[webdev] Web Design Update: May 19, 2006

Fri May 19 06:28:48 CDT 2006

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 4, Issue 48, May 19, 2006.

An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design 
and development.

++ISSUE 48 CONTENTS.

SECTION ONE: New references.
What's new at the Web Design Reference site?
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/
New links in these categories:

01: ACCESSIBILITY.
02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
03: DREAMWEAVER.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
10: TOOLS.
11: USABILITY.
12: XML.

SECTION TWO:
13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

The Quagmire of Web Accessibility
By Chris Hofstater.
"The other day, a comment posted to B.C. (Blind Confidential) pointed 
out that I had side stepped a question about automated testing tools 
that could simulate a specific screen reader. This caused me to think 
about automated test tools and the problem of screen readers in 
general..."
http://tinyurl.com/s7cwn

ONOFF: Another Failed Redesign
By Roger Johansson and Robert Nyman.
"...this makes us wonder: how hard can it be? It's only HTML coding 
we're talking about, not rocket science. But apparently HTML is much 
more difficult than the people who built this site realize. ONOFF's 
accessibility claim has no merit. If we talk about the term 
accessibility in a broader sense, it's just pathetic that people can't 
navigate to their website without adding a www prefix..."
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/200605/onoff_another_failed_redesign/

More Than a Set of Rules:
Consider Human and Social Factors Alongside Technical Guidelines
By Glenda Watson Hyatt.
"...creating an accessible website means simply following a set of 
rules. Unfortunately, it is not quite that straightforward, not quite 
that clear-cut..."
http://www.accessiblecontent.com/online/v1n3/index.php?view=champion

Graphic Testimony:
It's Possible to Provide Long descriptions for Dynamically Generated 
Graphs
By Stan Berman.
"Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act requires federal agencies to 
give disabled employees and members of the public access to information 
that is comparable to the access available to individuals without 
disabilities. Static images on the web, such as pictures or logos, can 
generally be easily described with an Alt tag (for a short description) 
or a longdesc (for a long description). Even a small number of graphs 
can be described in a similar fashion. But how does one handle a large 
number of graphs that are generated dynamically, or 'on the fly', based 
on criteria selected by the user?"
http://www.accessiblecontent.com/online/v2n1/index.php?view=graphs

Cornerstones of a Successful 508 Program
By Fred DiFiore.
"Creating an accessibility program can be challenging. I think, 
however, you will find that challenging does not equate to impossible."
http://tinyurl.com/kougw

CAPTCHA: The FAQs
CAPTCHAs are Gotchas for Some Users
By Glenda Watson Hyatt.
"The International Telecommunications Union estimates nearly 80% of all 
email in the United States is spam. CAPTCHAs are increasing in 
popularity as a way to combat this abuse of internet resources. 
However, CAPTCHAs are gotchas for many people..."
http://www.accessiblecontent.com/online/v2n1/index.php?view=captcha

Developing a Customized Business Case, Making Anti-Robot Tests: 
Accessible, Sharing Accessibility with Newbies
By Shawn Lawton Henry.
"The web is an increasingly important resource in many aspects of life: 
education, employment, government, commerce, health care, recreation, 
and more. It is used for receiving information as well as providing 
information and interacting with society. Therefore it is essential 
that the web be accessible in order to provide equal access and equal 
opportunity to people with disabilities. An accessible web also 
benefits others, including older people with changing abilities due to 
aging..."
http://www.accessiblecontent.com/online/v1n3/index.php?view=w3c

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

CSS 2.1 Properties Reference
By Cultured Code.
"We have created a web reference that aims to present the 95 CSS 2.1 
properties and their possible values in a clear and easy to navigate 
way. The reference is realized as a lightweight JavaScript application 
which makes it possible to present all the information in a single 
compactly sized window. The reference can be navigated with mouse or 
keyboard and behaves as responsive as a desktop application."
http://www.culturedcode.com/css/reference.html

CSS 'Float' Makes Watery Site Usable
Rally Competitor Wins Big with Water Sports Nonprofit
By Erik Fruin.
"...I've described here just a few of the ways our team found to push 
the envelope of accessible design. I encourage you to try out these 
techniques to see if they meet the needs of your audience before you 
add them into your next project."
http://www.accessiblecontent.com/online/v1n3/index.php?view=taasports

