Web design links

Draft

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This page is horribly outdated. - Fixing it a bit right now over the next two days - Daniel K. Schneider 13:54, 22 October 2011 (CEST).

Introduction

Right now, this is a quick and dirty (!!) page with pointers about WWW design and style. Entries should have real contents useful to web designers.

See also:

• Interaction design, user experience and usability, Design and usability methods and techniques and related articles in the

Things to do - Daniel K. Schneider 17:27, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

• Move the french pointers to the french wiki
• Check links and kill a few useless ones
• Comment the better links
• Reorganize (!)
• Add a few definitions

See also many entries in the categories web technologies, web technology tutorials, usability and Ergonomics and human-computer interaction

Web design links

The process / design methods

Here is a selection of various resources

• A Design Method List Apart article by Ross Olson, July 2000.

• Beyond User-Centered Design and User Experience: Designing for User Performance by Larry Constantine, 2005. Argues that “model-driven approaches based on fine-grained task models have a proven record of leading to dramatic improvements in user performance through innovative designs.”

• Activity Modeling: Toward a Pragmatic Integration of Activity Theory with Usage-Centered Design by Larry Constantine, 2006. Activity theory and usage-centered design are outlined and the connections between the two are highlighted. Simple extensions to the models of usage-centered design are introduced.

• John December's Web Development (John Decembmer has built the first widely used Web Portal about Web Design in 1992).

• Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing by Philip Greenspun (M.I.T). This free online book covers two broad categories of Web sites. The first is Web Publishing, i.e. vaguely magazine-like. The second broad category is Web-based Application. A nice complement for developers is Software Engineering for Internet Applications

• Web Redesign 2.0 by K. Goto and E.Cotler. The site is a companion site for a book. The online materials include some interesting check lists.

• Web design, Wikipedia

Style in the light of usability

As we pointed out in the introduction, you also may have a look at our resources on. Pointers below rather point to simple technical recipees of what to do and not to do in a web design. Other's can be rather found in the usability literature, e.g. Nielson's well known Top 10 Mistakes in Web Design

• Yale Style Manual

• Style Guide for online hypertext. This document was written by Tim Berners-Lee in the early days (1992). Still an interesting read. In particular, it includes a few basic "dos" and "don'ts".

• WDG's Design Elements. The Web Design Group is organization that fights for stable standards. (last update: 2007, as of oct 2011). Its Style guide for online hypertext is based on the W3C (Berners-Lee guide) above.

• Cool URIs don't change by TBL/W3C. Argues that URL's should remain stable. {quotation|URIs don't change: people change them.}}

• Art and the Zen of web sites Tony Karp / TLC (last modified december 2002). Quite similar to the W3C and recommendations.

• HTML Hell Page (probably written in the late nineties). Written by Eric Raymond, a well-known open source advocate and contributor.

• WebWonk Siegel's 1997 tips (still ok)
• Acessible Web Design
• CIWAS FAQ (comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets )
• 99.9% of Websites Are Obsolete by Jeffrey Zeldman, 2002
• Architectural Principles of the World Wide Web (a different suject, but HTML producers ought to know this)

Making icons

• The Anatomy of an Icon. Short technical "how to" article.

Graphics oriented design

• lynda.com, Lynda Weinmann's web master site includes design-oriented articles.
• Web Page Design for Designers
• Graphics at webrefence.com
• PraystationState of the Art Designed Site
• Monitoring Order: Visual desire, the Organization of web pages, and teaching rules of Design article by Anne F. Wysocki.
• whether a 2D or a 3D interface is better on-line Tutorial by Greg Trafton
• Kaliber10000 (The Designer's Lunchbox). CPU & bandwidth hugging
• 30 Must See Web Generator for Lazy Webmasters (Includes a list of online tools to generates various web page elements)

