Are you a web developer and designer? Take a look at the following books which I found really valuable in developing & designing web based applications/sites. I would recommend these books as a must read for people who need to do mix of both Web Design and Development.
Checkout More Recommended Software Books for reading
- Don’t Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
- Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works (Interactive Technologies)
- Even Faster Web Sites: Performance Best Practices for Web Developers
- High Performance Web Sites: Essential Knowledge for Front-End Engineers
- Eric Meyer on CSS: Mastering the Language of Web Design
- JavaScript: The Definitive Guide
- jQuery in Action, Second Edition
(By: Steve Krug) “Don’t Make Me Think” is incredibly clear, concise, and helpful – as well as surprisingly enjoyable. This book walks it’s talk. It is written and arranged exactly as a useable web site should be, clear and concise, with scan-able text. The clean attractive design and graphics accurately and efficiently illustrate the text, which is easy to read and to understand.
(By: Janice (Ginny) Redish) The book is beautifully laid-out, with easy to grasp, common sense advice – all backed up by solid research data and straightforward examples. Everyone who writes web content will benefit from reading this book with its clear guidelines and extensive examples. The book is well organized and its format makes it easy to find specific ideas. You can download the Chapter 1 of this book for Free from authors website at this link Letting Go of the Words: Chapter 1
(By: Steve Souders) This book is a follow-on to Steve Souder’s first book entitled “High Performance Web Sites”. “Even Faster Web Sites” takes the latest Performance improvement techniques available to developers and organizes them into three performance areas: JavaScript, network, and browser. this book includes great information on how to parallelize Javascript, minimize images, sprite images and write your web pages so that they don’t block on one element. Check out this blog post based on a chapter from this book
(By: Steve Souders) Not only does Steve Souders have the credentials to write this book (he’s the chief performance guy for Yahoo!), he’s also written a book that is an easy read and will give you everything you need to easily improve your web site performance. The book contains an organized checklist of ideas & techniques to make web sites faster. The examples in this book offer direct comparisons and means to make our own tests.
(By: Eric Meyer) This book takes information about CSS and applies it to real life examples, which makes it much easier for the average CSS author to learn and see how the CSS styles shown relate to what is being done on the site it affects. The book is wonderfully laid-out with lots of gorgeous color drawings and figures, which aid the reader in understanding each change. The step by step instructions are easy to follow and with each CSS code change or addition shown in red, also easy to understand and follow along with.
(By: David Flanagan) If you really want learn how Javascript’s objects, functions, and data type handling work, then this is the book for you. The book has a very good introduction to the core of client side javascript. It is a great reference for coming back to those things that you get kind of rusty on like “regular expressions” and “creating your own objects”. Flanagan goes through all the language basics, pointing out where JavaScript differs from languages like Java, C#, or C++. A Free PDF version of this book can be downloaded from this link JavaScript: The Definitive Guide – PDF Download
jQuery is a Javascript framework that aims to let you think structurally and conceptually, rather than worrying about syntax and other details. If you have strong JavaScript skills and experience, but still not feeling comfortable using jQuery; This book is exactly what you are looking for. This is a practical book that explains how to use, and what’s behind this magical framework. It teaches by example, so you are never reading 20 pages of theory. The interactive “lab” exercises (starting in Chapter 2) help explain jQuery’s capabilities and features quickly and conveniently. The Free PDF Version of Chapter 1 can be downloaded from [jQuery In Action: Chapter 1]
Hope you found this list useful! What are the best books you have read? Please don’t forget to share with me in comments.
First 4 are must read for almost any web developer. Good list. Thanks for compiling it.
thanks for sharing this useful list of books. wondering if ebooks version are available.
Thanks for your comment. I have already included the available free ebook links in the post. Not all above books are available as ebook. You may find a kindle version on amazon though.
I am running a business of web design and development in India and want to make long term relationship with web design and development companies in USA. How to proceed. Please suggest some idea.
The best thing that can be done for web design is to leave it to the designers! That is what a lot of folks particularly internet marketers like me believe about the web design process.
The best website design development books given here are very useful. You can get details from here
I like the post because it contains such a fine web design services information that is easy to understood for me.
Nice post,All of these books are very important for any web developer or designer.Thanks for sharing.
These books are very helpful for every web designer. I have need it a long time. Finally i have got it.. Thanks a lot…