[webdev] Web Design Update: January 5, 2007

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Fri Jan 5 06:27:36 CST 2007 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 5, Issue 29, January 5, 2007.

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

++ISSUE 28 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: COLOR.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: NAVIGATION.
10: PHP.
11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
12: TOOLS.
13: TYPOGRAPHY.
14: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Accessibility Audit vs. Accessibility Testing
By Trenton Moss.
In last month's feature article we compared expert usability reviews 
with usability testing. This month, we do the same with accessibility, 
comparing accessibility audits with accessibility testing. What's the 
difference between the two and which one's different? There's only one 
way to find out - read this month's feature article!"
http://tinyurl.com/y2j7up

Phong - It's Awful, Isn't It?
By Brian Kelly.
"...Poor usability, bad for accessibility? Yes. And when you get to a 
page, the interface is similarly flawed. But, OTOH, might this not be 
fun as a game? Mind this not be entertaining for children? Might not an 
interface in which animated links move as you try and chase them be fun 
for some people?Or to put it another way, isn't the goal of universal 
accessibility a pipe dream? In some cases (e.g. informational 
resources) this approach may be an appropriate one, but in others, it 
may result in pleasing solutions being discarded, even if, ironically, 
particular audiences may prefer them...if such sites can be accessible, 
usable and pleasurable to certain groups (I'm not saying Phoing is, 
BTW) , doesn't this devalue an automated approach to accessibility 
checking. What then are the boundaries to automated checking? How 
should we go about developing or commissioning Web sites for such 
groups? And when is it legitimate to discard WAI guidelines?"
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2007/01/03/phong-its-awful-isnt-it/

Web Accessibility Learning Modules
By Joan Van Duzer, AnnMarie Johnson, Paul Nozicka and Candace Egan.
A learning resource to help people understand web accessibility.
http://www.csufresno.edu/webaccess/learningmodules/

Web Accessibility: Access For All Videos
By California State University, Fresno.
Videos include 'What is Web Accessibility?', 'How do users access the 
Web', 'What are the problems?', 'How do we solve the problems?','Why is 
Web accessibility important?'.
http://www.csufresno.edu/webaccess/materials/videoclips.htm

Disabled Seek Equal Unlimited Web Access
By Adam Phillips.
"Although many governments have passed laws mandating that public 
places be made accessible to the disabled, equal access to cyberspace 
has lagged far behind. The director of the Web Accessibility Initiative 
at the World Wide Web Consortium, which sets technical standards for 
the Web, says things must change..."
http://www.voanews.com/english/Science/2006-12-26-voa32.cfm

PDF Web Cast
By Brad Kadel and Andrea Olson.
"This (Window Media Player) video is a Web Cast that the Web 
Accessibility for All group gave on PDFs and accessibility. The video 
is 54 minutes long."
http://www.cew.wisc.edu/accessibility/videos/PDFWebCast.asx


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Bug: IE7 Absolutely Positioned Italics
By Stuart Colville.
"I recently discovered a rather bizarre bug that only seems to affect 
IE7. If you absolutely position italic text of any kind (text made 
italic through authors styling or something that is styled via the 
default browser stylesheet such as ems.) IE7 seems to screw up the 
rendering and ends up creating a horizontal scroll bar..."
http://tinyurl.com/ygv63b

Centering an Image, Part 1
By Mauricio Samy Silva.
"There are two techniques for placing an image within a block level 
element..."
http://bitesizestandards.com/bites/centering-an-image-part-1

Build a Better Web Site by Understanding Floated Elements in CSS
By Melonfire.
"One of the most important concepts a Web developer can understand 
about CSS are floated elements, which serve a valuable function in 
aligning and positioning elements relative to each other on a Web page. 
A brief introduction to these floated elements is presented, explaining 
the CSS float and clear directives and providing some examples of how 
you can use them to better position HTML elements on a Web page."
http://builder.com.com/5100-6371_14-6146768.html

Real-World CSS Zen for Your Site
By Mani Sheriar.
"...I suggest that we begin to code our XHTML first, independent of 
what we plan for the layout to be. Let's code our XHTML as if we plan 
to have 10 different designers apply their own unique layouts to it. If 
we can do it that way, then we will be able to execute minor or even 
major design overhauls without touching a single page in the site. And 
what's more, any other developer will be able to do the same..."
http://tinyurl.com/tw4lu

Washi: A CSS Layout by PVII
By Project Seven.
"The Page Layout is offered free of charge. Download a zip archive 
containing the finished page, assets, and an editable Fireworks image 
document..."
http://www.projectseven.com/csslab/layouts/washi/index.htm


+03: COLOR.

