Rating: 
Summary: THE beginner's guide
Review: Jennifer Niederst is just the person you want to write a book like this. Many readers of this page will already know who she is, but since this book is aimed at absolute beginners a short introduction may be in order.Originally a graphic designer, in 1993 Niederst became one of the very first web designers when she worked on the world's first commercial website (O'Reilly & Associates' Global Network Navigator, which is no longer in publication but you can see samples of it on Niederst's own website if you want; write me for the URL). Since then she's been one of the best-known web designers around and she's written other books on the topic -- notably _Web Design in a Nutshell_, which I highly recommend you get as a followup to this one (but wait for the new second edition, due out in October 2001). Since Al Gore didn't even _invent_ the Internet until 1993, that makes Niederst the nearest thing there is to an "old-timer" in what is, after all, a pretty new profession. Niederst has said in interviews that this book is the one she wished she'd had to give her web-design students. It won't take you long to see why; it's painstakingly thorough and detailed, just the ticket for somebody who has never written a speck of HTML code before and is a little fuzzy on just what this "Internet" thing is. But it's also helpful to people at other stages of knowledge. The coverage (mostly HTML and graphics, with a little bit of appetite-whetting overview at the end about more advanced techniques like cascading style sheets, JavaScript, and XML) is so complete that if, like me, you learned this stuff on your own, it will fill in _lots_ of gaps in your education. (Over the last year or two I've gotten pretty proficient with text but I knew almost zilch about graphics until I read this book.) And even if you already know all this stuff cold, this book will probably still be handy as a reference and a source of helpful advice. Then, too, it's also a handy rough-and-ready guide to the sorts of application software you might want to acquire if you're getting seriously into web design. Niederst not only introduces the major players among authoring tools and graphics packages, but steps through her examples more than once to show you how they work in, e.g., Dreamweaver and GoLive. The style is breezy and chatty but with no loss of accuracy. You'll find out why Niederst thinks "web design is cool" and you'll learn some of "Jen's pet peeves" (e.g. spinning-globe graphics and rainbow bars), but you'll also get a thorough and accessible introduction to the nuts and bolts of web design. If you're just getting started on the creation of web pages, this is the book to use first. As I noted above, you'll probably also want to get Niederst's _Nutshell_ book as a sequel. After that, you'll be well qualified to decide what else you need.
Rating:
Summary: Want to learn web design? Start here!
Review: Maybe just one more favorable review about this excellent web design book. This is the book you need if you want a very good foundation for your web site/page building experience. Starting with the basics such as beginning HTML coding (even if you never coded before) to pop-ups, the author carefully walks the reader through many of the complexities of good web design. Examples using Dreamweaver, GoLive, and Frontpage are helpful (although Adobe's GoLive 6 which is now available is quite a bit different than the GoLive 4 in the book) if you're interested in using an advanced design program. After completion of this book you will realize you learned something and didn't get ripped off.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Yet
Review: Of the 3 books about web design, HTML, and related topics that I have read recently this is the best yet and I do recommend it for purchase by others. The author states, "I've had the opportunity to teach web design to hundreds to hundreds of abolute beginners." It is my judgement that that experience has contuributed significant to the this book. The one caveat I would extend is that the copyright date is 2001 and the book is certain to need to be updated in another year. Techology and application software changes. Having said that I believe that the book has much to offer any beginnig web designer. (3/20/2003)
Rating:
Summary: The Best Yet
Review: Of the 3 books about web design, HTML, and related topics that I have read recently this is the best yet and I do recommend it for purchase by others. The author states, "I've had the opportunity to teach web design to hundreds to hundreds of abolute beginners." It is my judgement that that experience has contuributed significant to the this book. The one caveat I would extend is that the copyright date is 2001 and the book is certain to need to be updated in another year. Techology and application software changes. Having said that I believe that the book has much to offer any beginnig web designer. (3/20/2003)
Rating: 
Summary: Okay, could be better
Review: The reviewer/teacher that posted on April 11, 2001 is right on the mark. This book says nothing on Forms. However, it is a good book explaining the ins-out of the rest of the stuff to a degree. But I feel it spends too much time on hypothetical questioning & marketing your pages, which is good I suppose but a waste of time when most of what she says is common sense. I already knew HTML before going into this book & it shows some new helpers that weren't there before. She doesn't address the pitfalls of many HTML situations like nested tables or backgrounds in cells in nested tables in older browsers (well not that old). The publishing company QUE wrote a book on HTML and it was much better. The whole HTML/web design coding is changing pretty fast with XML/XHTML, & CSS arrising, this book is no better than QUE's published 5-7 years ago. I do not recommend this book. Oh yeah one more thing, it has cheap binding, mine is already falling apart!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful Introduction
