Web Design on a Shoestring

Rating:
Summary: Carrie Bickner "gets it"
Review: A confession: I'm not a designer, have no tech. cred but love the web and work with designers frequently. That's what's so great about Carrie Bickner's book. It speaks to the professional and the interested amateur alike, with equal intelligence and without oversimplifying, in clear, engaging prose, a rare compliment for a technical book. Reading it, I feel empowered as a web design customer. I know where and how my money is being spent, where I should save and where I should not. It did me a great service and was pleasent to read to boot. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: A "must have" for the budget-constrained web designer
Review: Before I review this, I must say one thing. If you have ever seen the movie "This is Spinal Tap" you will laugh when you see the figure on page 30 and remember the bass player saying, "making a big thing out of it would've been a good idea."

Since the dotcom bubble burst, web designers have been expected to deliver whizz-bang websites for pocket change. They are supposed to do the work of five people with a fifth of the budget. This book is intended to help the designer who is trying to work within a tight budget.

"Web Design on a Shoestring" is packed with tips on planning, testing, and building websites when working with small margins. It is full of helpful advice about where to go for low-cost resources, such as image libraries and web hosting providers. Plus there is a special section about saving time and money by designing with web standards.*

I heartily recommend this book to any web designer who is feeling the pinch, and to others who would like to make a few extra bucks for their efforts.

*For more on designing with web standards, I recommend a book by Jeffrey Zeldman, called ... er ... "Designing with Web Standards". Some might say that they were a match made in heaven...

Rating:
Summary: Compulsory reading for every web designer
Review: Counting "only" 215 pages, this is a rather "thin" book. But make no judging mistake here. This book covers all the essential topics to building modern websites: usability, accessibility, writing for the web, design, CMS, web standards... If you are the designer pressed for time, you can easily read it in a couple of hours, and if necessary once again the next day, and the next day... The book clearly references other "industry standard" books if you want to learn more about each individual topic.
A great overview of what modern web design should be. Clean, short and to the point.

Rating:
Summary: Useful information through a realistic lens
Review: For a long time I've hoped that someone would write a book like this. I've also feared it, because the wrong writer, by taking a superficial approach, would kill the topic ... and I believe this is a subject that cries out for more than one book. Fortunately, Bickner's book does the topic justice.

First a confession. As a web designer with over seven years' experience, I've designed, coded, and produced more than 50 Web sites in my career but never once had the opportunity to work on a big budget project ... not even during the so-called dotcom boom years.

So what Bickner talks about in this book is not a new world to me, it's the world I work and live in. This makes me a writer's worst nightmare, because I feel I know as much as anyone about exceeding expectations with little to no support. I expected to be able to trash this book but instead I found myself learning a lot. The chapters on hosting costs and gotchas and on content management systems were particularly useful.

There's also a risk that a book like this will be too general for its own good, but Bickner seems to know what to include and what to leave out. Her focus is consistent throughout ... it's all about delivering great results even when your budget is laughably small. She writes well and respects the reader's time. I like this book, will keep it on my desk, and recommend it highly.

Rating:
Summary: Lots of great info in such a small book.
Review: For me Ms. Bickner breaks no new ground in this book. However, the compilation of all this info in one place makes it so convenient and very useful. If you work on small budget web dev/design projects you owe it to yourself to keep this book within arms reach. Her thoughts on developing a project plan are great as are the content management tips. This book belongs on your desk.

Rating:
Summary: Good ROI on this book
Review: from a review I wrote for DMXzone.com

The title of this book is both accurate and simultaneously misleading; it does teach how to make web sites on a shoestring, but it also suggests it's going to tell you how to use that copy of FrontPage that you got with MS Office, together with some clipart and animated GIFs in order to make a table-heavy, midi-muzakked "killer homepage".

I believe that, at some point during the writing, it was codenamed "how to make a site on a shoestring that looks a million dollars" which would be more accurate (although a little cumbersome and too big to fit on the book's spine!). It's a book for web designers with a low budget (whether in the public sector, freelancers or - let's be frank - practically everyone these days).

This book definitely does what it says on the cover and more; the sites you'll create if you follow its advice will be better looking than the majority of current web sites out there on the web. Even if you are an experienced developer or designer, there's sure to be some useful tips you'll pick up.

It's nice to see New Riders publishing practising what their author preaches; the book is cleanly and carefully laid-out in black and white (to keep the cover price down, presumably) and lacks the typographic excesses that polluted some previous books like blink tags on a Geocities web page.

