Above the Fold: Understanding the Principles of Successful Web Site Design

Brian clearly put a lot of thought and careful consideration into the structure, content and flow of the book. It's well done. I've been building websites for 4 or 5 years now and this is the first book I've found that does a good job of walking the reader through the entire thought process of planning and creating a structured strategy for designing websites. If you're sold on the idea that smart thinking and great design thrive on a methodical approach, this book will delight you. That said, it's not a how-to book on building code or using tools like Photoshop, so if you're just getting into web design and you're itching to learn specific skills for building stuff, you'll probably want to hold off on buying this for now and come back to it later when you're ready to start doing professional projects. Just do so knowing that, when you do eventually come back and read it, you'll probably kick yourself for not having read this one upfront ;-). For those of you interested in buying the book, here's a quick list of pros and cons: PROS (many): - There's zero fluff-factor. Brian did a solid job of explaining things simply and succinctly and moving on. Every page gets straight to the point. You'll get through it quickly without feeling like you wasted any time. - It's easy on the eyes. There are plenty of visuals to support the content. If you surf though CSS galleries a lot looking for inspiration for your projects, you'll also get a lot of value just from flipping through the pages. - It's an ideal start for aspiring design professionals because it provides a comprehensive, horizontal look at the design process end to end. If your goal is to learn how to manage big design projects, the book helps you develop an essential vocabulary and a broad awareness of things you need to consider (and why you do) before you get started. CONS (few): - The information in some sections is a little "light". At 255 pages, that's not really a knock. There's plenty of great info to chew on. The book was clearly designed for breadth, rather than depth, which is why it succeeds in giving the reader a complete and broad awareness of the design process. Depth needed to be sacrificed in order to cover everything. Entire books have been written on each topic covered in this book (like SEO, typography, usability etc). The good news is that being aware of why these are critical steps in the process will aid you in your search for deeper dives into how this stuff is done. - No suggestions for further reading. Recognizing that this book was designed for breadth, it would have been useful to have had a short list of suggested resources in each section to guide the reader to deep dives. Including a vetted list of "further reading" would have been great. This isn't a make or break by any means, it's just a nice to have. Overall a great book that you'll probably want to keep in your collection.

Let me first of say that I am new to Web Site Design. I recently finished an HTML and CSS book on how to design and build a website. Having done this I have become very interested in web design and started to buy more books to make sure I cover all my bases before building a site. The key thing I wanted to be sure of was that I know about all of the options that are out there in regards to building a good website. Above the Fold does a great job of showing the thought process and strategies for building a website. A lot of focus was on the organization of information, techniques on how to spark creativity, search engine optimization strategies, as well as basic design and content strategies. Next steps after reading this is to dig into CSS3 some more and learn about JavaScript & jQuery. One more thing is that the author relates a lot of examples with real world websites, which was very nice. Thanks Mr. Miller.

I'm just a lowly programmer. I know nothing about design. This book taught me a lot about design and I learn so much about typography (from my prospective of a non designer). There are tons of inspirations and examples to help give me some ideas what I want to do with my website. What design elements I want to incorporate. Overall, I can't believe this book is so cheap with the quality page and colors. The programming technical books I've bought were decent to crap quality and almost all of them have no color pages. It taught me a great deal and I love it.

If you are looking for a good read on guidelines for design and print this book is it! If you are just starting out to build a website from scratch it is filled with excellent easily understood information. Great book to understanding the layout flow of a website and grasp versatile CSS (Creative Style Sheet) codes. The book relates history of print ink layout and how it applies to web site design. It covers topics of white space and hierarchy of space along with readability, legibility and how that applies to font selection in order to create a user friendly enhanced web site. It goes on to help web site builders understand the importance of personal brand recognition through imagery applied for impact. The most important steps of research and discovery for your customer that includes a asset inventory and sitemap mock up along with prototype comps.

If you're intot he web and building sites then this, IMHO, is a must read. Brian Miller took his time and laid out the fundamentals of web development and design ehre in a concise and accessible manner. you don' need a lot of technical acumen or programming prowess to get what he's writing about and you'll come away with a much greater understanding of the how's and why's of dev/design.

Awesome book! Fun to read and much better than the newer version. The author keeps you engaged through out the whole book and doesn’t bore you with terms. very good for quick learning of the basics.

The book shows off lots of great examples but never explains the How To. I need How To not pretty pictures. But hey! that's just me.

Excellent book, perfect companion to "Convert!". The Kindle edition suffers when it comes to pictures and diagrams; they're too small to be read. Above the Fold covers alot of material I was already familiar with, but having it handy to read, it's good to go over it again. Fairly recent, good advice and techniques discussed.