For most of you who already got the book it wasn't probably a painful process. Unfortunately, there are always a couple of exceptions to the rule, and I was "lucky" enough to be stuck with one. I pre-ordered the book way back in the late summer of 2009, because I wanted to get my hands on the book as soon as it was out. That turned against me, as the book that was sent over got lost in traffic. It was shipped on the 2nd of December last year, and it was late January 2010 and nothing smashing got stuck into my mailbox.

I didn't know what to do, and I sent over an email to Smashing Magazine's team. It was just a short brief line telling them it's almost two months since dispatch day and I still have nothing, together with my mailing address. I got a reply in less than 24 hours that said something like: "We're sorry, the book was lost in transit. But here's a tracking code of a new airmail shipping". Four days later, a couple of weeks ago, I got the book. Found the time to digest it, and here's the results.

Package

I think those great guys and girls at Smashing Magazine are Mac fans, because the book was awesomely wrapped. Getting it out of the package after such a long waiting time almost felt like getting my first Apple product out of its box. The quality of the paper is awesome, unlike many other books I got my hands on, which usually were more expensive too.

User interface design in modern web applications - Dmitry Fadeyev

The first chapter of the book is about user interface design, and was written by Dmitry Fadeyev who publishes the Usability Post. I've been reading his blog ever since he started it because it is packed with a lot of valuable information. On such grounds I didn't expect this chapter to be any less valuable. Unfortunately for me, reading Dmitry's chapter felt like reminding myself things I already knew. I am an avid reader and researcher on anything that deals with user interfaces and experience, and everything that Dmitry wrote in his chapter felt so familiar.

However, for someone who's new to this portion of the web, this chapter will make you pop a lot of questions. Questions on whether your websites and web apps have high standards or not. Questions whether your users feel great using your solutions or not. This chapter contains information about the little things that make everything feel so much better.

The art and science of CSS-Layouts - Kayla Knight and Jacob Gube

The second chapter of the book starts without intensity, but as you keep reading things get more complicated. Fixed, fluid, hybrid, adaptive or elastic layouts are all in there, and if you're still using only fixed-width layouts this chapter will make you think twice before going with them in the future.

Web typography: Rules, guidelines and common mistakes - Alessandro Cattaneo, Yves Peters and Jon Tan

I never thought that design, and typography ( to be more precise ), has to deal with math and mathematical formulas. This chapter will make a shift in your thinking with regard to typography and layouts — only if you're not some typography guru and this chapter will make you fall asleep.

Packed with a lot of unknown, unheard terms, this long chapter unfolds itself gradually, and the authors behind it did a great job explaining beforehand what they were going to talk about. I think this chapter is the best place to start your regular reading on typography.

After you're done with the Smashing Book's typography chapter, I really recommend this article published by Smashing Magazine on mathematics applied to designs. It contains a wonderful follow up story of the aforementioned chapter.

Usability principles for modern websites - Andrew Mayer and David Leggett

This chapter starts with a lot of information and guidelines that simply put is common sense. Or at least it seems so for me. If you don't know this stuff by now, I hope you didn't put a lot of websites up in the cloud by now. But as you approach the end of the chapter, there's some nice insights on different studies, possibly unheard principles and rules. Unfortunately, I'd have to say that this chapter somehow contrasts the quality of the first three chapters of the book.

The ultimate guide to fantastic color usage in web design, usability and experience - Darius A Monsef IV

This chapter was by far the easiest to read since I started the book. It does contain a lot of technical information, but the amount of perfect examples picked by Darius to emphasize what he's trying to point out is overwhelming. It starts with some basic information, advances to a few quality examples and by the time you finish the chapter you feel like you need to go to an art gallery as soon as possible.

If I were you, I'd leave this chapter alone and read it as if it were the last one in the book. After all, the Smashing Book contains 10 different stories, not connected to each other, so you can read them in any order you'd like.

After completing the book, I must say that the chapters do have some kind of flow, and maybe it's best if you read them in the order they are presented.

Performance optimization for websites - Rene Schmidt

I can't believe I am actually saying this, but as chapters go by, each one seems better than the ones that came before it. Rene Schmidt did a great job in the chapter he wrote. It is packed with server-side and client-side optimization techniques that you really need to know. If the chapter were a bit more complex, you could have switched from a dedicated managed server to an unmanaged one.

Design to sell; Increasing conversion rates - Dmitry Fadeyev

After reading the first chapter Dmitry wrote in the Smashing Book I was little disappointed, merely because I didn't learn new tricks. However, this second chapter of his was a bit more advanced, if that's the right word for it.

I liked the sell "solutions and benefits" concept instead of "services and features", and it was great to find out more about this technique.

How to turn a site into a remarkable brand - Chris Spooner

By the time you reach this chapter, you finally realize that all these stories told by each chapter of the book were carefully chosen. The book starts with basic website building techniques and covers the entire process in detail. Therefor, this chapter on branding is interesting because it points out a few things that can turn a website into a huge success. This chapter alone would have been a great way to end the book.

Learning from experts; interviews and insights - Steven Snell

I'm sure all of you, who would consider buying any web development book, read from time to time interviews with experts in the field. The Smashing Book also contains a chapter dedicated to chatting with some important figures in the web development industry. However, these interviews seem a bit different. Most online published interviews don't really pack useful information, detailed techniques, but instead have a more personal touch. The interviews published in the book seem more technical than what I was used to reading online. There are no "how's your typical day like?" questions. There's more questions like "what are the first steps when beginning a client project?"

