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Everything you need to know to create professional web sites is right here. Learning Web Design starts from the beginning — defining how the Web and web pages work — and builds from there. By the end of the book, you’ll have the skills to create multi-column CSS layouts with optimized graphic files, and you’ll know how to get your pages up on the Web.
This thoroughly revised edition teaches you how to build web sites according to modern design practices and professional standards. Learning Web Design explains:
- How to create a simple (X)HTML page, how to add links and images
- Everything you need to know about web standards — (X)HTML, DTDs, and more
- Cascading Style Sheets — formatting text, colors and backgrounds, using the box model, page layout, and more
- All about web graphics, and how to make them lean and mean through optimization
- The site development process, from start to finish
- Getting your pages on the Web — hosting, domain names, and FTP
The book includes exercises to help you to learn various techniques, and short quizzes to make sure you’re up to speed with key concepts. If you’re interested in web design, Learning Web Design is the place to start.
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
Great if you are new to HTML and CSS
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
I bought this book to help me learn the basics of HTML and CSS. I had no prior knowledge of either before purchasing this book. After reading only half of the book I already understand the basics behind HTML and CSS. This book is great for those who are just starting out with HTML and CSS. This book has helped me to learn what goes on behind the scenes in programs like Adobe Dreamweaver. I recommend this book to anybody starting out in web design or anybody who wants to learn HTML and CSS. The tutorials help you learn by actually practicing the skills and not just reading a boring book. Pick this book up if you are interested in web design and learning the coding behind it.
A Solid Introduction to (X)HTML and CSS
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I was looking to create a website for my work group that was professional looking and modern. I had played with HTML on an off, mostly copying other sites and cutting and pasting things. I became interested in learning CSS, what they were and how to use them. After borrowing “Eric Meyer on CSS” I realized I was over my head, I could parrot the examples but didn’t really know what I was doing or how to repeat it. I really needed a more basic and solid foundation.
I stumbled across this book browsing the local bookstore and bought it from Amazon for the price break. This book is a treasure. The writing is clear, concise and flows well. The layout is colorful but well organized and not too busy. The author first gives a solid foundation in HTML/XHTML, describing the different HTML tags, pointing out how things have changed over the years and advocating for the current best practices, HTML for semantic markup and CSS for presentation. I appreciate the consistent sidebars describing browser inconsistencies and quirks.
The section on CSS is great and gives a good foundation for using CSS to markup the display of HTML elements and how to use it to set the layout of a page, instead of using table cells. When the more advanced topics of floats and page layout templates are discussed, while still a good foundation, the material becomes a little more sparse and difficult to follow, but this is a minor problem.
One of my favorite features of this book is the consistent sidebars in each chapter detailing web-sites and resources where you can go for more information on a topic. The author focuses in the main text on presenting the basics and providing a foundation. At the same time, she realizes that there is much more to a topic than she can present and kindly provides the reader with places to go to find it, and keeps those references in context (right next to the topic at hand).
I’m not a professional web developer, nor is that my aspiration. However, I don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on Dreamweaver or other software just to create a nice looking web-site. This book showed me how to do it the right way and cleared away alot of misconceptions and bad practices I had adopted over the years, cutting and pasting HTML from pages I liked.
I would highly recommend this book for anyone interested in gaining a solid foundation in (X)HTML and CSS. Now I feel comfortable going back to Meyer’s book and other references with a solid understanding of the basic principles.
This book saved my bacon!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
When I needed to put up a Web site for my photo business, I decided to do it myself. I figured this would allow me to make changes and fixes without paying a designer. I then bought a template (online), MS Expression Web software, and Jennifer Robbins “Learning Web Design.” While Expression Web was ultimately near-useless, Jennifer’s book saved the day. Each chapter deals with one specific topic, with clear examples and exercises. The technical stuff can be a bit thick, but it’s really not necessary to master that. In due order, I was able to edit my template and bring it up with only minimal help from tech support. I continue to read and reread this book to gain even more understanding and eventually make my site better. This book is absolutely great, particularly for someone (like myself) who does not speak Software.
Great reference book as well as learning guide!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I had borrowed the 2nd edition from my local library to work on my wife’s website. The book was so useful, that I went ahead and purchased a copy to keep around for reference and to learn more.
Niederst did a great job with the 2nd edition and even with getting married (now Robbins) she found time to do a fantastic job on the 3rd edition. She does a fine job in balancing examples with reference which allowed me to learn the needed skills and to understand what I am doing.
Excellent book for anyone wanting to setup a website… simple or complex!
Thank you!
A great resource
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I made it through most of this book. On occasion I go back to it as a reference. It is great to have on my bookshelf!
new but slightly damaged
Rating:3 out of 5 stars
The book is very well done. It would have received 4 stars but the new book came with slight damage to it.
Amazing
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I really liked this book,really covers all beginner stuff and not a techinacal book only, also introduces the trends of web desing,guiding you if you want to go on deeper any part of web desing.
Definitely worth it….
