If you love Wordpress you may want to check out a new book by Chris Coyier called Digging Into Wordpress. In this interview we ask Chris about his new book along with some other interesting questions.

Introduce us to Chris Coyier. Who are you and what sites do you run.

Hello, and thanks for having me! I'm a typical day-to-day designer at a small design agency by day, and a blogger/writer by night. My sites:

• CSS-Tricks - A web design community - blog, forums, screencasts
  
• Digging Into WordPress - blog and book
  
• Quotes on Design - like it sounds

There are more, but those are the ones I work on most lately.

How did you get started as a designer?

I ended up getting my degree in Graphic Design. I ended up working mostly in the printing industry, pre-press, after college, just because I really didn't have the design chops or portfolio to get a real design job. I worked at it on the side, and eventually was able to get a web design job.

How did you get started as a blogger?

After I got that web design job, I had to step it up quickly in what I was able to do, since the job wasn't purely design but a lot of coding and programming stuff. I learned quick, and started sharing what I knew on CSS-Tricks. It started off pretty rough and embarrassing, but it's doing OK now.

You've got a new book out called Digging Into Wordpress. What is it and how can people get it?

It an intermediate-level WordPress book co-authored by Jeff Starr and myself. You can get it here, now in both PDF and print format. Both Jeff and I work a lot with WordPress, and it seemed like a natural choice to write a book about. You might have noticed WordPress doesn't exactly come with a manual.

What's your best advice for freelance designers?

I don't freelance much anymore so I don't want to give out any bogus advice. I can offer some generic stuff though. You'd better be ready to deal with all the realities of running a business. Taxes, health insurance, clients who don't pay, phone calls at 2 in the morning, estimates, invoices, etc. Freelancing isn't as glamorous as it might seem. It's too stressful for me to handle on a regular basis. If I do it these days, it's for great projects with select clients.

How about bloggers - any advice?

Yep, don't do roundups. Spend time writing, not gathering screenshots of stuff other people do. Having a voice and fostering real conversation is much more rewarding than trying to figure out what kind of stuff you can think up that will get you the most thumbs up on StumbleUpon.

Do you prefer to work on a Mac or a PC or does it matter?

I try not to be too big a snob about it, but, Mac. I don't even like discussing it since those conversations tend to degenerate into what might as well be schoolkids slapping each other in the face. I work on a Mac and I love using it, feel no limitations, and get serious work done on it. Do you do the same on a PC? Awesome, good for you.

What inspires you as a designer? Websites, books, nature...

Definitely books. Print design is so awesome. Sometimes I can pick up a book and read three pages and be inspired to create. Web design has a lot to learn from print design. Print designers, I find, are much more careful and detail oriented in what they do.

What's a typical day look like for Chris Coyier?

Far too much email. I try and keep it under control but I feel like I could do a lot better. Unfortunately the best solution I have for "better" right now is to delete more of it, which I never like doing. I need to get into this whole GTD thing more. But other than that I work at my full time job all day. Designing stuff, fixing stuff, dealing with client requests... Then the other hours I spend on my own projects: writing for blogs, designing stuff, whatever.

What makes a website user-friendly in your opinion?

Websites should be obvious. You look at it and there is almost no thinking involved. What that means varies from website to website. But in general, it means the navigation is clear and obvious, the text is easy to read and well written, the calls to action are obvious, nothing is there that doesn't need to be... Oooh-and-ahhh fancy websites are great, as long as they have the basics taken care of also.