The Web Designer's Roadmap

The Kindle version of this book has all the text in bold. If you start flipping through it, and then flip back, some of the text reverts to non-bold text, but then most of it stays bold. Very hard to read on an iPad. I tried playing with the font and font size, but it didn't help.

Good.

Nice

One of the difficulties of designing any interface, whether it is for the web, for a mobile device, or for desktop software is knowing where to start, how to get the ideas, and how to turn those ideas into an effective interface design. The Web Designer's Roadmap is a handy book to read for anyone trying to get to grips with how to design an interface. Although the focus is on web site design, the techniques described, and the experiences of the author and other practitioners will be of value to anyone who is new or has an interest in the process. Rather than describing interface elements, this book discusses techniques and the everyday activities and experiences of a web designer.There are chapters that provide a background to design from an art perspective and from a functional perspective, providing some insight into user experience elements such as interaction design and information architecture, and design patterns. Techniques for coming up with ideas, gathering resources, and then modelling those ideas from wireframes and thumbnails, through to the final designs are provided. The chapters also have handy links to more resources, including galleries of example designs, colour palettes, useful applications, and design patterns. The majority of the chapters also include relevant quotes from design gurus that back up the experiences of the author.Through the different chapters, a website is designed from brief to final mockups, using the different techniques discussed to provide an ongoing example of how to complete the process, how to get a design concept and inspiration, and what different materials might be produced along the way.The book is written in an easy to read style, and I mostly found it interesting to hear about the thought processes that the author goes through when creating designs, in addition to the descriptions and examples of the techniques. Although there are lots of examples in the book, I would have liked to have seen more in order to see a greater range and variety of designs and outputs from each technique and stage. I think this book would be of most use to students interested in pursuing interface design, and others who work have ended up doing this kind of activity without having had any formal training (myself included).

The Web Designer's Roadmap is a look at the creative process of creating a web site. The author gives insight into how design studios move from initial client request to finished product. As the road map is a tool for the traveler, this book is a tool for the web designer. The book includes a look at the historical design themes that provide a foundation and basis for contemporary design.My personal observations. The book does not contain code examples or detailed how to instructions that invite the reader to follow along with their computer. As such it is an easy read. It contains useful information about the creative process and some of the history of design. The book is written from the perspective of a designer working with a team in a design studio. My personal situation does not align with this perspective, still I found useful information. The hidden gem in the book is the links to other resources. Here I found tools that I can put to use. I found the text to be verbose at times. My reaction was make a point, support it with facts and move on. The text seemed to ramble with a tangential disconnectedness.Summation: This book was not what I expected. Despite that fact I found valuable information contained within. For others, this book may be exactly what they need to improve their design process. I thought is was a good book, just not a great book. That is simply my opinion. Your's may certainly prove to be different and that is quite OK. I would recommend it to someone that wants to examine the creative process of web design.Disclosure: I recieved a free e-book copy for review purposes.

Easy read. The goal of the book is to improve your design process and perspective. I am a web developer looking to expand my skills into web design and this is definitely facilitating my transition.

If you are looking to learn more about the creative process of web design then this book, offered by O'Reilly Media, will help you explore this in both a compelling and informative way. This book is written by Giovanni DiFeterici; with a background in fine art he currently works as an illustrator, designer, and front-end developer for the web.Giovanni uses a very down-to-earth approach and as you read through his anecdotes and examples you are able to quickly make connections with your own experiences. Of course "The Parable of Cynthia," found in Chapter 2, immediately grabbed my attention! Furthermore, you'll notice that he definitely "walks-the-talk,"--he not only believes that sight is the most influential of our five senses in helping us relate to the world, but also elected to incorporate a vast array of fun and interesting visuals within his book.Topics covered include: how to prepare for the design process, putting together concrete items for design and structure, design patterns, conceptual and intuitive design, development tools, and the reality of money. You will, without doubt, easily grasp the concepts and also learn new strategies on how to apply them in your own designs. This book is a fantastic resource, in my opinion, as I believe the concept of focusing on planning first, however difficult, to be exactly what we should always be especially diligent about.

This booked gave me some ideas to improve the process I used for designing page layouts and encouraged me to be a little more creative (paper and crayons time folks).Best of all, not a dry read that most books of the genre tend to be, I read it from cover to cover and thoroughly enjoyed it.