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Recommended Books and Software
Books on Web Site User Science
Books on Accessibility, Information Architecture, Usability
Within the Books on Web Site User Science section you'll find books on accessibility, creating accessible Web sites, information architecture, and usability, creating user-friendly, user-centered sites.
Each listing is hand chosen with thought and care to help WebsiteTips.com visitors in their searches for helpful Web site-related books, software, and other products.
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Accessibility
The books listed below are highly recommended books on accessibility. As mentioned above, the main links for each listing will take you to amazon.com information and reviews for each book.
- Access by Design: A Guide to Universal Usability for Web Designers
By Sarah Horton. Published by New Riders Press, July 12, 2005. This latest book by Sarah Horton is receiving great reviews. You may recognize her name from her other popular books, such as the best-selling Web Style Guide co-authored with Patrick Lynch, also recommended by WebsiteTips (see Recommended Books for Design and Layout). The publisher states, 
designers learn how to optimize page designs to work more effectively for more users, disabled or not. Working through each of the main functional features of Web sites, she provides clear principles for using HTML and CSS to deal with elements such as text, forms, images, and tables, illustrating each with an example drawn from the real world. Through these guidelines, Sarah makes a convincing case that good design principles benefit all users of the Web. - Building Accessible Websites (With CD-ROM)
by Joe Clark, published by New Riders, July, 2002. Exceptional book on accessibility and covers all the bases and then some. Joe explains what matters, why, and how to go about creating and maintaining an accessible Web site. Joe's book companion site: Building Accessible Websites Companion Site. You can even download all the chapters from his book there, although none of the images are included. - Design Accessible Web Sites: 36 Keys to Creating Content for All Audiences and Platforms
By Jeremy Sydik. Published by Pragmatic Bookshelf (November 5, 2007). Learn how to create universally accessible Web sites based on best practice approaches, including how to create semantic, accessible HTML, audio, video, Flash, multimedia, PDFs, how to use progressive enhancement for the widest accessibility, and much more. From the author about his book:
When I say “creating content for everyone”, that's exactly what I mean. The techniques that I cover in the book are targeted toward serving the audience of users with disabilities (and this is an important growing audience), but that's not all they're good for. If you want to reach audiences that use cell phones, PDAs, game consoles, or other “alternative” browsers, you need the same eye toward semantics, alternate access paths, and progressive enhancement that assistive technologies rely on. The publisher's description:
It's not a one-browser web anymore. You need to reach audiences that use cell phones, PDAs, game consoles, or other “alternative” browsers, as well as users with disabilities. Legal requirements for assistive technologies as well as a wide array of new browsing experiences means you need to concentrate on semantics, alternate access paths, and progressive enhancement. Give your audience the power to interact with your content on their own terms. It's the right thing to do, and with a $100 billion a year market for accessible content, new laws and new technologies, you can't afford to ignore accessibility.
With this book, you'll learn basic principles and techniques for developing accessible HTML, audio, video, and multimedia content. In addition, you will understand how to apply the principles you learn in this book to new technologies when they emerge.
You'll learn how to:
- Use best practices of accessibility to develop accessible web content
- Build testing into projects to improve results and reduce costs
- Create high quality alternative representations for your audience
- Add accessibility features to external media like PDF and Flash
- Negotiate the terrain of accessibility standards
- Apply principles of accessiblity to new technologies as they emerge
- Just Ask: Integrating Accessibility Throughout Design
By Shawn Lawton Henry. Lulu.com (February 21, 2007). This book is available in print as well as online at www.uiAccess.com/justask. The online version is also a great way to check out the book in more detail prior to purchasing the print version. From the publisher:
Improve your websites, software, hardware, and consumer products to make them more useful to more people in more situations. Develop effective accessibility solutions efficiently. Learn: - The basics of including accessibility in design projects:
- Shortcuts for involving people with disabilities in your project.
- Tips for comfortable interaction with people with disabilities.
- Details on accessibility in each phase of the user-centered design process (UCD):
- Examples of including accessibility in user group profiles, personas, and scenarios.
- Guidance on evaluating for accessibility through heuristic evaluation, design walkthroughs, and screening techniques.
- Thorough coverage of planning, preparing for, conducting, analyzing, and reporting effective usability tests with participants with disabilities.
