Shane Life

Designing with Web Standards
by Jeffrey Zeldman
RATING: 8 out of 10

Ever since I became a web designer, people have been telling me to read this book. DWWS is considered by many to be the seminal tome on how to design sites using CSS, XHTML and a collection of standards set forth by the W3C (The World Wide Web Consortium).

Since I’m a self-taught designer, I am always anxious to read anything that will help me to become better at my job. Thanks to my good friend, Kevin, I didn’t have to buy this book or go to a so-called “library” to pick it up. He had a copy of the newly released second edition for me to borrow.

I’ve been reading this book for what seems like ages and I haven’t breezed through it, but that’s not because it’s a bad book. It’s a great book, in fact. Other things have been going on that have put my reading at a snail’s pace. Plus, I haven’t exactly been diligent about getting into the gym (where I do most of my reading). If I had, I would have finished this book and at least one other by now.

So to the book: Zeldman is a former-copywriter-turned-designer who has literally written the book on the latest revolution in web design, which is to part with presentation, table-based designs in favor of semantic design that separates presentation from structure. Using the suggestions put forth by Zeldman is better for the Internet. It saves bandwidth and ensures that your web sites play well in all browsers.

Zeldman is a great writer and he makes this topic understandable and interesting. Not only that, but he gives you the reasons why it is important, which books sometimes forget to do.

DWWS is a very grood book and I suggest it to anyone who designs web sites. I also suggest reading his personal web site and his side project, A List Apart.