Designing with Web Standards


Jeffrey Zeldman - 2003
    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

Typography Workbook: A Real-World Guide to Using Type in Graphic Design


Timothy Samara - 2004
    This book presents an abundance of information on type - the cornerstone of graphic design - succinctly and to the point, so that designers can get the information they need quickly and easily.Whereas many other books on type are either very technical or showcase oriented, this book offers ideas and inspiration through hundreds of real-life projects showing successful, well-crafted usage of type. The book also offers a variety of other content, including choosing fonts, sizes, and colors; incorporating text and illustrations; avoiding common mistakes in text usage; and teaching rules by which to live (and work) by.

Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations


Clay Shirky - 2008
    'Here Comes Everybody' is an examination of how the spread of new forms of social interaction enabled by technology is changing the way humans form and exist within groups, with profound long-term economic and social effects, for good and for ill.

The Startup Owner's Manual: The Step-By-Step Guide for Building a Great Company


Steve Blank - 2012
    It:Incorporates the "Business Model Canvas" as the organizing principle for startup hypothesesProvides separate paths and advice for web/mobile products versus physical productsOffers a wealth of detailed instruction on how to get, keep, and grow customers recognizing the different techniques for web and physical channelsAnd teaches a "new math" for startups: "metrics that matter for fueling growth"The Startup Owner's Manual is a step-by-step, near-encyclopedic reference manual or "how to" for building a successful, scalable startup. Want to know what to do the first, week, month or year?What's the right distribution channel for your product?How to get traffic to your web site? …and how to activate customers or users on arrival?Who are the right "first customers," and why? …plus many more great tips in nearly 500 pages, complete with index, glossary, and Customer Development ChecklistsIt's the indispensible reference guide for any startup founder, entrepreneur, investor or educator.

House of Night Series


Hephaestus Books - 2011
    Cast.It is 50 pages of reprinted Wikipedia and other public domain online articles.Hephaestus Books represents a new publishing paradigm, allowing disparate content sources to be curated into cohesive, relevant, and informative books. To date, this content has been curated from Wikipedia articles and images under Creative Commons licensing, although as Hephaestus Books continues to increase in scope and dimension, more licensed and public domain content is being added. We believe books such as this represent a new and exciting lexicon in the sharing of human knowledge. This particular book is a collaboration focused on House of Night series.

User Story Mapping: Discover the Whole Story, Build the Right Product


Jeff Patton - 2012
    With this practical book, you'll explore the often-misunderstood practice of user story mapping, and learn how it can help keep your team stay focused on users and their experience throughout the development process.You and your team will learn that user stories aren't a way to write better specifications, but a way to organize and have better conversations. This book will help you understand what kinds of conversations you should be having, when to have them, and what to keep track of when you do. Learn the key concepts used to create a great story map. Understand how user stories really work, and how to make good use of them in agile and lean projects. Examine the nuts and bolts of managing stories through the development cycle. Use strategies that help you continue to learn before and after the product's release to customers and usersUser Story Mapping is ideal for agile and lean software development team members, product managers and UX practitioners in commercial product companies, and business analysts and project managers in IT organizations—whether you're new to this approach or want to understand more about it.

Thoughtless Acts?: Observations on Intuitive Design


Jane Fulton Suri - 2005
    People unconsciously perform ultraordinary actions every day, from throwing a jacket over a chair back to claim the seat, or placing something in the teeth when all hands are full. These "thoughtless acts" reveal the subtle but crucial ways people behave in a world not always perfectly tailored to their needs. Thoughtless Acts? is a collection of dozens of (often humorous) snapshots capturing such fleeting adaptations and minor exploitations. This method of observation demonstrates the kind of common-sense approach that can inspire designers and anyone involved in creative endeavors. Thoughtless Acts? is a privileged peek at how IDEO creates the people-friendly products, services, and spaces for which they are so widely recognized.

User Interface Design for Programmers


Joel Spolsky - 2001
    They think that UI design is like graphic design--the mysterious process by which creative, latte-drinking, all-black-wearing people produce cool-looking, artistic pieces. Most programmers see themselves as analytic, logical thinkers instead--strong at reasoning, weak on artistic judgment, and incapable of doing UI design.In this brilliantly readable book, author Joel Spolsky proposes simple, logical rules that can be applied without any artistic talent to improve any user interface, from traditional GUI applications to websites to consumer electronics. Spolsky's primary axiom, the importance of bringing the program model in line with the user model, is both rational and simple.In a fun and entertaining way, Spolky makesuser interfacedesign easy for programmers to grasp. After reading User Interface Design for Programmers, you'll know how to design interfaces with the user in mind. You'll learn the important principles that underlie all good UI design, and you'll learn how to perform usability testing that works."

Designing for the Social Web


Joshua Porter - 2008
    With tons of examples from real-world interfaces and a touch of the underlying social psychology theory, Joshua Porter shows you how to design your next great social web application.

Getting Real: The Smarter, Faster, Easier Way to Build a Web Application


37 Signals - 2006
    At under 200 pages it's quick reading too. Makes a great airplane book.

Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide Through Qualitative Analysis


Kathy C. Charmaz - 2006
    In this important and essential new textbook, she introduces the reader to the craft of using grounded theory in social research, and provides a clear, step-by-step guide for those new to the field. Using worked examples throughout, this book also maps out an alternative vision of grounded theory put forward by its founding thinkers, Glaser and Strauss. To Charmaz, grounded theory must move on from its positivist origins and must incorporate many of the methods and questions posed by constructivists over the past twenty years to become a more nuanced and reflexive practice.

The Ethnographic Interview


James P. Spradley - 1979
    The text also teaches students how to analyze the data they collect, and how to write an ethnography. The appendices include research questions and writing tasks.

Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research


Russell K. Schutt - 1995
    In this new Seventh Edition of his perennially successful social research text, author Russell K. Schutt continues to make research come alive through stories that illustrate the methods presented in each chapter, and hands-on exercises that help students learn by doing. Investigating the Social World helps readers understand research methods as an integrated whole, appreciate the value of both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, and understand the need to make ethical research decisions. New to this Edition: * upgraded coverage of research methods to include the spread of cell phones and the use of the Internet, including expanded coverage of Web surveys * larger page size in full color allows for better display of pedagogical features * new 'Research in the News' boxes included within chapters * more international examples * expanded statistics coverage now includes more coverage of inferenctial statistics and regression analysi

Physical Computing: Sensing and Controlling the Physical World with Computers


Dan O'Sullivan - 2004
    With a multiple book buying audience, this book doesn't require a specific background or technical experience. It is designed to help make a more interesting connection between the physical world and the computer world. The audience size is comparable to that of the Robot builder market. In addition to this audience, physical computing is also taught at several universities across the US. This book is a great source of information and knowledge for anyone interested in bridging the gap between the physical and the virtual.

Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change


Victor Papanek - 1972
    Translated into twenty-three languages, it is one of the world's most widely read books on design. In this edition, Victor Papanek examines the attempts by designers to combat the tawdry, the unsafe, the frivolous, the useless product, once again providing a blueprint for sensible, responsible design in this world which is deficient in resources and energy.