- Questions to include in your recruiting screener.
- Checklist for usability testing with participants with disabilities.
- The basics of including accessibility in design projects:
- Maximum Accessibility: Making Your Web Site More Usable for Everyone
By John M. Slatin, Sharron Rush. Published by Addison-Wesley Professional, September 20, 2002. Rave reviews everywhere. From the publisher: Maximum Accessibility is a comprehensive resource for creating Web sites that comply with new U.S. accessibility standards and conform to the World Wide Web Consortium's Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. This book offers an overview of key issues, discusses the standards in depth, and presents practical design techniques, up-to-date technologies, and testing methods to implement these standards for maximum accessibility. You will learn how to: - Write effective text equivalents for images and audio files
- Caption soundtracks and describe the action of videos and animation
- Set up data and layout tables that make sense to the ear and eye
- Design Web forms that people can interact with via the keyboard and other input devices
- Label forms so that people who use talking browsers can give the right information at the right time
- Make scripts accessible to people who don't use a mouse
- Create simple PDF files that are accessible to people with disabilities
- Use cascading style sheets to make your thoroughly accessible pages look great
Throughout the book, case studies illustrate how inadvertent accessibility barriers on major Web sites affect the ability of people with disabilities to locate information, participate in e-commerce, and explore the richness of the Web. These case studies demonstrate how certain design features can make access much harder, and how other features can greatly ease the use of a page or site.
Most of all, this leading-edge guide reveals that a little extra design consideration up front can help you create a site that is not only a pleasure for people with disabilities, but attractive and pleasing for all interested users. In short, Maximum Accessibility shows why good design is accessible design.
- Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance
by Andrew Kirkpatrick, Richard Rutter, Christian Heilmann, Jim Thatcher, Cynthia Waddell, along with Michael R. Burks, Patrick H. Lauke, Bruce Lawson, Shawn Lawton Henry, Bob Regan, and Mark Urban. Published by friends of ED, July 24, 2006. This is actually a new title for the rewritten, expanded, and updated version of the popular book, Constructing Accessible Web sites. This latest version provides an overview of Web accessibility first, followed by 12 chapters on how to implement an accessible Web site, including assistive technology (screen readers, browsers), content, navigation, data input, CSS, JavaScript, Flash, PDF, accessibility testing, an introduction to WCAG 2.0, and a case study on redesigning a university Web site. The final chapters of the book cover accessibility law and policy. Three appendixes include a glossary of terms, a guide to Section 508, and an overview of PAS 78. Several of the authors have information about the book, such as Jim Thatcher's News section and Richard Rutter's blog post, Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance. - Web Accessibility for People With Disabilities
By Michael G. Paciello. Published by CMP Books, October 2000. One of the first books in print on this important topic, it remains a helpful book on accessibility.
Also Recommended
The following have at least a chapter on accessibility or include accessibility as an integral part of the book:
- Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way Using HTML & CSS
by Ian Lloyd. Published by SitePoint, May 2, 2006. This book is receiving rave reviews! Ian's fabulous new book teaches Web development from scratch, without assuming any previous knowledge of HTML, CSS or Web development techniques. It introduces you to HTML and CSS as you follow along with the author, step-by-step, to build a fully functional web site from the ground up. However, unlike countless other “learn Web design” books, this one concentrates on modern, best-practice techniques from the very beginning, which means you'll get it right the first time. By the end of the book, you'll be equipped with enough knowledge to set out on your first projects as a professional web developer, or you can simply use the knowledge you've gained to create attractive, functional, usable and accessible sites for personal use. For more information, see also the author's companion site for Build Your Own Web Site the Right Way Using HTML & CSS. - Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists
