The book covers many areas of electronics design, from basic DC voltage, current, and resistance, to active filters and oscillators, to digital electronics, including microprocessors and digital bus interfacing. It also includes discussions of such often-neglected areas as high-frequency, high-speed design techniques and low-power applications.

The book includes many example circuits. In addition to having examples of good circuits, it also has examples of bad ideas, with discussions of what makes the good designs good and the bad ones bad. It can be described as a cross between a textbook and reference manual, though without the chapter-end questions and exercises which are often found in textbooks.

There is also a complementary text, Student Manual for The Art of Electronics by Thomas C. Hayes and Paul Horowitz. The Student Manual, while referencing the main text extensively, is designed specifically to teach electronics. It contains laboratory exercises and explanatory text supplements aimed at the student. In contrast, The Art of Electronics contains tables, equations, diagrams, and other material practitioners use for reference.

霍羅威茨，哈佛大學物理學教授，在哈佛講授物理學與電子學，首創瞭哈佛大學的實驗電子學課程。他的研究興趣廣泛，涉獵觀測天體物理學、X射綫與粒子顯微技術、光乾涉測量技術以及外星人探索等研究領域。作為已有60篇科技論文與報告的作者，他不僅廣泛地為工業和政府部門做谘詢顧問工作，而且還設計瞭大量的電子與攝影儀器設備。

Winfield Hill，研究（型）科學傢，最Rowland科學研究所（由Edwin land創立）電子工程研究室主任，研究人眼彩色視覺生理學與現象學。他原在哈佛大學工作，曾在那裏設計瞭100多種電子科學儀器。之後，他創立瞭海洋數據（Sea Data）公司，作為首席工程師設計瞭約50種用於海洋學研究的儀器，並進行瞭大量深海實驗。