Good, Bad & Ugly Online

Page 46

Book Design

Web Design For Non-Designers
THE NON-DESIGNER'S WEB BOOK:
An easy guide to creating, designing, and posting your own web site
Robin Williams and John Tollett
Peachpit Press, Berkeley 1998, 288 pages, $29.95
In their oversized (7 X 11 inch) Non-Designer's Web Book, Robin Williams, author of a dozen computer books, and John Tollett, a long time art director, have created a rare thing: an instruction book that is as informative as it is fun to read. It's also serious, crammed full of insights and aimed at people in the print communications world who must make the mental transition to the digital world.
Williams and Tollett write, "We need to combine technical skills with design skills and creative copywriting. We need to learn to do things differently to publish on the screen what we do to publish on paper. So this book covers the gamut of what you need to know technically, with a strong emphasis on the design of Web pages."
And they deliver what they promise. Vividly. The book uses full color illustrations on almost every page to clearly and succinctly explain concepts of Web site function and design that are not obvious and are often difficult to fully convey in words alone.

Guide for Non-Wirehead Journalists
This is the perfect purchase for those growing legions of non-wirehead reporters, editors and publishers who suddenly feel a need to become familiar with Web mechanics. Some are under pressure to help plan their company's first Web site. Some are being forced to deal with the Web as it impinges on other aspects of their beats. And others want to explore the power and reach of a personal Web site. There is an avalanche of Web how-to books available for such novices, but a shortage of good ones that are quick and to the point. This is one of those.
While the Non-Designer's Web Book provides an A-to-Z overview of Web site creation, design and functionality, it emphasizes the practical. For instance, the opening chapters detail the eight best-selling Web authoring software packages (Adobe PageMill, Claris Home Page, GoLive CyberStudio, Symantec Visual Page, SoftQuad HotMetal, NetObjects Fusion, Microsoft FrontPage and Netscape Composer). Then, the principles of page construction are demonstrated as they are used in Adobe PageMill and Claris Home Page, the two lowest-priced authoring programs, and GoLive, one of the most expensive. Authoring programs are to Web page construction what Quark or PageMaker are to print page construction.
What makes this section so useful is that the color illustrations show the screen controls for the authoring programs, along with the effects each achieves on some aspect of HTML page structure. This lets readers immediately see the difference in each program's approach and is helpful to anyone making a decision about which authoring package will be most appropriate for his or her requirements.
Woven through every aspect of the book - including the visuals of its own pages - is a concern for esthetic elements that directly affect the reader's perception of the content publisher's credibility. In the tongue-clucking humor that laces much of the text, the authors point out that "ugly typography doesn't always mean something. Sometimes it's just ugly."

Valuable Typographic Tips
Even veteran Web site operators are likely to glean useful tips from the demonstrations of how different typographic approaches maximize the look and function of a Web page. Here again, the real power of the work is its use of illustrations to actually show what is being explained.
An example: When type below 12 points in size is used in gif graphics on Web pages, it often breaks up and becomes difficult to read on the screen. However, when Photoshop's "layers" function is used to create two blocks of the same type directly atop one another, the opacity and screen resolution of the small type is significantly enhanced in the resulting gif. It's a secret way to make your small Web site type look better - and, hence, more credible -than your competitor's.

A Gallery of Bad Design
One of the books' best chapters is called "How to Recognize Good & Bad Design." "Bad design," the authors write, "is fun to recognize. We find in our workshops that people love to pick apart Web sites."
With that as preamble, they proceed to rip into page after page of Web sites, typical of those encountered on any given day spent surfing online media sites. Side-by-side comparisons of the same page elements assembled in different ways are used to dramatically show why the same information on one screen design exudes a sense of quality and sophistication while, on another screen design, is amateurish and dorky-looking.
Another section of particular value to novice Web site builders provides short but lucid explanations of the confusing color systems and concepts of computer screen displays. If you don't know the difference between RGB color and indexed color, or why the color palette is crucial to the creation of fast-loading graphics, you'll learn a lot here.

Correct Web Screen Sizing
The book also reveals why some Web designers create screens that stretch so far to the right they require sideways scrolling to read: stupidity. Astounding numbers of even professional Web site designers don't understand which screen size works best on most monitors. But Williams and Tollett do and they provide the exact details. You must build your Web site to a precise size or it will overflow on a large percentage of the different monitors used by the tens of millions of computer users who access the Internet. Badly sized screens drive online readers away.
Finally, there are two features which end this book with a flourish and make it a superb reference work. The first is a voluminous, minutely detailed index that functions not only as an index to the book, but to the Web construction and maintenance process itself. The second feature is a color patch master page of the hex codes that work best for Web page background colors. You won't fully appreciate the value of this item until you are assembling your first Web site. Then, like the book it is part of, it will seem a true godsend.

·(Hoag Levins is executive editor of the Editor & Publisher Company's magazine division.) [Caption]
·(E&P Web Site: http://www.mediainfo.com)