The title of this book is an accurate description of its contents, but the book is not about programming; rather, it is about design in the sense of Web site composition, or design of a site’s interface using artistic concepts. Here, one will find discussions of design principles relating to layout, use of shapes, textures, colors, typography, and other graphic elements, as applied to Web sites. The goal is to provide Web site designers with a feel for what works and what doesn’t in engaging the viewer’s interest, and making the site’s content engaging and accessible. The code mentioned in the title is presented to illustrate how the various layouts can be created, usually with scalable vector graphics (SVG), an Extensible Markup Language (XML)-based graphics language.

How does one go about designing a Web site that will be attractive to its audience? First and foremost, by gathering the requirements of the site’s owner. This means determining the owner’s views of the site, with regard to how the site is to be perceived: is it traditional, modern, edgy, relaxed, or techno-centric? Gathering requirements up front is critical to running a successful project; the authors are to be commended for emphasizing this in the book. Having this information permits the designer to decide what graphic elements will best create the perceptions wanted by the site’s owner. The authors emphasize the value of sketching initial concepts by hand on paper, since this can be done more quickly than developing code that displays the graphics, and it avoids the tendency to start coding before the requirements and design are completed. The text proceeds through the design elements noted above. Project examples are presented, following an introduction of new concepts, to illustrate how these concepts are to be applied. The projects in the book are those of real clients of the authors, which can be found on the Internet. Their Web site addresses are found in the acknowledgements.

As one might expect, given its orientation to design, the book makes liberal use of color, and is well laid out (with one exception, discussed below). The writing is clear and understandable. The concepts, although artistically oriented, are presented in a practical way, with a discussion of what works, and why, in terms understandable to those who are not trained artists. One thing that works less well for me is the code. There are many figures presented throughout the book that illustrate the design concepts. Most of these are line drawings, accompanied by the SVG code that will produce them. Some of the more complex graphics are followed by several pages of SVG. This code tends to be a series of line definitions, making it very repetitive, and uninteresting to read. These also interrupt the reader’s progress, by breaking up the flow of the text. One has to wonder about the purpose and value of taking up all that space with this code, since it can be downloaded from the publisher’s Web site. A short tutorial on SVG, followed by short examples in the text, would have been preferable.

That weakness aside, the book presents a pragmatic view of Web site design. It is oriented to basic design principles, and avoids limitations by not being tied to a particular design tool. Rather, it properly emphasizes using human creativity first, with coding to follow. As the authors mention more than once, the design should not be constrained by the designer’s coding skills (and, by extrapolation, a particular tool). To me, this feels like the right approach. The book should be of interest to those working in Web site design who have had little exposure to artistic concepts and principles.