A trifecta of design books
This might be of general interest to people thinking about design issues.
My friend Robert sent me an e-mail this afternoon:
> If you had to recommend a single book on good web design,
> what would it be?
My answer:
HmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmI'm not sure I *can* recommend a single book.
I'm also not sure I can recommend a book specifically on web design. Most seem to focus on L33T HTML skillz, or the latest bad flash ideas, etc.
I guess I'd treat these three books as three volumes of my perfect book:
Designing visual interfaces is the best book I know about interaction design. If you were only going to read one, I'd read this one. It's focused on GUI design, but all of the concepts are applicable to designing a web page.
Design Basics is a great intro to graphic design issues, whether you're designing a poster or a web page.
MTIV is a great book on the process of designing an interactive site, finding inspiration, interviewing the client, etc. And it's funny.
The single best thing I can recommend, besides reading these books, is that you spend a lot of time looking at other similar web sites, and think critically about them. What works? Why? What looks cool, but doesn't work well?
I should add that the last thing -- critiqueing existing designs -- is the single best tool I know of for improving one's design skills.
At least 90% of the work of big-d Design is in thinking about the design problem. Coming up with visuals that fit with the solution you've come up with is the last 10% -- last meaning, it's the last thing you do.
Haven't figured out how the content is going to be structured, or even what content is going to be there? Don't know how much space you have to work with? Don't know who the audience is? The design will never support the content unless those questions are answered. Design and content will go their separate ways, only vaguely related.