I have found these reference books very useful as a web developer. Some are also excellent choices for web site owners and web project managers. This list will grow over time, so check back often.

Web Design, Standards and Usability

The Non-Designer's Design Book, by Robin Williams (Peachpit Press), provides excellent guidance to the "visual novice" for designing print advertising, business cards, letterhead and envelopes, and more. The author covers four basic principles that when applied, immediately produce more professional, visually-pleasing pages. I've used the principles also in web design, and I've seen amazing results when a friend applied the concepts to some print advertising. This is an easy-to-read, not-too-long, excellent reference for anyone attempting to design pages for their business or hobby.

Don't Make Me Think, by Steve Krug (New Riders), is about the human/computer interaction. It is a "must read" for both web developers and managers tasked with supervising a web design project (and, if you buy a copy for your boss, you've just made your job a lot easier!). Web site usability is critical to meeting any business goals of a web site, and is really not all that difficult. The book is easy to read and informative as you will see in this sample chapter. Reading and applying the principles in this book during any web design project will save your business time and money.

Bulletproof Web Design, by Dan Cederholm (New Riders), taught me about lean markup and CSS, and I have applied his bulletproof approaches more than once. If you are serious about web standards, then take a look at this book.

Designing with Web Standards, by Jeffrey Zeldman (New Riders), makes the point that web developers can incorporate modern standards of web usability and accessibility in their web sites, without sacrificing beautiful visual appeal. It helped me understand and apply web standards early in my education about web design. I met Jeffrey at An Event Apart in Boston 2008, along with another favorite author, Eric Meyer. They both gave excellent presentations, and even kindly stood with me for photographs! I have a lot of respect for their knowledge and their leadership in the web developer community.

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS): The Definitive Guide, by Eric Myer (O'Reilly), is just what it says. It's big and detailed, and an excellent reference book. Eric Myer has written a variety of books about CSS, and I suggest that web developers review them all, then pick what seems best for their skill and learning goals.

The Zen of CSS Design, by Dave Shea and Molly Holzschlag, (New Riders), shows how stunning design (the examples are amazing!) can also be standards-compliant design. The authors provide guidelines for CSS using examples from The CSS Zen Garden. The sites explored are beautiful and each is so different from the other, yet each site used the exact same html code! The power of CSS is explored and explained. This book is a good choice for any web developer, and might be especially good for talented graphic designers who still use the technique of slicing images to produce visually-attractive web sites; this will open their eyes to new techniques using CSS and standards-compliant markup.

Joomla! Content Management System (CMS)

Joomla! A User's Guide, by Barrie North (Prentice Hall), is an indispensable guide for Joomla! CMS developers. Plus, it is written so clearly that clients with little web experience can use it, in conjunction with some hands-on training, to learn how to update their pages and add new content. In January 2008, I wrote a review for Joomla! A User's Guide for amazon.com. Today, I still refer to the book and consider it a "must have" on my reference shelf.

Joomla! Web Security, by Tom Canavan (Packt Publishing), contains a wealth of information about common security threats to CMS (such as Joomla!) sites. It goes into quite a bit of detail, and I've used many of the suggestions to secure the Joomla! sites that I have built and maintain. In December 2008, I wrote a review for Joomla! Web Security for amazon.com. This one is a bit too technical for the typical client, but a great reference for me.