Aaron Gustafson
Principal - Easy! Designs, LLC
appearing at Rich Web Experience, Aaron is a regular on the web conference circuit and is frequently called upon to provide web standards and JavaScript training in both the public and private sector. He blogs at easy-reader.net.
Photo by Cindy Li.
Blog
HTML5 is the new DHTML
Posted Friday, February 3, 2012
For all intents and purposes, “HTML5” has become a meaningless catch-all marketing phrase defining a platform rather than a specification. It’s “DHTML” all over again. more »The apparent results of meeting room boredom [Flickr]
Posted Friday, January 27, 2012
Aaron Gustafson posted a photo:more »Presentations
Learning to Love Forms
In this session, we will explore forms from top to bottom, examining how they work and how their components can be incorporated with other elements to maximize accessibility, improve semantics, and allow for more flexible styling.more »Ruining the User Experience
When JavaScript and Ajax go bad, your users aren't the only ones who lose out...more »When JavaScript and Ajax go bad, your users aren't the only ones who lose out... Every descision we make in the process of building our websites, applications, and interfaces contributes to the overall experience a user has. Sometimes, in our rush to ride the latest wave in interaction design, we miss the mark and end up doing more harm than good.
This session will explore several failures in interaction design before introducing you to a developmental process which will ensure every experience you create is a good one.
Books
by Jonathan Snook, Aaron Gustafson, Stuart Langridge, and Dan Webb
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JavaScript is one of the hottest web development technologies around, and DOM Scripting is a very important subset of JavaScript, which specifically allows developers to add dynamic functionality to their web applications.
Interest in this subject is proven by sales of the book "DOM Scripting" from friends of ED (1590595335,) and Pro DOM Scripting adds to that knowledge base by providing a Pro level resource aimed more at developers/programmers than designers. Pro DOM Scripting provides a thorough walkthrough of all the fundamentals you need to know for effective dynamic web applications (OOP, events, Ajax, JavaScript libraries etc.)
It then hits home with 3 complete real world case studies detailing complete dynamic web applications. This is the first DOM Scripting book aimed at the experienced web developer.
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JavaScript is one of the hottest web development technologies around, and DOM Scripting is a very important subset of JavaScript, which specifically allows developers to add dynamic functionality to their web applications.
Interest in this subject is proven by sales of the book "DOM Scripting" from friends of ED (1590595335,) and Pro DOM Scripting adds to that knowledge base by providing a Pro level resource aimed more at developers/programmers than designers. Pro DOM Scripting provides a thorough walkthrough of all the fundamentals you need to know for effective dynamic web applications (OOP, events, Ajax, JavaScript libraries etc.)
It then hits home with 3 complete real world case studies detailing complete dynamic web applications. This is the first DOM Scripting book aimed at the experienced web developer.
by James Kalbach
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Thoroughly rewritten for today's web environment, this bestselling book offers a fresh look at a fundamental topic of web site development: navigation design. Amid all the changes to the Web in the past decade, and all the hype about Web 2.0 and various "rich" interactive technologies, the basic problems of creating a good web navigation system remain. Designing Web Navigation demonstrates that good navigation is not about technology-it's about the ways people find information, and how you guide them.
Ideal for beginning to intermediate web designers, managers, other non-designers, and web development pros looking for another perspective, Designing Web Navigation offers basic design principles, development techniques and practical advice, with real-world examples and essential concepts seamlessly folded in. How does your web site serve your business objectives? How does it meet a user's needs? You'll learn that navigation design touches most other aspects of web site development. This book:
- Provides the foundations of web navigation and offers a framework for navigation design
- Paints a broad picture of web navigation and basic human information behavior
- Demonstrates how navigation reflects brand and affects site credibility
- Helps you understand the problem you're trying to solve before you set out to design
- Thoroughly reviews the mechanisms and different types of navigation
- Explores "information scent" and "information shape"
- Explains "persuasive" architecture and other design concepts
- Covers special contexts, such as navigation design for web applications
- Includes an entire chapter on tagging
While Designing Web Navigation focuses on creating navigation systems for large, information-rich sites serving a business purpose, the principles and techniques in the book also apply to small sites. Well researched and cited, this book serves as an excellent reference on the topic, as well as a superb teaching guide. Each chapter ends with suggested reading and a set of questions that offer exercises for experiencing the concepts in action.
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Thoroughly rewritten for today's web environment, this bestselling book offers a fresh look at a fundamental topic of web site development: navigation design. Amid all the changes to the Web in the past decade, and all the hype about Web 2.0 and various "rich" interactive technologies, the basic problems of creating a good web navigation system remain. Designing Web Navigation demonstrates that good navigation is not about technology-it's about the ways people find information, and how you guide them.