By Shirley Kaiser. Published by SitePoint Books, July 2006. The author packs the entire book with helpful checklists and explanations, examples, and references to help with creating and maintaining a user-friendly site that also includes standards-compliant, accessible, and lean markup and code behind the scenes, including HTML, XHTML, CSS, and more. For example, Chapter 5: Web Site Usability: Focusing on the User - Creating a User-friendly Index Page, Ensuring your Web Site Focuses on Users. Chapter 7: Information Architecture - Laying the Foundations, Improving Findability, Organizing for Success, Preparing Web Page Information Architecture, Organizing Directories, Using Friendly URIs, URLs, and Filenames. Chapter 9: Best Coding Practice: W3C Recommendations and Standards - Magic Markup, Excellent XHTML, Spectacular CSS. Chapter 10: Creating Accessible Web Sites - The Bare Bones of Creating an Accessible Web Site, Color for the Masses, A Thousand Words to Each Picture, Multi-purpose Multimedia, In Good Form, Sturdy Tables. You'll also find checklists to make sure your site is visually appealing, loads quickly, is search engine friendly, and more. Along the way, other chapters cover Web site optimization, preparing and managing Web site content, navigation, search engine optimization, color, design, testing, preparing for launch, post-launch follow-up, and much more. In addition, all those who purchase the book have special access to downloadable, printable checklists to use for all your projects. More information: Companion Site for Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists, author's Web site: SKDesigns. - Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites, Second Edition
By Patrick J. Lynch, Sarah Horton. Published by Yale University Press, March 2002. This best-selling book contains easy-to-understand theory and philosophy on designing, building, and implementing a Web site, along with helpful illustrations and resources. Some of the categories are Interface Design, Site Design, Page Design, Web Graphics, Web Multimedia and Animation, more. Excellent book. Also visit webstyleguide.com for an online version of the book and to learn more about this exceptional publication.
Be sure to check out the Accessibility Resources here at WebsiteTips.com, too, where you'll find links to many of the best online resources available regarding accessibility for Web sites.
Information Architecture
See also Web Resources
Information Architecture here at WebsiteTips.com.
Usability
- Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points
By 37signals, Matthew Linderman, Jason Fried. Published by New Riders Press, March 2, 2004. As the book states, “Defensive design is like defensive driving brought to the Web. The same way drivers must always be on the lookout for slick roads, reckless drivers, and other dangerous scenarios, site builders must constantly search for trouble spots that cause visitors confusion and frustration. Good site defense can make or break the customer experience.” Defensive Design for the Web is a fantastic book that I consider essential reading for anyone building, designing, owning Web sites. It's written in easy-to-understand language with plenty of real-world, practical examples of what to watch out for with creating Web sites. It can also help you learn how to think of potential problems that could crop up with your next project and how to troubleshoot and look for possible trouble spots.
Perhaps some or much of what you'll read in this book will seem so obvious to do; however, as you'll see in the book, even many of the most popular sites often have some big blunders and problems. Defensive Design for the Web can also help you with explaining to your boss or clients why something won't work and why you need to spend time troubleshooting and with user testing throughout the project development process.
The bottom line: my opinion is that this is another absolute must have book, whether you're new to the Web design business or a seasoned professional. I highly recommend Defensive Design for the Web: How to improve error messages, help, forms, and other crisis points.
- Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity
By Jakob Nielsen. Published by New Riders Press, December 20, 1999. Despite the year this was published, the insight and information in this book are still excellent. Still worth considering this best-selling book on Web site usability for purchase.See also Nielsen's latest book below, released April 19, 2006. The author's Web sites: Useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Web Site and this book's information: About the Book: Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. See also his company's Web site, Nielsen Norman Group.