Behind the curtains: The Smashing Magazine story

After the insights shared by great designers and developers in the previous chapter, getting to know what Smashing Magazine really is and how it evolved since it was launched was great. It is always inspiring to see how two people can turn something simple, basic and unknown into a fabulous success such as the Smashing Magazine.

Top chapters

• 1. Performance optimization for websites - Rene Schmidt
• 2. The ultimate guide to fantastic color usage in web design, usability and experience - Darius A Monsef IV
• 3. Web typography: Rules, guidelines and common mistakes - Alessandro Cattaneo, Yves Peters and Jon Tan

Final words

The Smashing Book is shinny and nice. Sometimes though it is too shinny such that text in inline pages is glowing making reading it really hard unless you change your light bulbs or light angle.

It's clear that the book is a result of a community, not one or two authors. Because of that, the quality of it's chapters range from chapter to chapter. On the other hand this makes the book more enjoyable as its style changes often. Bored of one author's way of laying out information? Don't worry, the next one will be totally different.

To conclude, the Smashing Book is indeed... Smashing!

If you enjoyed this article you can stay updated to new content via our RSS feed or by email.

Further reading

• 1. The change is here. Hover events come to mobile devices
• 2. Should I use on hover behavior?
• 3. Javascript DOs and DONTs. Complete with 17 examples from real web
• 4. Consistency. Key element in extraordinary UX

I received a pitch to develop a live betting system for a local Romanian betting company, and the first step I saw towards finding the best solution was to register and test for a few days what is already out there. I have dropped gamebookers after just a couple of hours with one sole verdict. Gamebookers shall not be used with their live betting system.

bwin vs gamebookers (homepage)

The second option was bwin. First of all, I loved how bwin crafted their home page. You get big images to show the biggest sporting events, which just a few important details, and you are one click away from betting those events. The navigation is composed of few links, which large font sizes. Lovely. On the contrast, gamebookers's home page is a disaster. Their homepage loaded after about half a minute, which it hasn't happened for me in ages on any site. Then, the first feeling you get is being overwhelmed with information. I felt just like being in a street market in Spain where everybody screams their best offers. Gamebookers's home page is like an uproar. While bwin uses images to show biggest upcoming events they use a lot of small text to emphasize on those events. Awful strategy.

bwin's live betting system

While how to get to the live betting system is not straightforward, clicking almost anything on the home page will get you to the actual betting zone, where just below the logo there's a "live betting" link. Simple and easy. Thinking this reversely, one that wants to bet clicks his events and is taken to see the odds. If the event has already started, you can simply click the live betting link and get started.

Flash to the power

Bwin's live betting system is completely flash, with 2 minor exceptions. You cannot login through the flash system; you need to use the login form located in the top bar of the site. Logging in will unfortunately refresh the page, and the entire flash page. The second bad thing about it is that your overall balance has a small delay in updating itself while you bet, so you may have to open your account in a parallel window and switch tabs, refresh to view you live balance.

You got it right. An entire flash system to bet live, that missed an important point, the account balance.

The flash page structure

Bwin has found a nice solution to browse all events, bet and view additional information about the events you are betting on. For that, they have used a 3 column layout that can be easily transformed in a 2 column layout. Being flash, the switch is bundled with nice blurry transitions, which I like, but some probably don't.

The header of the left sidebar contains a few links to help page, triggers to view the odds in the format you want, calendars and more. It is followed by a "My favorites" section, and finally a dedicated section that displays current events. The last on the sidebar is a tab displaying upcoming events.

Clicking any category in the "Now" tab will expand it and you can select the event you wish, which is displayed in full in the main content area. All odds are grouped based on their importance, but you can move them around as you like. Being flash, all odds automatically refresh based on score, events in the game you're watching etc. You also see live scoring, detailed with all events you can bet for in the specific game.

The right sidebar contains a live audio/video tab (yes, some events are broadcasted live on bwin's site), a bet slip tab that displays your latest bets and their results, a chat tab, highlights and more.

The culprits

At first, it really looks that the system's user interface works great. However, that is not always the case. While using it I had to refresh my browser because of losing connection to the server. Perhaps that happened because some packets were lost between me and the server. However, if they implemented such a beautiful autorefresh system, why didn't the page autorefresh the needed information without bugging me off about it?

The second major issue is that the system allows you to bet before you login, but you have to login before you bet. There's no login form built into the flash part of the site, so you have to login using the html form located in the header of the site, and ... refresh the page.

Furthermore, you get to place a bet during a live event. For each bet there's a spinning gear included. You select your bet, your odd, enter your amount, hit bet and then you have to wait a couple of seconds. During those seconds the odds may change and you bet is refused. The system displays the error message so you find out that the odds have changed, but they are not changed in your betting form. You have to refresh before you can submit your bet. Then wait for the spinning gear, and hopefully the odds won't change again.

The same thing happens if you try to bet and while the spinning gear loads the odd is canceled. The system displays the error message, you click to confirm it, but the bet is not removed from your bet slip, you have to remove it. Seriously, why can't they help me bet?

Conclusion

Why can't I bet and if my bet is canceled all things triggered by it automatically removed, and then notify me? Why can't I bet and if the odds get changed my bet remains valid? Then I can cancel the bet if I do not like it in 5 seconds or something like that.

Though its downsides, bwin's live betting system is probably the best in the world. It is by far more advanced that what gamebookers has. It can suffer minor improvements, or at least it should allow users to select how they would like to bet. I am referring strictly to the issues I don't like about changing odds and the ones that get canceled. If you liked this article you can subscribe to our RSS feed and stay updated as new articles get published.