Aaron Gustafson

The concept of "progressive enhancement" (strategy for webdesign with emphasis on accesibility) is explained while using HTML, CSS and Javascript. The accompanying website gives a download of the first chapter for free.

Crafting Rich Experiences with Progressive Enhancement

Adaptive Web Design

Radimir Bitsov

This was the first book I have read about responsive web design and its principles. It is very useful for people who wants to learn the fundamentals of the best practices in responsive front - end development and I definitely recommend it as one of the essential books about this theme.

Nick Simson

JavaScript is not your interface. It's just one powerful layer that can do some incredible things on an already solid HTML foundation.

Adaptive Web Design is an excellent guide to creating rich digital experiences for the web. The author, Aaron Gustafson, is a seasoned web professional who really knows his stuff. More than a framework or methodology, Gustafson introduces Progressive Enhancement as a guiding "philosophy" to approaching websites and apps, treating each part of the design process as a series of layers upon a universally accessible, baseline experience.

Progressive enhancement, when done right, will provide a base level support for ancient technology, while supporting new devices that have not been invented yet, as well as assistive technology for customers/audiences with disabilities. I've found that going back to retrofit existing sites I designed to fix accessibility issues is a time and labor-consuming, but worthwhile process. Knowing what I know now, I will be employing a progressive enhancement approach on every new project I take on.

The book is organized into short chapters (layers) on content strategy, HTML, WAI-ARIA, CSS, and JavaScript (in that order). Gustafson includes many clever code snippets in the text itself for examples of progressive enhancement and performance strategies. The Second Edition is up-to-date with web standards, modern browser behavior, and offline storage information. I read the print edition, which includes perma.cc shortlinks (archived with the Internet Archive) of well-documented hypertext examples. There are seven video examples included as figures in the digital edition that can be viewed on the book's website.

This book sits alongside my various Rosenfeld Media and A Book Apart titles - books with similar dimensions I find helpful to go back and refer to every few months. A web designer with a few years of experience will get a lot of ideas and inspiration from the text and examples, but I would recommend it for beginners as well, alongside Jennifer Robbins’ 'Learning Web Design'.

Michael Hessling

Excellent. A great summary of the current work of art in front-end web development.

Building an elegant, functional website requires more than just knowing how to code. In Adaptive Web Design, Second Edition, you’ll learn how to use progressive enhancement to build websites that work anywhere, won’t break, are accessible by anyone—on any device—and are designed to work well into the future. This new edition of Adaptive Web Design frames even more of the web design process in the lens of progressive enhancement. You will learn how content strategy, UX, HTML, CSS, responsive web design, JavaScript, server-side programming, and performance optimization all come together in the service of users on whatever device they happen to use to access the web. Understanding progressive enhancement will make you a better web professional, whether you’re a content strategist, information architect, UX designer, visual designer, front-end developer, back-end developer, or project manager. It will enable you to visualize experience as a continuum and craft interfaces that are capable of reaching more users while simultaneously costing less money to develop. When you’ve mastered the tenets and concepts of this book, you will see the web in a whole new way and gain web design superpowers that will make you invaluable to your employer, clients, and the web as a whole. Visit http://adaptivewebdesign.info to learn more.

Adaptive Web Design Crafting Rich Experiences with Progressive Enhancement

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