Various

• "People, Communities, and Service: Shaping the Future of the Internet" a Brenda Laurel Talk (some design principles for government services online)
• AUGMENTING HUMAN INTELLECT: A Conceptual Framework, D. Engelbart's 1962 text, read for some vision what we could use modern technology for .... see what he is doing today boostrap.org
• [http://thot.cursus.edu/rubrique.asp?no=5978 Comment citer un document �lectronique dans une bibliographie] (how to cite electronic source, english version needed too)
• MUST, Site of a danish Method for Participatory Design, includes a good short description.
• Understanding Interactivity A few online chapters from a book by Chris Crawford
• Persuasion and Web Survial A Webreference Newslettre feature
• On a related note: Technical Writing at Suite101
• So You Want to Write a Book (O'Reilly)
• Conference Presentation Judo (how to give conferences by M.J. Dominus)

Fun

• Here is very nice parody of Nielson's site

Journals

• DesignIssues The MIT Press Journal's site (a few on-line articles)

Printed Books

• INDEX: Jakob Nielsen has a list of recommended books including his own Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity (recommended)
• INDEX: Bruce Tognazzini also has a nice list of more general Design Books

Legibility of text

Serif fonts, all things being equal, are easier to read (except on a computer screen)

• Type Legibility and Readability Good reading, in particular for people also write for paper :)
• Fonts FAQ, old but still very useful, e.g. part 3 and its Rules of Thumb section.

Web Design Links, Portals & Zines

Also, dig in above's links, most major WebDesign resources have a link page !!

• Zeldman (Web designer related to [A List A Part
• Links at The Web Design Group
• Design Pages by Bruce 'Tog' Tognazzini at AskTog, a list with good unsorted pointers
• Usability 1st Usability Portal (including groupware)
• Susan Carter's links a Web Designer who works for small businesses
• Whuzzup by Eric Brooks
• Usability at webreference.com
• designshops.com A directory of Web design firms, news, tutorials, etc..
• Web Accessibility Initiative (a W3C group)
• WebWord Usability Weblog
• Interface Mafia

General Design

See also: usability, web usability, human-computer interaction, etc.

• European Usability Support Centres has free resources on-line (including papers and guidelines on design)
• The Design Management Institute has a few good links to general design
• Don Norman's Website
• Interaction Architect.com
• Participatory Design page at Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
• HCI Bibliography
• Bad Human Factors Design
• Oxford Good Design Guide
• Standards: Designing For the Future by Ian Lloyd
• User Friendly, the Comic Strip (humour)

Programming

• Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines
• Extreme Programming vs. Interaction Design

Design of documentation

• sigDOC / ACM

Examples

• Suck.com

• WebMutant's Design Paper

• One True Fit - standards design by Ryan Carver, paper will attempt to give an overview how he built Lee Jeans - One True Fit. (2003)
• On-line Zines are always a good source of inspiration. jwz's bookmarks point to a number of them (dig a bit)
• Some Players in design world: Organic * e8z (A Harvey) *

Evaluation

• Guide de concption pédagogique et graphique d'un site éducatif sur le réseau Internet (Univ. of Laval guide)
• Evaluating Web Resources (good teaching materials, ok for self-learning too). See also J.E. Alexander's and M.A. Tate's Web Wisdom book.
• évaluation d'un site Web (une petite liste)
• The CyberMetricssite has a lot of good links to quantitative methods (a lot on the quality of search tools)

Bibliography

• Michael Bauerly and Yili Liu (2011). Effects of Symmetry and Number of Compositional Elements on Interface and Design Aesthetics, International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, DOI: 10.1080/10447310801920508
• Bi, L., Fan, X., Zhang, G., Liu, Y., and Chen, Z. 2009. Effects of symmetry and number of compositional elements on Chinese users' aesthetic ratings of interfaces. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, accepted for publication. PDF
• Wolf, T.V., Rode, J.A., Sussman, J., and Kellogg, W.A. 2006. "Dispelling design as the "Black Art" of CHI," Proceedings of CH, 2006 Conference (Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 22-27 April). PDF