Teach Yourself VISUALLY Web Design (Teach Yourself VISUALLY by Rob Huddleston
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Absolute novices may benefit from this book's introduction to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, and SQL, but it's so elementary that it's useless for anyone with any web design experience. Only the essentials of each technology are covered, so one wouldn't even be able to create a site after reading it.
The format is very reader-friendly, as each lesson is 2-4 pages and illustrated with code samples. The code samples are screenshots from Notepad; a color-coded editor with line numbers would have been nicer. It could be useful as a quick reference for beginners.
Adobe applications are heavily represented, and there are several sections dealing with Dreamweaver, Photoshop, and CS5 (Creative Suite 5). Most of the book's lessons are application-agnostic.
The author should get credit for stressing standards-compliance and accessibility, which are often overlooked in web design.