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have looked through almost every web design book on the market, or it would feel that way at least. This is the one book I would probably reccomend if you could only buy a single book on web design from the code perspective in terms of XHTML and CSS. The author logically and systematically lays everything out, gradually working up through CSS in a logical way that is easy to read and comprehend. She doesn’t get bogged down in ‘geek speak’ and explains things in a clear way. There is also a section on saving graphics for the web as well as dealing with the code. There are a ton of visual graphics/examples to accompany all of the text and the book doesn’t depend on the tutorials like alot of books (you can still get alot out of the book even if you didn’t do a single one of the tutorials). This is the kind of book that you would have as a reference or refresher by your side… It’s one of the few that covers almost everything in a great and easy to use manner (there are some great books on the individual topics like CSS or Graphics, but this is one of the only great ones that touches on them all. I found myself putting down other books I have on these topics and coming back to this one several times b/c it made so much more sense….. If you can only get one book, make it this one….
Best Discussion of the WHY of CSS positioning and layouts.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is an excellent book on Web design and covers everything from where to start, to how the browser does request/response protocols (in a very comfortable visual way) to Web Graphics.
However, the price of the book was worth the section on CSS!
I have been beating my head against a wall trying to understand how CSS layouts actually work and how positions, floats and web page flow works. It seems very inconsistent and confusing. But the CSS section has great examples to describe how CSS 2.x works, how block and in-line elements flow, how element types effect eachother in the flow and it has GREAT exercises and experiments to help the reader understand what is happening. The author also goes into the quirks between browsers and how the different browsers handle CSS differently.
This book doesn’t do like so many other books and just give one patterns to copy without an understanding of what is happening. To me, this book would be worth it for just the CSS Section.
I have also enjoyed the section on Web Graphics and how browsers handle them. Great book.
Excellent
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
“I buy this book as an introduction to web design, I wanted to learn HTML, CSS, and a well-rounded knowledge about the subject. And the book provides that, plus a solid base of what is a good and accessible web site, setting your mind in a neat and professional style with good practices.
It has a lot of references to find help, knowledge and resources in the web. It is very easy to follow, and it presents good examples and practice exercises.
It is not an advanced book, but when you finish it, you will be ready to do many things and continue to learn by your own with the resources it mentions.
For me it was a solid start point.”
Learning Web Design
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
This is my first class in html and CSS, and Learning Web Design is one of the required books. I’ve found that as long as I do the exercises at the time I read, the book is quite helpful. The exercises are a vital part of the learning process for me. I think the book would be improved if mark up being phased out, or no longer recommended for use was not included in the exercises. This book has not been able to help me “connect the dots”, as well as I’d like, between mark up elements, attributes, etc. and understanding what they do.
This book deserves the 5-star rating it’s been getting!
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
For a person who has been doing some web designing for not that long, this book was a real eye opener. I liked that the chapters got to the point and took you through the material without assuming *too* much, but also without sacrificing thoroughness.
Sections II (HTML) and III (CSS) were the most informative, for me. Clear explanations that take you step by step through some concepts that were new to me. Section III was the least useful, for me: designing web graphics using Photoshop seemed a bit daunting, I simply use GRSites for making all the graphics which works well, but I’m sure I’ll come back to this part of the book go over it slowly eventually. Section I and IV were good too, in that they give useful overviews of web design in general, and the mechanics of getting your site hosted, and other details that I didn’t realize initially were even relevant.
Well written!
Best book on web design
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve read several books on web design over the years and this is far and away the best of the bunch. The information progresses at a perfect pace and the layout of the book makes it easy to find and digest the information you are looking for. This book is perfect for the beginner who will find everything he or she needs to design their first web page and to do it the right way.
Easily Followed and Understood
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This book is amazing! There is beginning background information and takes small steps to ensure you understand how and why you do certain things in regards to designing a web page. It offers many resources and links to more information for those who want to get more technical. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in designing a web page!
Learning Web Design
Rating:4 out of 5 stars
The book Ireceived Learning Web Design is a very at instructing web design; but the binding is very poor for class room function. The binding on my is starting to lose pages and has had very little use.
Thank You;
Tony
Best HTML & CSS book by far.
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’ve spent time reading through several other popular books that cover HTML & CSS and this book gives just the right level of detail. I chose this book above all others. You want to learn XHTML & CSS? This book does it beautifully. While other books assume you’re an absolute beginner and painstakingly cover off topics that are way to basic; others go off tangent and describe SEO & web marketing. These are totally separate subjects that have no place in a book about HTML. I had unanswered questions about the HTML Div tag for example. This was the one & only book that covered off how ID & Class attributes worked when assigned to Div tags. I was struggling to grasp the difference between these two attributes. This book finally cleared this up for me. Now when I look at my XHTML code in Dreamweaver CS4 I know exactly what’s going on.
