end it seems to save a lot of time and headache, and so these lessens may prove fruitful. If you read this though prepare to skim past large sections where he rants about how the web was in the 90s. Um, it's 2010, no one cares?
June 8, 2011
At the moment you decide to make some money by building websites, read this. It's one of those books that you don't borrow from a friend. Buy it, read it and let is somewhere so you can refer back from time to time.
May 4, 2010
The third edition of essential reading for anyone who works on the web.
January 15, 2018
What can I say, this was a classic in its time. Changed the way web development happened. Unblocked a lot of the nonsense caused by the browser wars. At this point it's probably rather out of date, but great to read for the purpose of the history of the web.
August 31, 2021
Read this a long time ago. Changed the course of my development back then.
March 18, 2017
An enjoyable read that got a lot across about web standards. It's a decent high-level overview for web development in general.
May 12, 2011
This is one of the most popular web design books, and for good reason. has been around the Web for a long time, and his experience shows. This book teaches the concepts, history, and technologies behind web design for beginning and intermediate designers. It’s unexpectedly funny; I laughed out loud several times at Zeldman’s puns and wordplay.
The book is about why and how to "write structural, semantic markup styled with CSS for sites that are relatively lightweight, portable, findable, and accessible." It emphasizes the importance of following web standards set by the .
The book covers the “trinity of web standards�: structure, presentation, and behavior. Topics include HTML and XHTML, CSS, typography, accessibility, DOM scripting, and JavaScript. This third edition of the book was published in 2010, so it also covers HTML5 and CSS3. It’s more conceptual than instructional, but there are plenty of examples and even a few reverse-engineering exercises.
I enjoyed reading about the history of the various web technologies, the evolution of browsers, and the people and organizations who influenced them. I was already familiar with much of this history, but I learned quite a bit that I didn’t know about the Web’s dusty past.
I’ve been looking for the best web design books, and this book was consistently ranked near the top of lists. Zeldman is well-known in the industry for his advocacy of web standards and his involvement in . A few months ago I started listening to , a show that Zeldman co-hosts.
Notes
For SEO, 1) write great content, and 2) mark it up semantically.
Ems are the ideal unit for font sizes, but pixels (px) are OK because browsers support Page Zoom.
Making a site accessible benefits not only the disabled, but also mobile device users and search engines.
The book is about why and how to "write structural, semantic markup styled with CSS for sites that are relatively lightweight, portable, findable, and accessible." It emphasizes the importance of following web standards set by the .
The book covers the “trinity of web standards�: structure, presentation, and behavior. Topics include HTML and XHTML, CSS, typography, accessibility, DOM scripting, and JavaScript. This third edition of the book was published in 2010, so it also covers HTML5 and CSS3. It’s more conceptual than instructional, but there are plenty of examples and even a few reverse-engineering exercises.
I enjoyed reading about the history of the various web technologies, the evolution of browsers, and the people and organizations who influenced them. I was already familiar with much of this history, but I learned quite a bit that I didn’t know about the Web’s dusty past.
I’ve been looking for the best web design books, and this book was consistently ranked near the top of lists. Zeldman is well-known in the industry for his advocacy of web standards and his involvement in . A few months ago I started listening to , a show that Zeldman co-hosts.
Notes
For SEO, 1) write great content, and 2) mark it up semantically.
Ems are the ideal unit for font sizes, but pixels (px) are OK because browsers support Page Zoom.
Making a site accessible benefits not only the disabled, but also mobile device users and search engines.
November 19, 2007
Jeffrey Zeldman is an icon in the Web Design world. His insights are obviously from experience and compelling. He manages to describe the importance of web standards in a way that the suits should understand and Web designers/developers will appreciate.
This reads like a 2nd edition book. The examples used are dated, although still valid. Often he references the first edition of the book which is a little awkward. The tone is light-hearted, with geeky jokes and comments here and there. It's a quick read if you've got some web development under your belt: I happened to finish it in a day despite its 400 pages.
Jeffrey covers many details in this book. He shares history, examples, references, hacks, personal triumphs and failures. I was left wanting more from each chapter and he does a good job of recommending a next step. He balances standards with reality in a way that won't scare you out of upgrading your out-dated website: start with the quick-fixes and go as deep as you from there.
Ultimately, I'll listen to anything Jeffrey Zeldman has to say. When I discovered his website about 10 years ago, I was just learning to code - and learned very much from him. I look forward to his next literary offering. I just hope it's not a 2nd edition ;-) .
This reads like a 2nd edition book. The examples used are dated, although still valid. Often he references the first edition of the book which is a little awkward. The tone is light-hearted, with geeky jokes and comments here and there. It's a quick read if you've got some web development under your belt: I happened to finish it in a day despite its 400 pages.
Jeffrey covers many details in this book. He shares history, examples, references, hacks, personal triumphs and failures. I was left wanting more from each chapter and he does a good job of recommending a next step. He balances standards with reality in a way that won't scare you out of upgrading your out-dated website: start with the quick-fixes and go as deep as you from there.
Ultimately, I'll listen to anything Jeffrey Zeldman has to say. When I discovered his website about 10 years ago, I was just learning to code - and learned very much from him. I look forward to his next literary offering. I just hope it's not a 2nd edition ;-) .
April 18, 2011
Zeldman, one of the founders of the Web Standards Project, writes an intelligent and convincing argument for the use of web standards recommending a variety of combinations from XHTML, XML to CSS for different types of website purposes and cases. The book carefully points out flaws in the current model of design and coding, and quickly explains the benefits of creating sites that are forward compatible and pay attention to accessibility. Part 2 and 3 of the book go into great detail about implementation methods of XML and CSS.
