Sometimes a book gets everything right, including the back cover bumpf. The Complete Reference: Web Design is a fine example - flip the book over and youre promised all you need to plan, build, and maintain dynamic Web sites that balance form and function. Im pleased to report that Thomas Powell, the author delivers all these promises. Powell is an instructor in Web design at the University of California, and developed its well-respected Web Design Certificate Program. He also happens to be the author of The Complete Reference: HTML, the perfect partner book, and Id recommend coughing up for both.

So what do you get for your money? The answer is the complete Web-design picture, covering everything from initial planning, through layout and structure, to providing the content in a user-friendly way and maintaining the whole thing securely and successfully. Powell doesnt shy away from the important technical issues, but presents them in a real-world manner that makes sense to all levels of reader. The site delivery and management chapter is a good example, as it covers server components and hosting requirements in a non-geographical way that could teach many US-based authors a thing or two.
Throughout the 872 pages youll find rules like: the amount of bytes delivered to create a page is not as important as how fast the user perceives the page to be, and suggestions such as: try to keep the number of unique individual objects in a page small, to reduce the number of HTTP requests - the kind of thing that needs to be written large and stuck to your monitor when youre working on your next Web site.

Make sure you check the accompanying Web site at www.webdesignref.com, which contains sample chapters and resource links but, more importantly, features lots of demos that bring examples from the book to life. Also, why not download the Sample Site Evaluation Form in printable PDF format from www.webdesignref.com/appendixB/default.htm, which provides a Q&A checklist covering navigation and audience pre-testing, structure, content and delivery testing, and browser support checks to name just a few. It gets its own appendix chapter in the book, but a printable version is a great bonus. Its still worth buying the book though - the site-evaluation form is worth $70 on its own.