Ideal for beginning to intermediate web designers, managers, other non-designers, and web development pros looking for another perspective, Designing Web Navigation offers basic design principles, development techniques and practical advice, with real-world examples and essential concepts seamlessly folded in. How does your web site serve your business objectives? How does it meet a user's needs? You'll learn that navigation design touches most other aspects of web site development. This book:- Provides the foundations of web navigation and offers a framework for navigation design
- Paints a broad picture of web navigation and basic human information behavior
- Demonstrates how navigation reflects brand and affects site credibility
- Helps you understand the problem you're trying to solve before you set out to design
- Thoroughly reviews the mechanisms and different types of navigation
- Explores "information scent" and "information shape"
- Explains "persuasive" architecture and other design concepts
- Covers special contexts, such as navigation design for web applications
- Includes an entire chapter on tagging
by Jeffrey Sambells and Aaron Gustafson
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DOM Scripting is a vital technique for web developers and designers to learn and master in the modern web development arena, for adding dynamic effects to web applications such as animations, maps, drag and drop, and more.
At friends of ED, we kick-started the interest in this subject with Jeremy Keith's acclaimed book DOM Scripting (friends of ED 1590595335.) And now, with AdvancED DOM Scripting, we're aiming to take the reader further—AdvancED DOM Scripting starts where the original DOM Scripting left off, assuming the reader has already mastered the basics, and taking them further, with countless real world tutorials. It is the first book to exclusively cover advanced DOM Scripting techniques, and reads like a wish list of must have dynamic web application features, including visual effects using JavaScript libraries, Ajax, Mashups using APIs, and much more.
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DOM Scripting is a vital technique for web developers and designers to learn and master in the modern web development arena, for adding dynamic effects to web applications such as animations, maps, drag and drop, and more.
At friends of ED, we kick-started the interest in this subject with Jeremy Keith's acclaimed book DOM Scripting (friends of ED 1590595335.) And now, with AdvancED DOM Scripting, we're aiming to take the reader further—AdvancED DOM Scripting starts where the original DOM Scripting left off, assuming the reader has already mastered the basics, and taking them further, with countless real world tutorials. It is the first book to exclusively cover advanced DOM Scripting techniques, and reads like a wish list of must have dynamic web application features, including visual effects using JavaScript libraries, Ajax, Mashups using APIs, and much more.
by Jennifer Niederst Robbins
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Everything you need to know to create professional web sites is right here. Learning Web Design starts from the beginning -- defining how the Web and web pages work -- and builds from there. By the end of the book, you'll have the skills to create multi-column CSS layouts with optimized graphic files, and you'll know how to get your pages up on the Web.
This thoroughly revised edition teaches you how to build web sites according to modern design practices and professional standards. Learning Web Design explains:
- How to create a simple (X)HTML page, how to add links and images
- Everything you need to know about web standards -- (X)HTML, DTDs, and more
- Cascading Style Sheets -- formatting text, colors and backgrounds, using the box model, page layout, and more
- All about web graphics, and how to make them lean and mean through optimization
- The site development process, from start to finish
- Getting your pages on the Web -- hosting, domain names, and FTP
The book includes exercises to help you to learn various techniques, and short quizzes to make sure you're up to speed with key concepts. If you're interested in web design, Learning Web Design is the place to start.
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Everything you need to know to create professional web sites is right here. Learning Web Design starts from the beginning -- defining how the Web and web pages work -- and builds from there. By the end of the book, you'll have the skills to create multi-column CSS layouts with optimized graphic files, and you'll know how to get your pages up on the Web.
This thoroughly revised edition teaches you how to build web sites according to modern design practices and professional standards. Learning Web Design explains:- How to create a simple (X)HTML page, how to add links and images
- Everything you need to know about web standards -- (X)HTML, DTDs, and more
- Cascading Style Sheets -- formatting text, colors and backgrounds, using the box model, page layout, and more
- All about web graphics, and how to make them lean and mean through optimization
- The site development process, from start to finish
- Getting your pages on the Web -- hosting, domain names, and FTP
by Jeremy Keith
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Step-by-step guide reveals best practices for enhancing Web sites with Ajax
- A step-by-step guide to enhancing Web sites with Ajax.
- Uses progressive enhancement techniques to ensure graceful degradation (which makes sites usable in all browsers).
- Shows readers how to write their own Ajax scripts instead of relying on third-party libraries.
Web site designers love the idea of Ajax--of creating Web pages in which information can be updated without refreshing the entire page. But for those who aren't hard-core programmers, enhancing pages using Ajax can be a challenge. Even more of a challenge is making sure those pages work for all users. In Bulletproof Ajax, author Jeremy Keith demonstrates how developers comfortable with CSS and (X)HTML can build Ajax functionality without frameworks, using the ideas of graceful degradation and progressive enhancement to ensure that the pages work for all users. Throughout this step-by-step guide, his emphasis is on best practices with an approach to building Ajax pages called Hijax, which improves flexibility and avoids worst-case scenarios.