I Vote Conditional Comments
By Jonathan Christopher.
"Many developers agree that CSS hacks are not the way to go. 
Personally, I am on that side of the fence and have been for a long 
time. I will spend time reworking the style of a document so that it 
will be cross-browser compatible with no CSS hacks in place. I do this 
because using CSS hacks is taking a step back..."
http://www.mondaybynoon.com/2006/05/15/i-vote-conditional-comments/

+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Persistent Page Indicator
By Stephanie Sullivan.
"When developing Web sites using good principles of usability, it is 
good practice to use an indicator showing what page the person is on as 
they surf through your site. Some people use bread crumbs as well as a 
persistent page indicator (many times like the down state of the 
button) indicating that "you are here." This page indication can be 
achieved by simply placing a class on the proper navigation item (and 
changing the item it's placed on from page to page). However, when 
using server-side includes, templates or library items in Dreamweaver, 
since the same menu is used on each instance of the page, it can be a 
more challenging process. Don't worry though -- CSS and the descendant 
selector handle the challenge quite nicely. Come along as we walk 
through the steps needed to create this effect."
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=F1394

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Variability in User Performance
By Jakob Nielsen.
"When doing website tasks, the slowest 25% of users take 2.4 times as 
long as the fastest 25% of users. This difference is much higher than 
for other types of computer use; only programming shows a greater 
disparity."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/performance_variability.html

Are You Using the Wrong Web Metrics?
By Gerry McGovern.
"Do you base success on measuring the volume of visitors and page
impressions? Such measures may in fact reflect the
failure-rather than the success-of your website."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2006/nt-2006-05-15-web-metrics.htm

+05: EVENTS.

Card Sorting for Navigation Design
June 8, 2006.
London, United Kingdom
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/cardsortworkshop.shtml

Web Design World Seattle
July 10-12, 2006.
Seattle, Washington U.S.A.
http://www.ftponline.com/conferences/webdesignworld/2006/seattle/

The 24th ACM International Conference on Design of Communication
October 18-20, 2006.
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina U.S.A.
http://www.sigdoc2006.org/

ASIST 2006
Information Realities: Shaping the Digital Future for All
November 3-8, 2006.
Austin, Texas  U.S.A.
http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM06/am06call.html

+06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Recyclable Information Architecture
By Nick Finck.
Nick discusses XHTML wireframing and use and reuse of deliverables.
http://tinyurl.com/ru5pf

+07: JAVASCRIPT.

Javascript Closures
By Richard Cornford.
"Closures are one of the most powerful features of ECMAScript 
(javascript) but they cannot be property exploited without 
understanding them..."
http://jibbering.com/faq/faq_notes/closures.html

AJAX is Cleaning Up
Rich Web Applications Amplify Accessibility Needs
By Kelsey Ruger.
"There is no doubt that AJAX is going to change the way we use the web. 
It is highly likely that the W3C, browser manufacturers, screen reader 
vendors, and developers will all have to make changes to help AJAX 
reach its full potential. It'll require good common sense, but as the 
old saying goes, sometimes common sense just isn't that common."
http://www.accessiblecontent.com/online/v2n1/index.php?view=ajax

Hijax: Progressive Enhancement with Ajax
By Jeremy Keith.
Here are Jeremy's slides form at XTech 2006.
http://domscripting.com/presentations/xtech2006/

+09: MISCELLANEOUS.

Communicating Design Concepts Without Getting Skewered
By Steve Calde.
"Communicating your team's design vision before diving into details is 
a crucial - and challenging - milestone. In this article, design 
communicator Steve Calde describes some strategies for successfully 
presenting an early-stage design and getting the appropriate level of 
feedback."
http://tinyurl.com/mxzrn

Future Tense
By Tristan Louis.
Tristan Louis has a six part article on a of trends that will influence 
the events of the next 10 years.
http://www.tnl.net/blog/entry/Future_Tense_-_Intro

Podcast: Web 2.0 Show - Episode 18 - Eric Meyer
By Josh Owens.
"...we sat down and talked with Eric Meyer about book writing, css, and 
running events like An Event Apart."
http://tinyurl.com/pbhyg

