What, exactly, is Web design? There are many answers to this, and experts do not always agree with each other. For one perspective, you can read on-line Chapter 1 of Thomas Powell's Web Design: The Complete Reference, "What is Web Design?"

Our texts for the course are Designing Web Graphics 3 by Lynda Weiman and The Web Style Guide by Patrick Lynch and Sarah Horton.

The on-line Web design programming reference I've put together is at:
      http://www.webdesignreference.com It covers in more depth some of the materials covered in class. There are on-line refereences and tutorials on HTML, cascading style sheets (CSS), XTML, JavaScript examples, and other resources for you to use during and after the course.

I also recommend two other books for this course:

Designing Web Usability: The Practice of Simplicity
by Jakob Nielsen
Paperback - 432 pages 1 edition (December 20, 1999) New Riders Publishing; ISBN: 156205810X

Web Design: The Complete Reference
by Thomas A. Powell
Paperback - 756 pages (January 2000) Osborne McGraw-Hill; ISBN: 0072122978

I've also mentioned Molly Holzschlag's book Web by Design. Here's some info on that:

Web by Design: The Complete Guide
by Molly E. Holzschlag
Paperback - 901 pages Sybex; ISBN: 0782122019 ; Dimensions (in inches): 2.13 x 8.98 x 7.45

When I was with MSN, Molly tutored all of us Community Managers in designing Web pages to meet MSN's high expectations for design quality and creativity.