The Non-Designer's Web Book (2nd Edition)

Rating:
Summary: Good book for teaching
Review:  
We have been teaching 17-year old kids Web Publishing for many years. The Non-Designer's Web Book (1st -> 2nd Edition) used to be our textbook. We only realised how useful this book was after we replaced it with another textbook last year, now we change it back.

With lots of visual examples and straight-to-the-point explanations, this really is the Web book for beginners.

Also, although our teachings have been PC-based all along, we have no problem with the book at all.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Instruction for Those Just Starting
Review: "The Non-Designer's Web Book, 2nd Edition" is perfect for those of you who want to build your own site but don't want to use one of the canned templates so many ISP's offer.
Ms. Williams advice is, as usual, right on target and very easy to understand. Her humor is understated and well placed, encouraging the reader to continue in the project at hand. The book has plenty of color illustrations and screen shots, and is peppered with great advice on creating graphics, getting your site listed, basic design principles, and even a few lessons on HTML coding, if you like.
Each chapter concludes with a short quiz to help cement the principles that were just taught, and her coverage (despite what some people have written) of the basics is just what is needed for those of you who have skipped over an idea or two and wonder just what the heck something such as the difference between search engines and directories are.
Starting on page 50 is a Ms. Williams takes you through setting up a page and the associated site, step by step, in a concise, easy to understand way. It covers such things as typing and formatting text, changing colors, creating links and adding an email link, adding graphics, setting up a table, explaining what frames are and how to use them, and finally, adding some HTML code, if you want. These topics are the very basics of web construction, and the author expounds on them in later chapters, but it's especially nice that she distilled them into a short, easy to read section (that is extremely well illustrated) so you don't have to hunt through the rest of the pages later.
Some people have taken exception to the Netscape emphasis. They fail to realize that when the book was written Netscape was still a big player, and that IE's implementation of standards left a lot to be desired. Also, someone has stated that there are big errors throughout the book, but I haven't found any, and the example the reviewer gave (directions to use a page-sized graphic as a background) doesn't exist. In fact, Ms. Williams stresses that's just want you DON'T want to do.
There is a slight Mac-bias, but it is slight, with plenty of screen shots of Windows software along with the appropriate instruction. Given that the design industry is predominately centered on the Mac platform, this preference is easily understood.
All in all, this is one of the best books out for learning the basics of setting up your web site, as the title implies. You won't go wrong with Robin William's books, and this is just one example of why: clear writing, excellent advice, easy to follow instruction.

Rating:
Summary: Good book for teaching
Review:  
We have been teaching 17-year old kids Web Publishing for many years. The Non-Designer's Web Book (1st -> 2nd Edition) used to be our textbook. We only realised how useful this book was after we replaced it with another textbook last year, now we change it back.

With lots of visual examples and straight-to-the-point explanations, this really is the Web book for beginners.

Also, although our teachings have been PC-based all along, we have no problem with the book at all.

Rating:
Summary: Very complete for the beginner!!
Review: This book was awesome! It is generated toward the beginner with very simple explanations and wonderful pictures so you know exactly what they are saying. But even the experienced web designer can gain from this as you see your own work through more simple eyes.
Lots of ideas, explains from thought through concept, even shows you what NOT to do. Touches bases on color, graphics, search engines, typography. I was very impressed by this book and if you are a beginner this really is the book for you. I was very surprised to the amount of information and the wide range it covers in such a little book!

Rating:
Summary: Sharp but unbalanced
Review: The authors of HTML books tend to fall into three categories: Coders, Tech Writers, and Designers. Robin Williams belongs proudly in the last category, and it shows. Four chapters of sharp and specific advices on design are accompanied by 12 rather watered-down chapters on web basics - with no coverage of HTML itself! Apparently Robin decided to target her book to amateurs and graphic designers who think they can do everything on Dreamweaver and other graphic tools, thus never have to deal with the messy HTML plumbing ...

Not so! Web and browser technology still have many idiosyncracies, and any serious web designer will soon have to master the actual plumbing works - in all its glorious variations. For that, there is no shortcut to a step-by-step study of HTML and CSS - perhaps the Molly Holzschlag book. She, however, is not technical enough to write it.

Robin Williams shine when she lays out realistic (and above-average) examples and explains why they work (or not). Her chapter on typography was outstanding - she analyzes each of Microsoft's near-universal web core fonts, pointing out their strengths and weaknesses, and discourses on the use of Arial vs. Helvetica (one for screen and the other for printing). No other book goes into such detail. I give her four stars for this chapter alone.

The perfect HTML book would probably be Laura Lemay/Holzschlag teaming with Robin (and maybe Lynda Weinman). Failing that, getting both Holzschlag and Robin Williams is not a bad substitute.

Rating:
Summary: A good start
Review: So, you want to learn to the craft of web-design and want a beginners guide to help you do it? Well, there are lots of design books out there, and perhaps none of them will tell you everything you need to know. This book is decent; it has a lot of tips that are useful and some good ideas. But most of what it teaches is either common sense or stuff you'll pick up anyway as you experiment with your software.

The book's main strength is in its pictures--there are tons of them, and most of the examples are very good. This will provide the reader with somewhere to start. Unfortunately, the tips are not all that great. Most of what is preached in this book is a matter of personal preference, things like screen resolution and alignment. The authors give good suggestions on how to do things, but they make it sound like it's the only way. It's not.

It's true that you have to follow certain rules of style as you build a website. Color, contrast, and spacing are all very important, and if your site's an eyesore or is hard to use, people won't frequent it. But, all in all, it's called 'design' for a reason. It's your baby, do what you want with it.

That is the main weakness of the book--it's just a little too rigid in its so-called rules. For those who want a book on web-design that is easy to understand, this will prove useful. But there's nothing here that a little experience won't teach you.