Book Review - Deliver First Class Web Sites by Shirley Kaiser
Category Book Reviews
It seems as if there's an ever-expanding lists of "should-do" items when you're doing web design. Shirley Kaiser wrote Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists to consolidate all that information into a single spot. Not a bad addition to the bookshelf...
Contents: Let's Get Started - but How?; What to Find Out - Initial Questions to Answer; Preparing Web Site Content; Managing all the Content; Web Site Usability - Focusing on the User; Color; Information Architecture; Navigation; Best Coding Practice - W3C Standards and Recommendations; Creating Accessible Web Sites; Web Site Optimization; Search Engine Optimization; Design; Testing; Preparing for Launch; Post-launch Follow-up; Ecommerce Checklists; Index
The main thing to remember here is that this *isn't* an exhaustive reference manual on the items listed above. There have been many separate books written about any one of the items. But Kaiser does a nice job in distilling the best and common practices into a short format that can help you remember the things that you often forget. For instance, in Best Coding Practices, she reminds the reader to use proper heading elements, to use ul, ol, and li elements for lists, use <br /> for line breaks, not paragraph breaks, and so on. Rather than just say "because I said so", these recommendations are based on solid advice from standards groups and alternative forms of web readers (like page readers for sight-impaired people). You may think that it's no big deal, but the assistive technology works far better when you remember small things like this.
You'll likely find that some chapters are more appealing to you than others. She covers the entire range of development, from design through post-implementation review. So if you're a code monkey by nature, you'll probably gravitate towards those topics. Also, I design with Notes/Domino, so advice on laying out specific pages and determining your folder structure don't necessarily fit nicely in my dynamic web site generation world. But still, there's a lot of good advice regardless of where you're at and what you use...
This is one of those books that can help you consolidate a lot of what you already know to be right, and structure it such that you practice it properly on a regular basis...
If you liked this review and found it helpful, please click on the Amazon book link in the review and click the Yes (Was This Review Helpful To You?) button at the bottom of my review. Thanks!
It seems as if there's an ever-expanding lists of "should-do" items when you're doing web design. Shirley Kaiser wrote Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists to consolidate all that information into a single spot. Not a bad addition to the bookshelf...
Contents: Let's Get Started - but How?; What to Find Out - Initial Questions to Answer; Preparing Web Site Content; Managing all the Content; Web Site Usability - Focusing on the User; Color; Information Architecture; Navigation; Best Coding Practice - W3C Standards and Recommendations; Creating Accessible Web Sites; Web Site Optimization; Search Engine Optimization; Design; Testing; Preparing for Launch; Post-launch Follow-up; Ecommerce Checklists; Index
The main thing to remember here is that this *isn't* an exhaustive reference manual on the items listed above. There have been many separate books written about any one of the items. But Kaiser does a nice job in distilling the best and common practices into a short format that can help you remember the things that you often forget. For instance, in Best Coding Practices, she reminds the reader to use proper heading elements, to use ul, ol, and li elements for lists, use <br /> for line breaks, not paragraph breaks, and so on. Rather than just say "because I said so", these recommendations are based on solid advice from standards groups and alternative forms of web readers (like page readers for sight-impaired people). You may think that it's no big deal, but the assistive technology works far better when you remember small things like this.
You'll likely find that some chapters are more appealing to you than others. She covers the entire range of development, from design through post-implementation review. So if you're a code monkey by nature, you'll probably gravitate towards those topics. Also, I design with Notes/Domino, so advice on laying out specific pages and determining your folder structure don't necessarily fit nicely in my dynamic web site generation world. But still, there's a lot of good advice regardless of where you're at and what you use...
This is one of those books that can help you consolidate a lot of what you already know to be right, and structure it such that you practice it properly on a regular basis...
If you liked this review and found it helpful, please click on the Amazon book link in the review and click the Yes (Was This Review Helpful To You?) button at the bottom of my review. Thanks!
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Comments
Posted by Duffbert At 07:59:51 On 01/10/2006 | - Website - |
If you have any questions about anything in it, please let me know, too. Hopefully there will be a 2nd edition down the road and I want to make improvements, part of which will be influenced by the feedback my publisher and I get about this first edition.
Once again, I'm glad you like my book, and I do hope you and others find it helpful.
Best wishes,
Shirley Kaiser
Posted by Shirley Kaiser At 01:47:19 On 01/10/2006 | - Website - |