About a week ago I received a copy of The Smashing Book in the mail. I thumbed through it on the first day and it seemed that there was great information on each page. I decided to sit down and start reading the book from cover to cover. I am glad I did. After over 15 years of creating web sites and applications I thought I was pretty aware of most things web, boy was I wrong. The Smashing Book is a collection of articles written by designer/developers on topics ranging from layout to fonts; colors to site optimization; conversion rates to branding. This book has it all for the UX web professional. Could it be the new ‘Bible’ for UX developers?
The Smashing Book starts the reader off with brief overview of user interface design for web applications; in this section you are reminded of all those elements and ideas that you may have forgotten or even thought about in quite sometime. It really servers as a gentle reminder of being aware of your design and usability.
My favorite sections of the book dealt with CSS layout and Typography. In both sections the writers don’t provide opinions or their ‘favorite’ trends, they actually delve into explanations that clarify the ‘why’ and not the ‘cool.’ There are plenty of quick math formulas that are discussed, don’t get nervous the formulas are simple but they can save you time in choosing a layout and font size.
Out of all the books I have read regarding web interface development I have to put this at the top. Dare I say that no UI developer should be without this book; not just HTML folks but Flash as well; after all, the same principles apply to both.
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars.
Where to get the book: www.smashingmagazine.com – the best money you will spend on a web book this decade!