This slim book doesn't feel very big, and it isn't cheap at $24.99, but that's much cheaper than most computer software available and will certainly impact as much on your quality and productivity as most labour-saving software packages do. I recommend buying a copy, as it is full of good ideas, links, tips and project management suggestions that is almost certain to save you several multiples of the cover price.

Rating:
Summary: Building a new site? Read this first...
Review: I was talking with a friend who had just had a web site built. It was a simple site with attractive graphics and probably fewer than 10 separate pages. It had no shopping cart, and suffered from the typical Flash intro that interrupted visitors before they had time to explore what they wanted. I offered a gentle critique, and then casually asked him how much he paid to build the site. I could hardly contain my shock when he waved his hand in the air and said, "oh, about $20,000".

If he (and I aim this at any solo entrepreneur, or anyone else with limited resources) had read Carrie Bickner's book first, he might have spent as little as a tenth of his eventual cost, with greater satisfaction, and the ability to update his site more easily and inexpensively in the future. Bickner takes a holistic view, looking at the fabric of the site from initial planning, to hosting, to web standards. She's also ready with suggestions along the way to economize, whether it's by backing-off features you can't afford, through savvy design choices, or in careful selection of service providers.

Be warned: this book assumes a fairly broad array of skills and knowledge that one person alone might not likely hold. You may gloss over her suggestions for planning, usability, copywriting, and design without understanding their necessity. Likewise, the technical discussions of CSS, XHTML, content-management, and web hosting may be too detailed or obscure for your liking or experience. This is not a guide for beginners. If you've never launched a site before, use this book with trusted colleagues who have, and who are willing to share Bickner's perspective.

Though she mentions it only in passing, her New York Public Library Style Guide is a wonderful parallel resource that ties her into the web standards community. Once you tap into Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyers, or other folks in and around alistapart.com, you'll appreciate even more how Carrie Bickner's simple little book is tied to the cloth of the web universe. This is a handbook (not a cookbook) that you might have around for a while.

Rating:
Summary: Solid advice for novices & professionals alike!
Review: On a tight budget? Overwhelmed and overchoiced by your design options? Read this book and learn how to create spectacular web sites without cramping your wallet or your client's image. Carrie Bickner guides you through the ups and downs, ins and outs of designing great web sites while keeping your budget low and your sanity in check. Chapter 5 is especially meaty giving good examples on the use of colors, typography, and images; and the benefits of separating content from design with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). She also tells you how to minimize your web site costs by piggy-backing on other web site domains until you can afford your own DSN.

As a web designer myself, I have definitely gained some insight into developing my online writing style, balancing client expectations with realistic work loads, and the undeniable advantages of using web standards at all costs. Buy this book, you need it!

Rating:
Summary: Web Design on a Shoestring is A "Must Have"
Review: This is a "must have" book for anyone who is involved in or responsible for a web site or intranet. Whether you are a Decision Maker/Manager with little technology know how or a seasoned Web Professional, you will find something of immediate value that will not only save you money but time as well in an increase in productivity.

Carrie Bickner has done an excellent job of distilling out what is truly essential to creating well crafted, successful sites (under any circumstance.) Excellence is not only NOT sacrificed but she moves the reader through how to "think" the web as well.
I would not let the title dissuade those who may not have budget constraints as she does an excellent job of helping the reader focus on what is really important (and how to achieve it regardless of the circumstance.)

Of the several dozen (or more) Internet related books I have bought over the past eight years as an Internet Professional, only a core set of books still get used and remain true dispite technology advancements.
This book will not get stale for a very long time and I've added "Web Design on a Shoestring" to my core library. I plan on using it as a training resource for staff and am recommending it to colleagues and friends. If you could only afford several resource books, I'd make sure this was one of them.

Rating:
Summary: Web Design on a Shoestring is A "Must Have"
Review: This is a "must have" book for anyone who is involved in or responsible for a web site or intranet. Whether you are a Decision Maker/Manager with little technology know how or a seasoned Web Professional, you will find something of immediate value that will not only save you money but time as well in an increase in productivity.

Carrie Bickner has done an excellent job of distilling out what is truly essential to creating well crafted, successful sites (under any circumstance.) Excellence is not only NOT sacrificed but she moves the reader through how to "think" the web as well.
I would not let the title dissuade those who may not have budget constraints as she does an excellent job of helping the reader focus on what is really important (and how to achieve it regardless of the circumstance.)

Of the several dozen (or more) Internet related books I have bought over the past eight years as an Internet Professional, only a core set of books still get used and remain true dispite technology advancements.
This book will not get stale for a very long time and I've added "Web Design on a Shoestring" to my core library. I plan on using it as a training resource for staff and am recommending it to colleagues and friends. If you could only afford several resource books, I'd make sure this was one of them.