Critical Web Design

An innovative, learn-by-doing textbook that teaches how to design for the web while engaging a critical lens on the technoculture that sustains it.

Critical web design, like critical design, employs a social usefulness to challenge the ways technology enters our lives. It reclaims the mechanisms, tools, and practices used to produce coercive and commercial interfaces, harnessing the power of design and networked information to question preconceptions about the medium itself. This engaging, practical textbook explores how to design for the web while maintaining a critical understanding of the technoculture that sustains it. Motivated by new media art practices and speculative design, xtine burrough and Owen Mundy teach readers to conceptualize, design, and program responsive websites as both an applied and creative practice. Each chapter integrates coverage of the field’s historical and cultural concepts with hands-on, technical exercises. The result is a timely, innovative guide that makes professional front end development tools accessible to all.

Learn-by-doing approach builds technical skills in interface design, usability/accessibility, and coding in HTML/CSS and JavascriptHistorical, political, and philosophical context relates the “why” argument for learning to codeCase studies and interviews with artists and designers bring ideas to lifeExtensive supplemental resources include code, exercises, and video demonstrations