BIB_04: Farkas, D., & Farkas, J. B. (2002). Principles of Web design. New York: Longman.

Among literally hundreds of Web design books, Farka & Farka's book primarily targets an academic audience and as its title suggests, focuses on principle issues in Web design rather than detailed instructions. The book starts with a chapter that offers an overview of the Web and Web design -- theory, key concepts, genres, and history. The following two chapters are based on the process of Web development, from planning, designing and budgeting, to Web building. The authors also talk about how to put together a competitive team and the roles of each team members. Because of the multimedia nature of the Web, the authors devote a chapter specifically to content development, discussing what content format to choose and how to use them effectively. Then they move on to a discussion about the social implications and ethical concerns in Web design, which covers important issues such as accessibility, safety, and control of information. Chapter six to nine are devoted to information architecture and navigation, in which the authors talks about the theoretical foundation of information design on the Web -- hypermedia theory -- and some very practical strategies of designing information and navigation such as designing the navigational interface and effective links. The next two chapters focus on the how to develop content for Web sites. Specifically, the author cover both writing for the Web and graphic design. In the last chapter, the authors come back to the topic of information design, and discuss the organizational strategies other than the hierarchical organization, which is the most used organization on the Web.

Farka and Farka's textbook is a useful book for perhaps technical communication graduate students because of its firm grip on Web theory. They authors bring on the table some important issues a responsible designer must consider such as the ethics of design. However, if the audience wants to learn more practical strategies of Web design, this book might not the be best choice. Besides, published in 2002, the book is a bit following behind today's technologies. Apart from the text dominant black & white format without many visual examples, the most noticeable issue is that the authors regard Web sites primarily as documents, rather than platforms of user interaction (although they have mentioned briefly that some Web sites are "online computing environments"). This may be true ten years ago, but we have seen Web sites increasingly merging with applications in the past five years or so. Therefore, contemporary Web design must have new concerns that accommodate these new changes.