Alexander on Web Development

Visual Design for the Modern Web

I went to Borders - a religious practice - looking for a book that re-introduced me to the color theory, but with a focus on how to apply it to the web I found this 341 page jewel.

Since I began programming in PHP in 2005, I was also deeply involved with all kinds of technical stuff - PHP, MySQL, JavaScript and later on HTTPRequestObjects, YUI, Prototype, JQuery, Zend Framework and finally Drupal. Yet until recently - that is - today, I felt I possessed strong web development skills but not so strong web design skills.

A book written by a geek entrepreneur for geek entrepreneurs.

Here's the deal, Mike Cohn says on Chapter 16, User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development that "It is important to understand the potential risks in pursuing an agile story-based approach for an application with a significant or important user interface." He even goes on to admit that "It has been pointed out that agile methods largely ignore issues of designing the user interface". And that's how I ended buying this book.

I remember when I first read about Agile methodologies I was all hyped up about them and thought they were the one stop solution for all my web development needs. After reading a couple books about Agile development methodologies I've come to the conclusion that they only cover the development part, but not the design one. However, because development and user interface design are so mixed together in the web field, managing web projects becomes then a little more complex than other software projects and traditional artistic projects.