Rating: 
Summary: Practical advice for the low-budget designer
Review: Web Design on a Shoestring is divided into two parts: Production covers planning the site and marshaling assets; The Tools covers content management, standards compliance, and web hosting and domain registration. Ms. Bickner's theme is that proper planning will keep your project in line and your clients' expectations in check. The point almost goes without saying, but the value in this book is its practical approach that is backed up with checklists and planning documents to put the advice into play. Plenty of real-world examples inform this book. Chapter 7, for instance, shows a step by step transformation of a web page built on tables and presentation tags into a standards-compliant page based on CSS. I have read a couple of other makeover articles, but Ms. Bickner does a superior job of showing the before and after and describing how to get there. In the process, she makes a compelling case for the value of standards compliance in terms of efficiency and results. Some sections I found difficult to understand, and while it might be me, I think some editing was needed. My notes have a number of sections to re-read for solutions to problems I have encountered and for things I want to do better. The sections on planning a site are required reading, and I personally found the CSS makeover to be instructive and actually inspiring. The style is informal but not overly chatty, with good charts and instructive examples, and with suggestions based on sound judgment. Despite some unevenness, this book has value for anyone making the step from tagging pages to developing full web sites. While the focus is on the small-scale or part-time designer, Web Design on a Shoestring has lessons for anyone who works with limited time or resources.
Rating:
Summary: There's more to cheap than people, software, and technology
Review: With the many brands, features, and styles available, the decision-making process for most products has gotten harder. Apply that to the more technical subject of Web sites and it's scary. Whether the economy is strong or in a slump, there's always a company with a shrinking budget that requires cutting funds for the IT and other departments. Furthermore, companies are creating a standard budget for their Web sites like any other portion of their business and they don't get the outrageous amounts of money like those who did in the '90s. With much of the cost going towards hardware and networking, Web managers are stuck with the short straw and have to make do with the little resources they have available. With the availability of quality free or low cost software and guidance from Web Design on a $hoestring, these Web sites can survive and even thrive. Doing things on the cheap isn't limited to software as project management, team involvement, content, and technologies have an equal hand in building a successful site. While the most of the advice is common sense, Bickner offers a few tricks most people even the tech-savvy may not consider. For instance, many shy away from CMSes (content management systems) because of their high price tag. Disregarding CMS is a mistake with the viable and affordable solutions available, but it doesn't mean going shopping and just looking at the price tags without paying attention to the features. The process is similar to purchasing a computer in that it's important to determine what features are needed before shopping. "Content Management on a Tight Budget" describes the features to consider and offers suggestions for bargains. It's tempting to skip user testing and save the bucks, don't do it. Use the suggested workarounds for conducting tests without sacrificing cost and quality. Layout, markup, and images may not sound like something to worry about when under a tight budget. However, it's how they're used that can make the difference when it comes to bandwidth costs. Buying this book is cheaper than spending resources on researching and brainstorming waves to save money. The book also saves time in providing a handful of resources for various categories such as CMS. So rather than searching every CMS in the world, use the material to narrow down the search and start from there. No starting from scratch. The book provides the necessary support to get the design team working on solutions right away.
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