What isn’t covered in the book but SHOULD have been, as it would have convinced the non-techy crowd, is how much standards effects the findability, marketability and manageability of a website. Not to mention that clean code always makes search engines happy, which leads to higher ranking websites that are optimized for the web.
What isn’t covered in the book but SHOULD have been, as it would have convinced the non-techy crowd, is how much standards effects the findability, marketability and manageability of a website. Not to mention that clean code always makes search engines happy, which leads to higher ranking websites that are optimized for the web.
September 9, 2011
This book (and its companion, Developing with Web Standards) are great resources for the modern web developer. People who have been in the industry for years are prone to carry over methods for dealing with web design issues that do not stand the test of time due to difficulty maintaining such solutions. These two books server to educate both veteran and novice web developers on how to create and maintain websites in such a way that they support rapid development & maintenance while focusing on accessibility across multiple platforms. In addition, they very clearly explain why every web site doesn't need to look the same in all browsers (another old notion) and cover how you can bring a rich experience in newer browsers while also gracefully degrading on older browsers to a less-rich but fully-functional and attractive experience.
May 5, 2010
One of the big 'standards-based development guru' books. First half deals with the problems, second deals with solutions using web standards-based approaches. Amusing and easy to read. Some review for those who already know about XHTML, CSS, etc, but still some good points worth learning.
Includes topics on:
standards-based web design, costs of not following standards (duplication of effort, maintenance, user experience, etc), brief history of web standards and practices, intro to XHTML and structural markup, XML, CSS, DOM
Includes topics on:
standards-based web design, costs of not following standards (duplication of effort, maintenance, user experience, etc), brief history of web standards and practices, intro to XHTML and structural markup, XML, CSS, DOM
August 5, 2007
I used to call this book "The Orange Bible". I made my company buy dozens of copies to hand out to developers, managers and executives. If you're still building web sites with tables and font tags, you need to go out right now and get this book (well, get the second edition - it's green). It's a great introduction to web standards for folks at every level of an organization, and has some great tips and tricks.
January 14, 2010
Rolling back to 2003 when this book was released, it was a tremendous revelation on how websites could (and should) be designed. This is for web design/web development geeks only, but it delivers the goods on how to code web pages to the published standards and how to make them look good at the same time.
My only objection to this book is that it is dated and there are things we don't have to worry about any more (although new challenges have arisen).
My only objection to this book is that it is dated and there are things we don't have to worry about any more (although new challenges have arisen).
October 8, 2014
A good introduction to the new web standards (XHTML & CSS), why you should use them in your websites, and how you can get started. Zeldman is an entertaining writer, though he sometimes overbears when it comes to pressing the case for standards. Perhaps his primary audience (web designers used to hacky html) need this sort of jackhammer treatment.
Anyway, after reading this book I'm looking forward to redesigning my site.
October 18, 2008
This book was a good introduction to XHTML and CSS. It sketched a broad and intelligible overview of the technologies, history, and application of web standards in general.
It's biggest weakness? Depth. I needed a second book to really get myself flying with both XHTML and CSS. But Zeldman has laid down a good runway with this one.
It's biggest weakness? Depth. I needed a second book to really get myself flying with both XHTML and CSS. But Zeldman has laid down a good runway with this one.
August 5, 2009
There is not enough space to write everything that I have learned from this book. Suffice to say this is a must read for any person who is or has a desire to write web pages or who is looking for a web designer and why you would want one who uses web standards in their coding. It is in my permanent collection of tech manuals.
August 1, 2015
Good stuff. A little bit too much attention to 4.0 browsers, but I'm willing to forgive that since it's a five-year-old book. A great introduction into why web standards increase usability and accessibility (to the able-bodied and disabled alike). I should have waited for the third edition, otherwise: excellent stuff.
February 5, 2017
Lot of theory and some code to help explain.
This book is a must read if you learned HTML several years ago or if you're just learning it. Otherwise it'll say a lot of what many newer books say and can be skimmed for interesting content or new ammunition to back up why you're building a site the way you are.
This book is a must read if you learned HTML several years ago or if you're just learning it. Otherwise it'll say a lot of what many newer books say and can be skimmed for interesting content or new ammunition to back up why you're building a site the way you are.
March 28, 2008
In the most down to earth narrative tone, get the history of the web development from one of the gods. Fascinating read in its own right, terribly useful if you are designing/building anything for the web.
Read
February 28, 2010zeldman is classy & straightforward. read by programmers, supernerds, and ignorant wanna-be html geeks like myself, this book has broad appeal as well as detailed precision- an unusual, and crucial, mix.
March 9, 2017
For anyone who want to know about the web standard or the CSS standard, this is the book. In 'Designing with Web Standards', you will find the css/web definition, general css rules and the standard. This is not a tutorial book or a step-by-step book. To me, it is a reference book for CSS Standard.
December 31, 2010
While I enjoyed "Principles of Web Design" as a good introduction to Web Design, I found this one superfluous, more like an update of the previous book according to the new standards. As a first book, it would be OK, but, me coming from the previous one, getting this felt a bit of a waste.
March 24, 2011
You know you've crossed the point of no return into nerdhood when you find yourself cackling over code examples in a Jeffrey Zeldman book at 11pm on a Saturday night. Yup, that's me, and this book is great.
July 10, 2012
I got the 2nd version from the library and a lot of it was out of date as you imagine. I skipped through a lot of the stuff that was talking about how to cater to IE5 and netscape. Overall a good book for general web standards!
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