I never really understood which settings were best when optimizing images for the web. Usually I’d just play around with the settings and have an educated guess. This was the only book that explained what dithering actually does while preparing photos in photoshop. Most other tutorials teach you to simply “play around” and see what happens when saving images for the web. Here you’re given an absolute clear explanation of exactly when & where to use dithering along with all the other image optimization settings. The entire subject of XHTML & CSS is covered exactly the way a professional web developer needs. The visuals are perfectly spot on too. While getting my head around HTML elements had been a little confusing, the chapter here included the exact right diagram to help with the explanation. I was absolutely clear how tags are written as an element and how they get nested together. It’s one of the few books that’s written in a concise manner.
It’s clear that this author has worked closely with students and taught classes. She’s covered off the key subjects perfectly with just the right amount of professionalism. I felt as if I was being taught in her own class. The first book that gets it absolutely right!
Using it in classroom
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Without a doubt, Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to (X)HTML and CSS is a great book to starting learning the basics of web design. As a matter of fact, I’ve adopted it for one of the three web design/development courses I teach (Intro to Web). I find it an invaluable resource and really enjoy the structure, content, and overall quality of the book. There are other well-written books on the basics of web design, but most are in black and white and appear like a manual – which makes absolutely no sense to me.
Web site HTMl development
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This book is excellent. It’s an elementary textbook on HTML that is really thorouh. The author’s approce is straightforward for novices, and included enough detail to be a valuable review for experienced site developers.
Best web design book yet !
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I have dabbled in a bit of web design before, but never knew exactly what I was doing. I just copied and pasted code from other forums and figured out what I needed to change to make things work. I recently took a web/interactive design course at my university, and this was the required text for the class. This is one of the only required texts I have read all the way through. The first half of the book teaches basic HTML and the second half of the book expands on that to teach you about CSS. DEFINITELY a MUST if you are a beginner web designer or need a good reference book. I have checked out other HTML/CSS books, and none of them really made sense to me. This book has several pictures, tutorials, tips, and recommended links that really helped me understand the fundamentals of web design.
The perfect book for the beginner
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I felt the need to express how well written this book is for the beginning web designer. The author doesn’t bog the reader down with overly complex examples of code. I’ve been designing web pages using Dreamweaver for a few years now and never bothered with the code. I’ve always created my content in Photoshop and just dropped the images into the software. After reading through this book, I am not only able to simplify my web pages through code editing, but also, was able to optimize my graphics content.
Right now, I am now trudging through a book to learn JavaScript. I am getting through the book, but not nearly as easily as I did the Learning Web Design book. To be fair, the subject is a bit more complex, but the way that the JavaScript book is written causes me to have to constantly look up unexplained technical terms and syntax of the code examples to figure out why they work. I never had to do that with the Learning Web Design book.
Great Step By Step Instructions
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I used this as a self-study guide while taking a class in HTML. It was very helpful and gave instructions in both Mac and PC formats.
Learning Web Design
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This book is great for people learning web design for the first time and for people who need a refresher. It is an easy read, well structured, with lots of step-by-step exercises to help you better understand and practice what the book is teaching you. As a visual learner, I really enjoy having a lot of pictures, figures, and examples to refer to.
The best introduction to modern web design
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
This is the clearest, most comprehensive, and most accurate beginner’s text I’ve seen. It’s also easy on the eyes, with helpful full-color diagrams and illustrations on every page. If you want to enter the field of web design, or just want to figure out what the heck this CSS stuff is all about, then this is the book for you.
I like the way Robbins covers some of the current lively debates in web development circles, such as the relative virtues of XHTML vs. HTML markup and fixed vs. fluid designs. She explains the issues clearly and without bias, leaving it up to the reader to make an informed choice. This is refreshing compared to certain other beginning texts (for example the Head First book) which try to bully the reader into using XHTML without drawing sufficient attention to the drawbacks of that choice.
I only have a couple of bones to pick with the author. First, Getting Your Pages On The Web, which is the last (?!) chapter of the book, explains how to upload your files to a server via FTP, as if that were the only option. I think she should have at least mentioned the existence of more advanced techniques like version control and file synchronization, even if she didn’t have room to cover them. Finally, the graphics software section fails to mention GIMP as a free, open-source alternative to Adobe Photoshop. This probably reflects Robbins’ background and bias as a Mac-oriented designer. I think she should have at least mentioned GIMP as an extremely powerful system for image manipulation that is favored by many Linux-oriented web developers.
Perfect Intro to xhtml
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
I’m on chapter 6, working through the exercises by downloading the files from the author’s website. So far, it’s exactly what I was looking for. I knew next to nothing about html, and wanted a systematic way to learn the basics before going on to more advanced topics like Java. I’m doing a little every day, like a class, and feel the pace in the book is just right for that kind of approach. The files/exercises to download are what really make it so good for this. Just like taking a class.
Wonderful Book
Rating:5 out of 5 stars
Clearly written, organized and illustrated. I have gone crazy lately buying books on web design and computer languages like PHP and Python. I wish I would have purchased this one first when shopping for web design books. Do yourself a favor and buy this book if you are new to the subject. You’ll be glad you did. Terrific book. I wish they published more computer related books in this format. Learning would be a lot easier and more fun.