Microformats Made Simple

by Emily P. Lewis

Microformats are HTML-based design patterns that help add meaning (semantics) to Web content. They are widely used by some of the most important sites on the Web including Google, Yahoo!, Facebook, and Twitter. The people behind these sites - content authors, designers and developers - understand the power and flexibility of microformats and are taking advantage of their capabilities. Any site can benefit from more effective content and improved user experience by employing microformats correctly. That's where this book excels.

In Microformats Made Simple, author Emily Lewis demystifies these simple open data formats that are designed for people first, machines second. With practical, easy-to-understand markup examples for a wide range of web content, she teaches readers everything they need to know to start adding semantic richness to their sites, which can improve SEO and standards compliance, and supports extensible data publishing. Emily also discusses historical challenges in working with microformats, including accessibility, and how the new value class pattern addresses these challenges.

312 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Krista Ehlers · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book can broken into three major sections: thorough overview of microformats, detailed explanation of each microformat, and CSS examples of designing with microformats. In the overview section, my head was swimming and I thought that this was definitely not "made simple." Then, in the detailed explanation section, I thought it got a bit repetitive. However, about half-way through the book, I realized that the author's overall plan was working: the progressive repetition of usage for each microformat was making it all "sink in." By the end, I felt very comfortable with microformats, and can't wait to start using some. The author uses a *very* conversational style - sometimes this worked for me, sometimes not. For example, I loved when she said, "So now you know your first compound microformat. Proud? I am. You are already becoming my favorite person." However, quoting the phrase "I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit" felt a little over the top even though it was regarding the overuse of "Web 2.0," and I have to agree with her with her there. Overall, this was detailed, well written, and well-styled - it is a good learning tool and reference for this topic.