Review of The Smashing Book #2
When I reviewed the first Smashing Book I was pretty disappointed about the production of the book itself. It was pretty costly and the book was difficult to read thanks to the margins and fonts and the whole thing seemed like it was going to fall apart.
That’s why, I was delightfully surprised when I received book #2 in the mail. The book is a beautiful hardcover with generous margins, a sturdy build and even a built in bookmark! I loved the fact that I could hold the book competely flat without worrying that it would fall apart.
While the articles in the first book were pretty good, they were fantastic in book #2. I thoroughly enjoyed reading articles from some of my favorite designers, developers and even from some of my Twitter friends!
My favorite chapter was Chapter 7: Applying Game Design Principles to User Experience Design. I thought this chapter went deep into why some apps are more successful than others and how you can apply game design principles to make your website, app and business more fun for customers to use (even if it isn’t a game). I thought it applied really well to Codesnipp.it, as we’ve been contemplating incorporating a gaming badge system for users.
Other great chapters included Chapter 2: Visible vs. Invisibile Design, which explained how the best designs go unnoticed by users until we take them away . Chapter 3: Design Mobile User Experiences was another chapter chock full of helpful info on how to make the best of mobile design and whether it’s better to go native or web.
I’ll say that The Smashing Book #2 is definitely an improvement on the first, and I’m looking forward to #3. 
About the author
Amber Weinberg specializes in clean and semantic XHTML, CSS and WordPress development. She has over 10 years of coding experience and is pretty cool to work with. Amber is available for freelance work, so why not hire her for your next project?