You already know how to design a beautiful website, but can you design a website that works? You'll be doing yourself and your clients a great favor by adding these books to your team's library:

Make your users fall in love with your site via the precepts packed into this brief, charming book by MailChimp user experience design lead Aarron Walter. From classic psychology to case studies, highbrow concepts to common sense, Designing for Emotion demonstrates accessible strategies and memorable methods to help you make a human connection through design.

Forms make or break the most crucial online interactions: checkout, registration, and any task requiring information entry. In Web Form Design, Luke Wroblewski draws on original research, his considerable experience at Yahoo! and eBay, and the perspectives of many of the field's leading designers to show you everything you need to know about designing effective and engaging web forms.

People won't use your web site if they can't find their way around it. Whether you call it usability, ease-of-use, or just good design, companies staking their fortunes and their futures on their Web sites are starting to recognize that it's a bottom-line issue. In Don't Make Me Think, usability expert Steve Krug distills his years of experience and observation into clear, practical--and often amusing--common sense advice for the people in the trenches (the designers, programmers, writers, editors, and Webmasters), the people who tell them what to do (project managers, business planners, and marketing people), and even the people who sign the checks. Krug's clearly explained, easily absorbed principles will help you sleep better at night knowing that all the hard work going into your site is producing something that people will actually want to use.

If your website content is out of date, off-brand, and out of control, you're missing a huge opportunity to engage, convert, and retain customers online. Redesigning your home page won't help. Investing in a new content management system won't fix it, either. So, where do you start? Without meaningful content, your website isn't worth much to your key audiences. But creating (and caring for) "meaningful" content is far more complicated than we're often willing to acknowledge. Content Strategy for the Web explains how to create and deliver useful, usable content for your online audiences, when and where they need it most. It also shares content best practices so you can get your next website redesign right, on time and on budget.

These are all fast reads meant for busy professionals. Grab one, go to your local cafe, and read one on a Sunday afternoon.

Imagine that you're a car dealer. A man pulls onto your lot driving a '78 Yugo with unpainted fiberglass, replacing the metal that has succumbed to rust. Vinyl racing stripes have been hastily applied in an attempt to modernize the car.

The owner of the car steps out, revealing himself to be a modest businessman.  He says that he is ready to buy a new car.  He  knows exactly what he wants.

He's right, he has a very specific list. The car must be all wheel drive, mid-engine, and black. He wants a Lamborghini Murcielago. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the means or the resources to maintain a supercar.

"That's okay," you say, "We have a Porsche that fits within your budget, and requires far less maintenance, but it's rear engine, not mid engine. Slightly different."

"No, I know I need a Lamborghini, because I've seen one in my neighbor's garage," explains the buyer. "I will buy it right now for the price of the Porsche."

Unable to buy the car his neighbor has, the man leaves the dealership in his forgettable car.

We've seen this scenario play out with our own clients. Often a list of must-have features turns out to be an inventory of competitors' features. The client, believing imitation the key to success, refuses to give up any of their features. This greatly inflates the required budget.

Rather than choose a website that fits their business, they decide to wait until they have the budget for their "everything and the kitchen sink" web project. Of course that day never comes. The competition continues to outpace them, and as more players enter the market, the list of features continues to grow.

Competition research is important, but it isn't a replacement for genuine innovation. No business ever feature-creeped their way to success. Worse yet, you may just be copying the competition's mistakes.

Here's our best advice, regardless of the size of your budget: Just do one thing well. Find out what problem your competition hasn't solved, and provide your solution to your customers.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (H.R.3261) and the Protect IP Act (S.968) threaten the Internet by forcing internet service providers to censor websites that don't do enough to police their users, essentially giving the government the power to create a U.S.-friendly version of the web. This legislation reads like a record company wish list. It is designed to protect the interests of old media companies, stifling innovation.

Join us and other opponents of these bills such as eBay, EFF, Etsy, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, Wikipedia, Yahoo to help protect your right to free speech online. You must tell your Members of Congress that you OPPOSE H.R. 3621 "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA) and S. 968 "Protect IP Act" (PIPA).