[thelist] Web Design Books or Magazines

Karl Fast karl.fast at pobox.com
Sun Mar 18 12:21:42 CST 2001


> I first want to thank you all for sending me links to web sites to
> learn from :) I would like to ask one more question(I promise last
> one). I am new to web design and was wondering what some of your
> favorite books and magazines are in regards to web design? 


I would highly recommend:

  Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing
    Large-scale Web Sites
  by Louis Rosenfeld & Peter Morville
  O'Reilly, February 1998
  http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/infotecture/

It was named Amazon's best web design book for that year and Jakob
Nielsen recommends it above all other books, save for his own.
  
The book is slightly dated, but mainly because the field of
information architecture has evolved quite a bit in the past three
years. Almost everything in the book still applies. Also note that
this is not your typical "design" book. It's about organizing
information on your site and structuring it so that people can find
what they're looking for. The first half deals mainly with designing
organization, navigation, labelling, and search systems. The second
half focuses on process and the results of information architecture
design (blueprints, high and low fidelity prototypes, etc.)

I must confess to being a bit biased. The authors, Lou and Peter,
ran an information architecture firm called Argus Associates. It was
the leading IA firm and was largely responsible for defining,
validating, and legitimizing the field.

Note the past tense. I worked for Argus until this last Monday when
the company closed down. We didn't have enough work to keep going
through the recession. This has been quite a blow to the IA
community. If you're intersted, you can read more here:

The Official Announcement
http://argus-inc.com/news/pressreleases/010313.shtml

Comments from Peter Merholz
http://www.peterme.com/


--karl
former information architect at Argus Associates




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