Review: This book is another example of one I wish I had four or five years ago when I was first learning how to do web pages. The book first off is visually appealing with lots of diagrams and code examples interspersed with the text. I was tempted just to grab the HTML examples without reading any further! However, what makes the book an even bigger treat is Ms Niederst's casual but very complete writing style. She takes the time to explain a lot of different concepts and ties them all together. Throughout the book, the topics all tie together beginning with Chapters 1 through 5 (the "Getting Started" section), where Niederst explains "web basics," Chapters 6 through 11 (the "Learning HTML" section), where she explains topics like formatting text, links, tables, and frames. The book's last two major sections cover areas like creating and modifying graphics and even briefly explain advanced topics like Dynamic HTML and Cascading Style Sheets. By the book's end, you have an excellent general understanding of web design. Not only that, but the way the information is presented, the book also is a good reference text for those times when you run into problems. And anyone who has done web sites knows that pretty quickly you'll run into a problem while designing a site. There are a few sections in the book that deal with troubleshooting web design problems. Ms Niederst comments at the back of the book that reading this book is "a lot like sitting in my classroom." I suspect her students learn quite a bit about web design. So will you after reading this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Begin your web design career here!
Review: This book starts with the premise that you have no web development experience and you do not want to program. The book is divided into four parts that cover an overview of web development, an html tutorial, graphics for the web, and web site design. Within each section, a different subject is addressed in every chapter. While each chapter starts at a very basic level, enough material is taught to give the reader a good start in each of the subjects. I particularly liked the way style sheets and links were covered. The book is replete with tips, illustrations, and code examples to assist the reader. There are exercises to reinforce the information for most of the topics covered. The format of the book is different than most of the O'Reilly books that I have read in the past. The larger format of the book with the better paper and more graphics add to the learning experience especially with this subject. This was a fun book to read, even though I was familiar with most of the material. I was mainly interested in the graphics section and web design. Apparently, my interests coincided with those of the author's because I feel that those sections are the strongest in the book. My only slight criticism of this book might be that while the reader is probably a beginner, most of the graphics examples are done with Photoshop or Fireworks. These tools may be a bit out of budget for the fledgling web designer. This book is a good starting point, but the reader probably will need to follow it with something more substantial.
Rating:
Summary: Begin your web design career here!
Review: This book starts with the premise that you have no web development experience and you do not want to program. The book is divided into four parts that cover an overview of web development, an html tutorial, graphics for the web, and web site design. Within each section, a different subject is addressed in every chapter. While each chapter starts at a very basic level, enough material is taught to give the reader a good start in each of the subjects. I particularly liked the way style sheets and links were covered. The book is replete with tips, illustrations, and code examples to assist the reader. There are exercises to reinforce the information for most of the topics covered. The format of the book is different than most of the O'Reilly books that I have read in the past. The larger format of the book with the better paper and more graphics add to the learning experience especially with this subject. This was a fun book to read, even though I was familiar with most of the material. I was mainly interested in the graphics section and web design. Apparently, my interests coincided with those of the author's because I feel that those sections are the strongest in the book. My only slight criticism of this book might be that while the reader is probably a beginner, most of the graphics examples are done with Photoshop or Fireworks. These tools may be a bit out of budget for the fledgling web designer. This book is a good starting point, but the reader probably will need to follow it with something more substantial.
Rating:
Summary: Solid Introduction to Essential Web Design Topics
Review: This is one of the best books you'll find on basic web design techniques. While it does not cover advanced topics such as dynamic page generation (CGI/ASP/PHP/ColdFusion/JSP etc.) and advanced Javascript or advanced cross-browser CSS, it does an admirable job of illuminating the basics that will get anyone off to a good start in their web design pursuits. Diligently apply the material in this book to your projects and you can't lose. I have been designing for the web for over 5 years, the last year and a half full-time professionally, and I have used many of the techniques in this book. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Great Intro to web design
Review: Usually learning something new on the computer requires that you purchase more than one book on the subject. I purchased a number of books on web design and html programing with the idea of developing a small web site for a small business. But "Learning Web Design" may be the only book you need to get started, expecially if you plan on using a Web authoring program such as Dreamweaver or FrontPage. Learning Dreamweaver MX will be much easier now that I have been introduced to html and the do's and dont's of web design. This book is very attractively laid out and written in a clear manner. Thanks Jennifer! Highly recommended.
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