We recently looked at our top picks for books on Web Development and Design using HTML and CSS. While HTML and CSS are deservedly popular, there are alternatives for Web design and development, and we've covered many over the years. This programmer's bookshelf looks at books that are still aimed at web designers and developers, but using other programs and techniques.

To make it into this Programmer's Bookshelf selection, each book has to have been awarded at rating of more than 4 out of 5 stars. For this round-up the main points of each review have been extracted. To read the full version of the review click on the title. Clicking on the book jacket thumbnail in the side panel will take you to the book's page Amazon and where there's a Kindle version we've included embed code for the latest edition of the book which generally lets you read at least the introductory chapter.

General Web Design and Development

The books in this section are aimed at general web design and mainstream web development.  In the next section we'll look at recommendations for specific tools and technologies. 

Responsive Web Design in 24 Hours 

Author: Jennifer Kyrnin
Publisher: Sams
Pages: 384
ISBN: 9780672338380

Awarding this book a 4-star rating, Ian Elliot said that while responsive design is an attractive idea, doing it is a difficult.  This book in the "24 hours" style isn't 100% typical of the genre, as it's divided into three sections Introduction to Responsive Design, Building a Responsive Website and Improving on Responsive Web Design.

Ian concluded that the book is actually very good and you will learn a lot if you read it. His reservation was that to solve the problem of responsive design you need some good tools that will help you, but this book takes a lower level approach to the problem and as a result you really only need to read it if you too want to take a low level approach. 

Website Owner's Manual 

Author: Paul Boag
Publisher: Manning
Pages: 296
ISBN: 9781933988450

Sue Gee gave this book the maximum five stars, saying that although the book is aimed at anybody who wants a successful web and written mainly for the non-professional, it is good enough to recommend to professionals as well.

Sue's reasoning for the high award was that while many books go downhill once they have stated their early objectives  this book is an exception to the rule - as it focuses on the practical it gets more useful. While other books on the topic make unrealistic claims this one is moderate and balanced. Overall, Sue describes the book as a well balanced, realistic and helpful manual for anybody wanting a successful website.

The Responsive Web 

Author: Matthew Carver
Publisher: Manning 
Pages: 200
ISBN: 9781617291241

This is a book about the technique of designing websites that scale for various browsers, including mobile, tablet, and desktop, and Ian Elliot gave it 4.5 stars, saying the author has organized his material with a clear overall structure, with coverage of ideas such as why you should adopt mobile-first design, and the challenges it presents.

Ian's conclusion was:

"This is a well organized, well presented and well written book. Recommended" 

White Space is Not Your Enemy 

Authors: Kim Golombisky & Rebecca Hagen
Publisher: Focal Press
Pages: 296
ISBN: 9780240812816

This is a lavishly illustrated and "well finished" book that will repay careful study, according to David Conrad, who gave it 4.5 stars, and described it as well thought out, well explained and well illustrated. The main theme of the book is that effective graphic design does four things: It captures attention, controls eye movement; conveys information and evokes emotion.

An updated third edition has been released since our review covering current trends in web design―Mobile-first, UI/UX design, and web typography―and how they affect a designer’s approach to a project  David's conclusion was that the book is both useful and inspiring.

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