- The Design of Everyday Things
By Donald Norman. Published by Basic Books; 1st Basic edition, September 1, 2002. A reissue of the popular book originally published in 1990. A classic! Most or all of us have purchased a product at some time in our lives that was difficult to use, tough to figure out, and a huge pain. The Design of Everyday Things gives tremendous insight on how and why some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them, all in a light-hearted, fun, and fascinating way. It's no wonder the book has been so popular for so long! The author's Web sites: Donald Norman's Web site with information about the book and his other books. See also his company's Web site, Nielsen Norman Group. - Don't Make Me Think, Second Edition
By Steve Krug. Published by New Riders Press, August 18, 2005. An exceptional book that covers how to create Web sites that are so user-friendly that visitors don't have to think or try to guess about anything. The 1st edition has been a best-selling book, so I expect the 2nd edition to do at least as well. The 2nd edition includes three new chapters plus updating of resources. Don't Make Me Think remains one of my all-time favorite books on creating Web sites. Highly recommended for designers, developers, Web site owners. - Homepage Usability: 50 Websites Deconstructed
By Jakob Nielsen and Marie Tahir. Published by New Riders Press, November 5, 2001. Another excellent book by Jakob Nielsen, this time along with Marie Tahir. You'll find incredible detail here as the authors go through 50 Web sites, writing about the good, the bad, and how to improve each one. Full color screenshots, and beautifully put together, too. The author's Web sites: Useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Web Site and this book's information: About the Book: Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity. See also his company's Web site, Nielsen Norman Group. - Prioritizing Web Usability
By Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger. Published by New Riders Press; 1st edition, April 19, 2006. Top usability expert Jakob Nielsen joined forces with Web usability expert Hoa Loranger to revisit his best-selling book, Designing Web Usability, creating “an updated companion book that covers the essential changes to the Web and usability today.” Based on the results and insight gained from hundreds of real-world user tests and Web site critiques, Nielsen and Loranger cover Web site design, user experience and usability testing, navigation and search capabilities, old guidelines and prioritizing usability issues, Web page design and layout, content design, and more. This new book is destined to be another highly popular, best-selling, and helpful book on Web usability. The authors' Web sites: Useit.com: Jakob Nielsen's Web Site, About Hoa Loranger (via Nielsen Norman Group), and this book's information: About the Book: Prioritizing Web Usability. See also their company's Web site, Nielsen Norman Group.
Also Recommended
The following have at least a chapter on usability or include usability as an integral part of the book:
- Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists By Shirley Kaiser. Published by SitePoint Books, July 2006. The author packs the entire book with helpful checklists and explanations, examples, and references to help with creating and maintaining a user-friendly site that also includes standards-compliant, accessible, and lean markup and code behind the scenes, including HTML, XHTML, CSS, and more. For example, Chapter 5: Web Site Usability: Focusing on the User - Creating a User-friendly Index Page, Ensuring your Web Site Focuses on Users. Chapter 7: Information Architecture - Laying the Foundations, Improving Findability, Organizing for Success, Preparing Web Page Information Architecture, Organizing Directories, Using Friendly URIs, URLs, and Filenames. Chapter 9: Best Coding Practice: W3C Recommendations and Standards - Magic Markup, Excellent XHTML, Spectacular CSS. Chapter 10: Creating Accessible Web Sites - The Bare Bones of Creating an Accessible Web Site, Color for the Masses, A Thousand Words to Each Picture, Multi-purpose Multimedia, In Good Form, Sturdy Tables. You'll also find checklists to make sure your site is visually appealing, loads quickly, is search engine friendly, and more. Along the way, other chapters cover Web site optimization, preparing and managing Web site content, navigation, search engine optimization, color, design, testing, preparing for launch, post-launch follow-up, and much more. In addition, all those who purchase the book have special access to downloadable, printable checklists to use for all your projects. More information: Companion Site for Deliver First Class Web Sites: 101 Essential Checklists, author's Web site: SKDesigns.
- Web Style Guide: Basic Design Principles for Creating Web Sites, Second Edition By Patrick J. Lynch, Sarah Horton. Published by Yale University Press, March 2002. This best-selling book contains easy-to-understand theory and philosophy on designing, building, and implementing a Web site, along with helpful illustrations and resources. Some of the categories are Interface Design, Site Design, Page Design, Web Graphics, Web Multimedia and Animation, more. Excellent book. Also visit webstyleguide.com for an online version of the book and to learn more about this exceptional publication.
See also Web Resources Usability here at WebsiteTips.com.
Note About This Listing
- WebsiteTips.com's editor and owner personally owns many of the books, software, and products listed at this site, and all books, software, and products listed have received glowing reviews by recognized experts.
- Each listing is hand chosen with thought and care to sincerely help WebsiteTips.com visitors in their searches for genuinely helpful books, software, and products on Web site topics.
- You'll find a variety of writing styles, approaches, and skill levels within the listings. Each person learns differently, has different needs, skill levels, and preferences, so recommendations are made with those things in mind, too.
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Do you have suggestions or recommendations? Do you have a favorite book, software, or several favorites related to Web site design, Web site ownership, running a Web design business, or related topics? What are your thoughts about books, software, and products already listed here? Please let us know!
