Recommended Interface and Web Design Books

This is the list of my most loved interface and web design books to date, as re-posted from a thread at the Web Designer Forum.

In terms of publishers of web design/development books I adore Sitepoint, Friends of Ed, New Riders, and O’Reilly. If I want to learn a new language, I grab an O’Reilly or Sitepoint book first. Friends of Ed and New Riders have some great gems too though.

The Principles of Beautiful Web Design – Jason Beaird – Sitepoint – This is just exactly as it says; the principles of beautiful web designs. It is enjoyable to read, beautiful to look at, and an excellent way to learn the process of designing lovely sites.

Simply JavaScript – Yank & Adams – Sitepoint – I love the friendly but thorough writing found in Sitepoint books, and that is certainly found here. Best for someone who is brand new to JavaScript, it provides a thorough grounding in JavaScript with great explanations and examples.

The Usability Kit – Gaffney & Szuc – Sitepoint – Excellent templates and patterns for ensuring usability is designed within the site. This is actually a binder with a section of information and a big set of templates. Especially useful if you want to make usability a priority without doing a ton of research into the subject yourself, or just want a quick reference of ideas.

Deliver First Class Web Sites – Kaiser – Sitepoint – This is a set of 101 “essential checklists” and a quick reference so you can quickly and easily keep an eye on keeping your web site “first class”. Nothing new to learn here, just lists to keep things on track.

CSS Mastery – Advanced Web Standards Solutions – Budd, Moll, and Collison – Friends of Ed – This is where you go when you’ve learned CSS and want some advanced techniques.

The Zen of CSS Design – Shea & Holszshlag – New Riders – Gorgeous look at what CSS is capable of, using several of the designs from CSS Zen Garden to illustrate advanced web design & CSS techniques. This is the other book you need to grab if you’ve grown past the basics of CSS.

Bulletproof Ajax – Jeremy Keith – New Riders – This is rather introductory and I like the JavaScript overview as much as anything said about Ajax. If you have any other Ajax book and understand the principle of developing a site that is accessible even if JavaScript is turned off, you don’t need this one. If you want a short introduction to JavaScript and Ajax though, this one is great.

Bulletproof Web Design – Cederholm – New Riders – The title and subtitle say it all; “Bulletproof Web Design – Improving flexibility and protecting against worst-case scenarios with XHTML and CSS”. This is a third book for those who want to move from CSS reference to CSS mastery.

The Elements of User Experience – Garrett – New Riders – This is a slim volume that is excellent for those just starting to learn about information architecture, interaction and interface design, and user experience as a whole. Start here to learn and understand the basic elements and terms used within user-centered design for the web. If you want to go from developing code and slapping things together to truly understanding how to design a worthwhile experience for your users, read this short yet excellent book.

Mastering Dojo – Russell – O’Reilly – This is the definitive guide to the JavaScript framework known as Dojo. Thorough, complete, detailed, and yet enjoyable reading as well.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web – Morville & Rosenfeld – O’Reilly – Covers IA in terms of business goals, education, ethics, and sales, as well as processes, tools, methodologies, systems, strategies, design, and more. Theory and practice in one neat text. Useful for technical communicators, designers of enterprise web sites, or anyone who wants to understand information and how to put it together more effectively.

Designing Interfaces – Tidwell – O’Reilly – Templates and patterns for all kinds of layouts, designs, visual styles, graphics, and navigation methods, along with thorough discussions. Full-colour, beautiful book for effective interaction design, would even be useful for the developer who wants quick ideas to design an interface without doing a ton of research. Plus I just love looking at it because it is such a gorgeous book.

Designing Web Navigation – Kalbach – O’Reilly – This one is as colourful, beautiful, and usable as the O’Reilly book directly above. Engaging reading, worthwhile to look at apart from all the information chocked inside as well. Another “full picture” type book, from an introduction to navigation on the web, through information seeking, browsing behaviour, mechanisms and types of navigation, labeling, evaluation, analysis, architecture, layout, presentation, search, social tagging, and rich web applications. I open it if only to look at the gorgeous typography and colours.