Building a library

Submitted by Ratface on July 19, 2000 - 01:03.

Excellent list Martin - I am especialy pleased to see Funky Business on the list. I was lucky enough to see Jonas run his Funky Business presentation in Stockholm one time - I can't recommend it enough for a company who want to motivate their staff to greatness. Otherwise, I would offer a caveat about the Jakob Neilson overweighting at the beginning of the list - his work isn't for everyone. Read him with an open mind to the possibility that what he says might be wrong as well and his work will be much more valuable to you :-)

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Submitted by MartinB on July 19, 2000 - 04:25.

The thing about most instructional sets of rules is that one should learn how they work by following them before branching out from them I have one major disagreement with one of Jakob's hot topics - default link colours. Blue & Purple haven't been standards for a long, long time; I'm not even sure that there are standards. The principles I tend to follow are:

1. The link colours should be a distinctive colour from normal text (unless a sense of discovery is one of the objectives) and from each other.
2. Good colour perception theory should be used whereever practical - warm colours (reds, yellows) push forward are ideal for unvisited links, while cool colours (blues & greens) recede so are better for visited ones.

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Submitted by MartinB on July 19, 2000 - 05:07.

Additional items for the library:

Displaying Data

It really has to be the Tufte triumverate:

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
  focuses on charts and graphs that display numerical information, virtually defining the field.
• Visual Explanations
  centres on dynamic data--information that changes over time
• Envisioning Information
  explores similar territory but with an emphasis on maps and cartography

Tufte has described the three books as being about, respectively, "pictures of numbers, pictures of verbs, and pictures of nouns". If you're not a Tufte fan, or are just looking for alternatives, try

• How to Lie with Statistics, Darrel Huff
  Or perhaps more accurately "How to prevent other people from doing it to you."
• How to Lie with Maps, Mark Monmonier & H.J. de Blij
  More abuse of presentational techniques to serve predefined objectives.

Project Management

The two classic works on IT development, from before and after the Open Source revolution:

• The Mythical Man Month, Fred Brooks
  Fred led the IBM team who developed the 360 mainframe. This edition has an update to the original essays.
• The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Eric S Raymond ("ESR" to almost everyone)
  Open Source's own Little Red Book. The title essay is also available on Eric's site. The rest of the book probably is too.

Design & Usability

• Web Pages that Suck, Vincent Flanders & Michael Willis
  A lot of fun to be had at other people's expense, and many valuable lessons too. It's the book of the site.
• Web Site Usability, Jared Spool et al
  The main use of this is that it's stuffed full of usability case studies and research.
• The Yale Web Style Guide, Patrick Lynch & Sarah Horton
  More as an example of the things to consider when putting together style guides rather than something to be slavishly followed. Unless you're putting together a site for an American Ivy League University, of course.

Odds and Sods

A bit of cultural theory never did anyone any harm - here's the easy one to get you into the way culture and society is going:

• Introducing Postmodernism, Richard Appignanesi & Chris Garrett (Illustrator).
  Here's the Amazon synopsis: What on earth is postmodernism? This is a guide to the maddeningly enigmatic concept which is supposed to define the human cultural condition at the end of the 20th century. Postmodernism claims that "modernity" has collapsed, that the historical process which began with the enlightenment, industrialism, Darwin, Marx, Freud and so on has exhausted itself and there is no more "future", just an endlessly "contemporary" world full of endlessly contested meanings. This uncertainty has led to a postmodern culture which embodies parody, pastiche and cultural cross-over and claims as its own such diverse phenomena as Andy Warhol, neo-classical architecture and Mickey Mouse! This book takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride through structuralism, deconstruction, cyberspace and semiotics in the company of the essential postmodern icons from Adorno and Lacan to Foucault and Umberto Eco.

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Submitted by MartinB on July 19, 2000 - 07:44.

Lest that last one leaves you thinking "Arty-farty garbage", consider this. Semiotics is the study of the relationships between things/concepts and the symbols we use to represent them. Kind of important for getting computers to understand what we humans are on about (and vice versa), no? It's probably no coincidence that Eco's formal work, A Theory of Semiotics, is referenced by W3C.

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Submitted by aardvark on July 19, 2000 - 09:13.

For what it's worth, I don't buy from Amazon.com (patent lawsuit reasons), and even if I did, there are many other online book stores. I tend to buy my technical books from Fatbrain. All the books above can be found there.

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Submitted by hackworth on July 19, 2000 - 10:43.

I'm surprised that you missed this one... Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing

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Submitted by vladi on July 19, 2000 - 18:25.

And that project management list needs Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams, Second Edition -- which is coincidentally half off at FatBrain right now. Our production team at work read and discussed it as a group. An interesting exercise, for sure.

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Submitted by mantruc on July 20, 2000 - 08:32.

Great list, Martin (& all), it's just what i was asking for in thelist. All i can add is The Navigation and Usability Guide, in Webreview, it's like a synthesis of most things mentiones above, a good starting point.

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Submitted by shelley on July 21, 2000 - 23:42.

I've bought a dozen copies of Alan Cooper's book "The Inmates Are Running the Asylum : Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How To Restore The Sanity" (buy it at Fatbrain, http://www1.fatbrain.com/asp/bookinfo/bookinfo.asp?theisbn=0672316498). I give it to employees and to clients! Nope, it's not specifically for web designers, but it is entertaining and enlightening. Cooper's examples are priceless. This book helps people to understand and articulate why they can't use something that's otherwise a technological marvel. The book's forward and first chapter are available on Cooper's site (www.cooper.com).

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Typography book

Submitted by MartinB on December 20, 2000 - 03:51.

Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works - Erik Spiekermann & E. M. Ginger
Probably the best typography book for non-typographers. Find out why Helvetica sucks as an on-screen font, and how to improve the readability of your pages.

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Up to date list

Submitted by MartinB on January 13, 2001 - 17:56.

I do try to keep this list up to date, but you'll probably find the version on my own site gets updated more consistently.

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What about Don Norman?

Submitted by themadman on January 15, 2001 - 22:37.

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald Norman. While the book was written way before the Web happened, it contains a fascinating insight into cognitive psychology and industrial design. Norman explores seemingly insignificant problems like why it's hard to figure out whether to push or pull doors to serious issues like why most airplane accidents are actually due to errors in design. All I can say is that once you've read this book, you'll never look at anything the same way.

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