The Art and Science of Web Design

by Jeffrey Veen

Book Overview

The Art & Science of Web Design will help you understand the Web from the inside. It is structured around core Web concepts that often get only a passing mention in books on Web design. This book is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0789723700
• ISBN13: 9780789723703
• Release Date: January 2000
• Publisher: Que
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 7.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

The Veen Factor

I started making web pages back in the dark ages of 1996. In 1999 I was making streamlined web apps for Franklin that my coworkers and I used to make on the fly calculaitons and data lookups. Eventually, I was a staff web developer at schwab in san francisco and in tokyo, japan. I had heard of Jacob Nielson at useit.com, but only after using thousands of web pages and making hundreds of web pages myself and making dozens of web apps did I come across Jeffrey Veen's book "The Art and Science of Web Design." I cringed when I read that he wrote to avoid using images when you can use text. Everything seemed to be agains the grain and I felt like I was swimming up river as I read what Veen was writing, but only after years of experience have I learned to respect Mr. Veen and his infinite wisdom. A web site is only good if it achieves its purpose, which is access to information. And this occurs only through a site that possesses speed, simplicty, and clarity. Download speed is the most important, and meeting the user's expectations. A simple design that works is worth a bucket of gold. Only after making countless web pages have I finally taken Veen's philosophy to heart - make the web site simple and fast and don't dwell on the unnecessary frivolous pretty gifs and clutter that predominates on so many web pages. Simplicity. Speed. Clarity. I hope that Jeffrey Veen writes another book. I highly recommend this book.It's like Jeffrey Veen is a Web Philospher, and everything he wrote in the book is true, though for those raised on photoshop and obsessed with glossy web pages, it's hard to swallow the truth sometimes - less really is more. Make the site fast and make it simple.

Buy Veen's Book

Reviewed by: Timothy E. McMahon, M.S.Principal Web DeveloperThe McMahon GroupThere are hundreds, if not thousands of books on web design and development out there for us to reference. While there are so many authors writing, there are far fewer worth spending your money on. Jeffrey Veen though is one worth the money. Veen's book The Art and Science of Web Design is a lesson to all of us in web development that the age of specialization is drawing to an end. To succeed in this maturing field, we need to begin integrating our design, programming and usability skills into one cohesive package that provides value to our employers and value to our users.The Art and Science of Web Design touches on many areas from interface consistency, to rule-based design to browsers. I've read scores of books on web development and without doubt, Veen's book was one of the most enjoyable reads and one of the more informative texts I've purchased.This is one book worth adding to your personal library.

The book I wish I wrote!

There are some horrible web design books out there. This is not one of them. The author really gets it! It covers basics like "the fold" to advanced notions like OO-Design. He manages to get you through what is wrong with 90% of the pages out there. This is not the only book you will ever need but it is the one book everyone should have.

Big Yellow Face

The cover..., not because Mr. Veen does not own a serviceable countenance, but because it doesn't clue the prospective reader in on the wealth of useful Web interface-related junk inside."Junk" is used in its most positive form, of course, as related to the effusive collection of diverse material Veen attempts -- and succeeds -- to convey in his color-coded pages. He's all over the place as he gathers together everything there is to say about Web design through copious color illustrations (one on almost every page, for those who count such things) without actually giving step-by-step instructions.In other words, this is a lengthy, but easy-to-read, explanation of concepts and best-practices rather than a "if you want to produce a mouseover, here's the JavaScript you'll need" sort of book. It isn't about how to do things when considering your Web site design options, but rather why you should do things. Ultimately, 'The Art & Science of Web Design' manages to provide lots of great examples of both what is right and what is wrong with current thinking regarding the balance of useability and pretty pictures, the so-called "laws" of use (which are sometimes overzealously applied) and one man's rather well-reasoned opinions and well-researched facts concerning how people use the Web, and how Web sites need to adapt to those principles.

Superb book by a design master

Jeffrey Veen is on a mission to make the Web a better place. His latest book, "The Art & Science of Web Design," came from a need he saw for a higher-level view of Web design: "I looked around at what Web design books were available, and saw a hole in the market." Veen was Executive Interface Director for Wired Digital, and the man behind Webmonkey, HotWired, and HotBot's designs.For many of you, reading this book will be an "aha" experience. According to Veen, Web design is no longer logos and layouts, it now takes a multidisiplinary approach, with elements of information architecture, programming, and of course design. Veen says: "The line between design and programming is getting more and more blurry." The rare few who stretch beyond their comfort zones and learn these other disciplines can become design masters. Jeffrey Veen is such a person.It's a different kind of Web design book. Veen doesn't dwell on technical details, he guides you towards more elegant solutions. He provides ways you can find the best solutions (interfaces etc.) through the use of heuristic usability and pattern matching, rather than the tedious testing promoted by the likes of Jakob Nielsen. It's a new design philosophy really, a more fluid approach with "intelligent content that can figure out how to display itself correctly" created from dynamic publishing systems (databases and scripted templates).And Veen makes it look easy. Veen's final chapter on "Object- Oriented Publishing" ties it all together with a great example of a database-backed scripted template (using ASP) front-end to a church's sermon respository. He whipped the site up on his hard drive using low-cost tools, and shows how easy it can be to create a consistent look site-wide, lower maintenance costs, and easily add new "views" of your data. The benefit of separating presentation from content is that your site can more easily adapt to changing standards, and formats. Want a WAP feed? No problem, query the database with a different template, or even an XSL style sheet.The days of large static sites are numbered. Going to "dynamic publishing" using a database gives your company a strategic advantage over your competition, as you can publish content faster, and change designs and formats much more efficiently. Your site comes alive.