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Preface

The Web Application Design Handbook: Best Practices for Web-Based Software was written for teams who are trying to write new web-based applications or port existing applications to the Internet.

“Writing for the web” is hardly a straightforward issue, not just because a good collection of development tools isn’t yet available, but also because it means at least three different things:

• Putting a complete, working application on a web page. The application is accessed and run completely from a web browser. It may be built using HTML, XML, DHTML, or JavaScript, or it may be a Java applet.[1]
• Displaying only the results of a process that is actually running on a network server elsewhere. A chart, a ticker tape, or a set of alarms, for example, might appear on the user’s browser, personal digital assistant, or web-enabled cell phone.
• Automatically updating a desktop application by downloading code over the Internet. This type of updating can be done almost completely behind the scenes or at login. The software package automatically goes online and compares version numbers, then sends an updated version if necessary.

The Web Application Design Handbook addresses all three definitions, but it also shows how being on the web can add magic to an application. For example, a troubleshooting diagram doesn’t have to be just a picture. Using the diagram, technicians can link to a failing server, check it, and even reboot it by just clicking on its icon.

Quick Reference Book for Designers

The Web Application Design Handbook has another use as well. It’s a “fake book” for designers.

Musicians who play weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, dances, and other such venues are often asked for songs they don’t know. They also have to sing songs whose lyrics were never written down, at least not by the composers. Ergo, the fake book, which contains the chord progressions and lyrics of hundreds of popular songs. Fake books allow bands to "fake" their way through a song, letting them save face as well as cut out hours of research and practice.

The Web Application Design Handbook can be used in much the same way, as a handy reference to standards, rules of thumb, and tricks of the trade. Many of the topics it covers—for example, diagram symbols, geographic map projections, the best way to design a database—are not web-specific. However, to design a web-based application quickly, it helps to know what standards already exist for the items that will appear on the screen and what solutions people have already found.

A quick-reference guide to design rules and solutions is not a trivial matter. Whenever standards information is missing, it stops software design meetings dead. “Labels should be right justified!” one designer will cry. “No, left justification is the true standard!” argues another. Meetings have collapsed over whether to use decimal numbers or degrees for latitude and longitude (note: both are correct but have to be handled carefully).

By carrying this book with you everywhere, you can nip pointless arguments almost immediately (“almost immediately” because it doesn’t contain every possible rule—it’s not an encyclopedia). If you can’t find something you need, check the Resources list. You may be able to find it in one of the web pages or books shown there.

How to Re-use What You Already Know

This isn’t the first time the entire software industry has had to throw out old methods and start over on a completely different kind of platform. Within living memory, for example, we all moved from character-based to graphical interfaces.

The key to a successful move from one type of interface to another is not to recreate old methods and old widgets on the new platform. Rather, it is intelligent generalization. If you don’t confuse the button with the task, then you can identify a new type of button or a new method for the same task.

In short, this book builds on earlier standards and design ideas. We hope that the book helps you do the same—we encourage you to cannibalize your own best ideas. Good thinking always transfers.

What This Book is Not

Web Application Design Handbook is not for people trying to create text and document-centric web pages. Books like Lynda Weinman's Designing Web Graphics, Laura Lemay's Teach Yourself Web Publishing in 21 Days, Jared Spool's Web Site Usability: A Designer's Guide, and Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity have covered that side of things already.

It is also not a textbook, but it could be used as one in a college-level or professional training course. As a teacher or trainer, you would have to add your own review questions and exercises, but the appendices on quality and usability testing would be a good start.