Will the Standards Battle Ever be Won?
By Vitamin.
An interview with Molly Holzschlag.
http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/design/the-battle-for-web-standards

+09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Microsoft, IE and the Web Standards Project
By Chris Wilson.
"...From ten years of experience in championing standards and web 
development inside Microsoft, I think it's actually critically 
important that the reasons for supporting standards in our products - 
particularly IE - be business ones.  Business reasons stand the test of 
time.  Pure altruistic 'ethical' reasons are hard to defend to 
shareholders.  I personally believe there is a business case for 
implementing standards, and I consider it my job, among other things, 
to make that case internally..."
http://blogs.msdn.com/cwilso/archive/2006/05/11/595536.aspx

Microsoft and Internet Explorer vs. Web Standards
By Roger Johansson.
"...let me explain why I'm not exactly shouting out my support for 
Microsoft now that Internet Explorer is finally being updated..."
http://tinyurl.com/n9kuk

+10: TOOLS.

Total Validator (Firefox extension)
By Andy Halford.
"Perform multiple validations and take screen shots in one go rather 
than using separate tools. This 5-in-1 validator uses the online Total 
Validator service. Provides true HTML validation using the official 
DTDs. So you no longer have to put up with mistakes in the W3C 
validator and tools such as Tidy which interpret the standards 
incorrectly. Also performs accessibility validation, checks for broken 
links, spell checking, and takes screen shots so you can validate your 
pages with different browsers."
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2318/

Total Validator
By Andy Halford.
Free online version of the tool listed above.
http://www.totalvalidator.com/validator/ValidatorForm

Website Spell Check
By Andrew B. King.
"Our new free spell checking service scans your site for spelling and 
grammatical errors and sends you a free report. We've teamed up with 
TextTrust to offer webmasters this free trial of their website scanning 
service. To demonstrate the new service we provide a sample report of a 
spell-checked WhiteHouse.gov site."
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/spell-check/

+11: USABILITY.

More on Starting with the Intranet Homepage
By James Robertson.
"Iain Barker's article this month on starting with the homepage has 
generated some excellent discussion and debate. First there was Peter 
Van Dijck who suggested that starting with the homepage will send us 
straight to politico-hell. To quote: 'I have a lot of respect for 
James, but that's the WORST advice ever. Starting with the homepage is 
a direct road to political hell in any company..."
http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/002107.html

Why the Tech Industry Needs to Change Its Language
By Jonathan Follett.
"...Descriptive language has never been seriously considered as an 
asset in the world of high tech. At best, it has been an afterthought, 
a layer added to better market products to consumers. However, if this 
is to be the decade for design and innovation, if we are to humanize 
high tech, we need to first address the issues of language so that all 
those people out there-the ones 'using' high-tech products-will know 
what in the world."
http://tinyurl.com/qrwnq

+12: XML.

Why XHTML Can Save Internet Explorer
By Kurt Cagle.
"...One thing that I realized, however, was that the Internet Explorer 
team has an amazing opportunity if they seize it now. Through a number 
of circumstances, one piece of technology that was never incorporated 
into the IE browser was a module capable of handling XHTML. Now, this 
may seem to be a fairly trivial omission - XHTML isn't exactly blazing 
through the commercial sky yet as a must have technology (though its 
getting there) - but I've come to believe that in fact XHTML may be the 
key to one of the biggest problems that they face with IE - the problem 
of vendor legacy..."
http://tinyurl.com/fnjmb

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

Accessibility Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/accessibility

Association Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/associations

Book Listings.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/books

Cascading Style Sheets Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/css

Color Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/color

Dreamweaver Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/dreamweaver

Evaluation & Testing Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/testing

Event Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/events

Flash Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/flash

Information Architecture Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/architecture

JavaScript Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/javascript

Miscellaneous Web Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/misc

Navigation Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/navigation

PHP Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/php

Sites & Blogs Listing.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/sites

Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/standards

Tool Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/tools

Typography Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/type

Usability Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/usability

XML Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/xml

[Section two ends.]

++END NOTES.

+ SUBSCRIPTION INFO.

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As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the 
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+ SIGN OFF.

Until next time,

Laura L. Carlson
Information Technology Systems and Services
University of Minnesota Duluth
Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009
mailto:lcarlson at d.umn.edu

[Issue ends.]