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Step-by-step guide reveals best practices for enhancing Web sites with Ajax
- A step-by-step guide to enhancing Web sites with Ajax.
- Uses progressive enhancement techniques to ensure graceful degradation (which makes sites usable in all browsers).
- Shows readers how to write their own Ajax scripts instead of relying on third-party libraries.
Web site designers love the idea of Ajax--of creating Web pages in which information can be updated without refreshing the entire page. But for those who aren't hard-core programmers, enhancing pages using Ajax can be a challenge. Even more of a challenge is making sure those pages work for all users. In Bulletproof Ajax, author Jeremy Keith demonstrates how developers comfortable with CSS and (X)HTML can build Ajax functionality without frameworks, using the ideas of graceful degradation and progressive enhancement to ensure that the pages work for all users. Throughout this step-by-step guide, his emphasis is on best practices with an approach to building Ajax pages called Hijax, which improves flexibility and avoids worst-case scenarios.
by Jennifer Niederst
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Are you still designing web sites like it's 1999? If so, you're in for a surprise. Since the last edition of this book appeared five years ago, there has been a major climate change with regard to web standards. Designers are no longer using (X)HTML as a design tool, but as a means of defining the meaning and structure of content. Cascading Style Sheets are no longer just something interesting to tinker with, but rather a reliable method for handling all matters of presentation, from fonts and colors to the layout of the entire page. In fact, following the standards is now a mandate of professional web design.
Our popular reference, Web Design in a Nutshell, is one of the first books to capture this new web landscape with an edition that's been completely rewritten and expanded to reflect the state of the art. In addition to being an authoritative reference for (X)HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, this book also provides an overview of the unique requirements of designing for the Web and gets to the nitty-gritty of JavaScript and DOM Scripting, web graphics optimization, and multimedia production. It is an indispensable tool for web designers and developers of all levels.
The third edition covers these contemporary web design topics:
- Structural layer: HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 (9 chapters), including an alphabetical reference of all elements, attributes and character entities
- Presentation layer: Ten all-new chapters on Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2.1, including an alphabetical reference of all properties and values.
- Behavior layer: JavaScript and scripting with the Document Object Model (DOM)
- Web environment: New web standards, browsers, display devices, accessibility, and internationalization
- Web graphics optimization: Producing lean and mean GIF, JPEG, PNG, and animated GIFs
- Multimedia: Web audio, video, Flash, and PDF
Organized so that readers can find answers quickly, Web Design in a Nutshell, Third Edition helps experienced designers come up to speed quickly on standards-based web design, and serves as a quick reference for those already familiar with the new standards and technology.
There are many books for web designers, but none that address such a wide variety of topics. Find out why nearly half a million buyers have made this the most popular web design book available.
-
Are you still designing web sites like it's 1999? If so, you're in for a surprise. Since the last edition of this book appeared five years ago, there has been a major climate change with regard to web standards. Designers are no longer using (X)HTML as a design tool, but as a means of defining the meaning and structure of content. Cascading Style Sheets are no longer just something interesting to tinker with, but rather a reliable method for handling all matters of presentation, from fonts and colors to the layout of the entire page. In fact, following the standards is now a mandate of professional web design.
Our popular reference, Web Design in a Nutshell, is one of the first books to capture this new web landscape with an edition that's been completely rewritten and expanded to reflect the state of the art. In addition to being an authoritative reference for (X)HTML and Cascading Style Sheets, this book also provides an overview of the unique requirements of designing for the Web and gets to the nitty-gritty of JavaScript and DOM Scripting, web graphics optimization, and multimedia production. It is an indispensable tool for web designers and developers of all levels.
The third edition covers these contemporary web design topics:
- Structural layer: HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 (9 chapters), including an alphabetical reference of all elements, attributes and character entities
- Presentation layer: Ten all-new chapters on Cascading Style Sheets, Level 2.1, including an alphabetical reference of all properties and values.
- Behavior layer: JavaScript and scripting with the Document Object Model (DOM)
- Web environment: New web standards, browsers, display devices, accessibility, and internationalization
- Web graphics optimization: Producing lean and mean GIF, JPEG, PNG, and animated GIFs
- Multimedia: Web audio, video, Flash, and PDF
Organized so that readers can find answers quickly, Web Design in a Nutshell, Third Edition helps experienced designers come up to speed quickly on standards-based web design, and serves as a quick reference for those already familiar with the new standards and technology.
There are many books for web designers, but none that address such a wide variety of topics. Find out why nearly half a million buyers have made this the most popular web design book available.
