Web Design in a Nutshell, by Jennifer Niederst Robbins

When I first started in my current position as a Web Administrator, I badly needed a refresher course about actual web design practices. I had spent 4 years managing web projects, away from any source code or Photoshop copy. I was just out of date. I have to say “Web Design in a nutshell” made the trick.

The good thing with Jennifer’s book is that it goes further than basic knowledge. It dives deep in accessibility and multi browser support, with plenty of practical examples. The book encompasses all you need to know to set up a quality web page: XHTML/CSS, JavaScript, graphics, other media such as audio and video. Appendixes are also a precious resource: beside HTML and CSS reference lists, they provide codes for special characters and colours. It even mentions microformats in an Appendix signed by Tantek Çelik himself.

In my daily practice, I will check this book at least one a week. That’s enough to say its subtitle “A Quick Desktop Reference” is not usurped.