Web Application Design Handbook: Best Practices for Web-Based Software (Interactive Technologies)
What is a web application? This is not an easy question to answer, and rather than leave the definition as an exercise for the reader (like some of the other web application books available), Fowler and Stanwick devote a chapter to it. Not only do they deliver a matrix that helps you to figure out where your project fits, they also get to the meat: based on the definition, what design differences are there?
Web-based software poses some real challenges, especially if you are coding in straight HTML and HTML/forms (even if you use a little JavaScript on the side). Java applets and Flash pose a slightly different set of challenges. Fowler and Stanwick devote chapters to the critical things you’ll need to know to design a usable application:
- Browser Framework
- Data Input: Forms
- Data Input: Lists
- Data Retrieval: Search
- Data Retrieval: Filtering and Browsing
- Data Output: Reports
- Data Output: Printed Forms
- Interacting With Output
