Web Design on a Shoestring (Voices That Matter) [Paperback]

Ms. Bickner's theme is that proper planning will keep your project in line and your clients' expectations in check. The point almost goes without saying, but the value in this book is its practical approach that is backed up with checklists and planning documents to put the advice into play.

Plenty of real-world examples inform this book. Chapter 7, for instance, shows a step by step transformation of a web page built on tables and presentation tags into a standards-compliant page based on CSS. I have read a couple of other makeover articles, but Ms. Bickner does a superior job of showing the before and after and describing how to get there. In the process, she makes a compelling case for the value of standards compliance in terms of efficiency and results.

Some sections I found difficult to understand, and while it might be me, I think some editing was needed.

My notes have a number of sections to re-read for solutions to problems I have encountered and for things I want to do better. The sections on planning a site are required reading, and I personally found the CSS makeover to be instructive and actually inspiring. The style is informal but not overly chatty, with good charts and instructive examples, and with suggestions based on sound judgment.

Despite some unevenness, this book has value for anyone making the step from tagging pages to developing full web sites. While the focus is on the small-scale or part-time designer, Web Design on a Shoestring has lessons for anyone who works with limited time or resources.

First a confession. As a web designer with over seven years' experience, I've designed, coded, and produced more than 50 Web sites in my career but never once had the opportunity to work on a big budget project ... not even during the so-called dotcom boom years.

So what Bickner talks about in this book is not a new world to me, it's the world I work and live in. This makes me a writer's worst nightmare, because I feel I know as much as anyone about exceeding expectations with little to no support. I expected to be able to trash this book but instead I found myself learning a lot. The chapters on hosting costs and gotchas and on content management systems were particularly useful.

There's also a risk that a book like this will be too general for its own good, but Bickner seems to know what to include and what to leave out. Her focus is consistent throughout ... it's all about delivering great results even when your budget is laughably small. She writes well and respects the reader's time. I like this book, will keep it on my desk, and recommend it highly.

If he (and I aim this at any solo entrepreneur, or anyone else with limited resources) had read Carrie Bickner's book first, he might have spent as little as a tenth of his eventual cost, with greater satisfaction, and the ability to update his site more easily and inexpensively in the future. Bickner takes a holistic view, looking at the fabric of the site from initial planning, to hosting, to web standards. She's also ready with suggestions along the way to economize, whether it's by backing-off features you can't afford, through savvy design choices, or in careful selection of service providers.

Be warned: this book assumes a fairly broad array of skills and knowledge that one person alone might not likely hold. You may gloss over her suggestions for planning, usability, copywriting, and design without understanding their necessity. Likewise, the technical discussions of CSS, XHTML, content-management, and web hosting may be too detailed or obscure for your liking or experience. This is not a guide for beginners. If you've never launched a site before, use this book with trusted colleagues who have, and who are willing to share Bickner's perspective.

Though she mentions it only in passing, her New York Public Library Style Guide is a wonderful parallel resource that ties her into the web standards community. Once you tap into Jeffrey Zeldman, Eric Meyers, or other folks in and around alistapart.com, you'll appreciate even more how Carrie Bickner's simple little book is tied to the cloth of the web universe. This is a handbook (not a cookbook) that you might have around for a while.