Our Preferred Internet Resources For Web Design

This list of resources is continually updated as we use new resources.
The last update was on 29 October 2006.

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Websites

Useit.com

This is the website of Dr Jakob Nielsen, the world's foremost authority on "website usability", which means "how easy it is to use a given website." His authority springs from years of scientific testing of myriad websites. He espouses simple, uncluttered design and despises fancy graphics and animation.

He has written several books, one of which finds a place in our book list.
 

MarketingExperiments.com

This website, run by Dr. Flint McGlaughlin, performs experiments on websites for determining optimal layout and technology (video or no video?) strategies. It has an excellent blog and a valuable audio archive of their regular webinars.
 

Excessvoice.com

A website with invaluable information about copywriting for the web, produced by veteran copywriter Nick Usborne. Examples of his advice are to use single-column web pages and to keep negative messages out of headlines. Nick frequently works in conjunction with Dr. Flint McGlaughlin (of MarketingExperiments.com).

"Prioritizing Web Usability," by Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger.

This book provides recommendations for maximizing usability of a website backed by a good deal of serious test data. It has screenshots of dozens of websites that agreed to be tested by the authors. The ultimate proof of Dr. Nielsen's conclusion is that his website (Useit.com) has a Google "PageRank" of eight out of ten! (a certification that a website is of very high quality)

 

"HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables Using CSS, 2nd Edition," by Rachel Andrew and Dan Shafer.

This book provides good insights into designing web pages using CSS ("Cascading Style Sheets"), resulting in a consistent look for pages in a website as well as shorter HTML code. Ms. Andrew and Mr. Shafer are very experienced programmers who contribute regularly to Sitepoint.com, an important online resource for web programming.

HTML

The HTML Tutorial at W3Schools by W3Schools, a renowned free portal for web developer education. The tutorial here is carefully structured and contains precise explanations of all HTML commands; illustrative interactive examples allow one to experiment with command parameters. This site is a wonderful gift to developers worldwide.

Learning HTML 3.2 by Examples by Jukka "Yucca" Korpela, a Finnish IT specialist. Apart from explaining HTML syntax, there are often short commentaries explaining graphical effects of commands and their compatibility with various versions of HTML.

The HTML Encyclopedia, by the School of Computing and I.T. (SCIT), University of Wolverhampton, UK. This is a clear and simple guide to HTML with example code and screenshots.

CSS

The CSS Tutorial at W3Schools by W3Schools, a renowned free portal for web developer education. The tutorial here is carefully structured and contains precise explanations of all CSS commands; illustrative interactive examples allow one to experiment with command parameters. This site is a wonderful gift to developers worldwide.

CSS Is Easy! by Kevin Yank at Sitepoint.com. This tutorial gives a very clear and simple explanation of the various CSS commands in a friendly, conversational style. One could easily read through and understand this tutorial in 90 minutes.

You may also want to see:

Our expert articles on web design

Our current guidelines and tips for best web design