Free Online Books

For reasons I can't quite fathom, some folks put up their books on the web where you can read them for free instead of buying them at the bookstore. Whatever makes you happy.

Research-Based Web Design & Usability Guidelines

This is a 161Mb download from the US Department of Health and Human Services that is worth every byte. I wish I knew about this document before I spent three months working up my own checklist about "good design."

View and Print Entire Guidelines Book (2006 ed.)(292 pages, 161 MB)

Here are the individual chapters:

Chapter 1 – Design Process and Evaluation (8 pages, 1.8 MB)
Chapter 2 – Optimizing the User Experience (13 pages, 8.9 MB)
Chapter 3 – Accessibility (7 pages, 2.4 MB)
Chapter 4 – Hardware and Software (5 pages, 2.8 MB)
Chapter 5 – The Homepage(10 pages, 11.8 MB)
Chapter 6 – Page Layout (14 pages, 20.4 MB)
Chapter 7 – Navigation (13 pages, 12.8 MB)
Chapter 8 – Scrolling and Paging (5 pages, 4.4 MB)
Chapter 9 – Headings, Titles, and Labels (9 pages, 7.7 MB)
Chapter 10 – Links (15 pages, 16.7 MB)
Chapter 11 – Text Appearance(11 pages, 11 MB)
Chapter 12 – Lists (9 pages, 6.4 MB)
Chapter 13 – Screen–Based Controls (Widgets) (22 pages, 14.7 MB)
Chapter 14 – Graphics, Images, and Multimedia (16 pages, 16.5 MB)
Chapter 15 – Writing Web Content (11 pages, 10.8 MB)
Chapter 16 – Content Organization(10 pages, 9.8 MB)
Chapter 17 – Search (9 pages, 8.9 MB)
Chapter 18 – Usability Testing (10 pages, 1,020 KB)

Building Accessible Websites

I'm never one to argue when other people want to give it away. I guess that since this book is online nobody else will have an incentive to write a book on the topic.

The Yale Web Style Guide

I guess some people still Free Chapter from "Son of Web Pages That Suck" (PDF from Sybex via ftp 3.25Mb), but why? It's online and free. Sheesh. It's an excellent book and covers most of what you need to know.

Nonprofit Websites: Cutting Through the EMaze

Todd Baker is one of the well-known names in the fundraising business and he has a free book you can download (preferable) or read online called "Nonprofit Websites: Cutting Through the EMaze."

While its focus is the non-profit industry, there are certainly valuable tips for any commercial web site — you just have to ignore the touchy-feely stuff and figure out what information you can apply to your site.

The "book" is a 1.3Mb PDF file, so I suggest you download it (in IE, right-click) rather than read it

nonprofit websites: Cutting Through the EMaze (1.3Mb PDF)

If you know of any other "good" books (not something like "Java Made Simple") that are online, free, and deal with web design, let me know.