Five Simple Steps to Designing with Colour Part 3: Colour Combinations
By Mark Boulton.
"Colours chosen from different spokes on the Colour Wheel will provide 
a variety of colour combinations. Deciding upon and selecting a colour 
combination that works for you will very much depend upon the job at 
hand. Will it communicate what you want it to? Or are you just choosing 
them because you, or the client, like them? These are very difficult 
questions to answer because any designer or client will let their 
personal style and preference interfere with their decision-making. 
Colour combinations tend to evoke certain reactions either by cultural, 
or personal experience. Understanding these experiences will help you 
create colour combinations that tell a story. That is what good colour 
theory can give you; designs that tell a story."
http://tinyurl.com/y7rm4n


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Fast, Cheap, and Good: Yes, You Can Have It All
By Jakob Nielsen.
"The sooner you complete a usability study, the higher its impact on 
the design process. Slower methods should be deferred to an annual 
usability checkup."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/fast-methods.html

Five Common Errors in Requirements Analysis (and how to avoid them)
By Melonfire.
"In the traditional waterfall model of software development, the first 
phase of requirements analysis is also the most important one. There 
are a number of problems with this theoretical model, and these can 
cause delays and errors in the rest of the process. This article 
discusses some of the more common problems that project managers 
experience during this phase, and suggests possible solutions."
http://builder.com.com/5100-6315_14-6146544.html


+05: EVENTS.

CSS Workshop with Russ Weakley
February 8, 2007.
Singapore, Republic of Singapore.
http://www.pebbleroad.com/events/view/css_workshop_with_russ_weakley/

Computer Using Educators (CUE)
March 1-3, 2007
Palm Springs, California,  U.S.A.
http://www.cue.org/

Museums and the Web
April 11-14, 2007.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/index.html

Accessibility Guidelines: Why don't they always deliver accessible 
sites and what can you do about it?
April 11, 2007.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/abstracts/prg_320000779.html

Hands On Usability Testing
April 11, 2007.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://www.archimuse.com/mw2007/abstracts/prg_325000926.html

MySQL Conference and Expo
April 23-26, 2007.
Santa Clara, California, U.S.A.
http://www.mysqlconf.com/

php|tek 2007
May 15-18, 2007.
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
http://hades.phparch.com/ceres/public/tek/page/index.php/

RailsConf 2007
May 17-20, 2007.
Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/rails/


+06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

The Dark Side of Prototyping
By Henrik Olsen.
"Are there any downsides of prototyping? Not really. But as with 
everything else in life, you might stumble and hurt yourself if you 
don't watch your step. This article points out some of the banana skins 
to steer clear off."
http://www.guuui.com/issues/01_07.php

Don't Make the Demo Look Done
By Kathy Sierra.
"When we show a work-in-progress (like an alpha release) to the public, 
press, a client, or boss... we're setting their expectations. And we 
can do it one of three ways: dazzle them with a polished mock-up, show 
them something that matches the reality of the project status, or 
stress them out by showing almost nothing and asking them to take it 
"on faith" that you're on track. The bottom line: How 'done' something 
looks should match how 'done' something is..."
http://tinyurl.com/yjzfc3


+07: JAVASCRIPT.

JavaScript Language Essentials
By Tom Negrino and Dori Smith.
"Tom Negrino and Dori Smith go into detail about the basic elements of 
JavaScript and introduce you to other aspects of the JavaScript 
language, such as loops, arrays, and more about functions."
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=677442&rl=1

Adobe Acrobat JavaScript Execution Bug is a Huge Security Issue
By Nitesh Dhanjani.
"The Adobe JavaScript execution bug recently discovered is a huge 
security issue for any organization that serves PDF files via its web 
servers..."
http://tinyurl.com/y2lh56

A PHP Developers Guide to JavaScript - Part I
By Felix Geisendorfer.
"...after the overwhelming interest in me writing a little bit about 
javascript on this blog, here comes my first post on that topic. It's 
actually the beginning of a little series (2 or 3 parts) that is going 
to be targeted at php developers who've only used JS by merging 
snippets/libraries together without really learning the language 
itself..."
http://tinyurl.com/y3gtjg


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

The Line Between Clarity and Chaos: An Interview with Barry Schwartz
By Liz Danzico.
"Life is full of choices, and making these choices seems more difficult 
each day. Boxes and Arrows interviews Barry Schwartz, author of The 
Paradox of Choice, to dig into these decisions-when we make them and 
when we don't."
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/interview-with-barry


+09: NAVIGATION.

How to Use CSS for Search Engine Optimization
By Mikhail Tuknov.
"...Another major benefit of CSS is that it makes your Web site SEO 
friendly. The reason behind this is simple. Search engines spiders are 
actually lethargic. They don't go through the bundles of HTML code to 
get to the indexed codes. Font tags and tables make HTML code 
cumbersome, and thus reduce the accuracy of the results. If you use 
external CSS files to determine the design attributes, the HTML code 
will be clean and will create better search engine rankings..."
http://www.webreference.com/authoring/css_seo/

Feedthebot.com
Patrick Sexton.
"...I have been writing a series of articles that introduce each of the 
Google webmaster guidelines to new webmasters. The Google webmaster 
guidelines are a list of suggested practices that Google has provided 
as guidance to webmasters. My goal is to define the terms that are 
used, explain the concepts, provide examples of common mistakes, and to 
link to the appropriate resources that govern or cover that guideline."
http://www.feedthebot.com


+10: PHP.

PHP and MySQL By Example - Sample Chapter
By Ellie Quigley.
"Prentice Hall recently released PHP and MySQL By Example, written by 
Ellie Quigley. They are so proud of this title that they sent us over a 
sample chapter to share with you."
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1427

Overloading Arrays in PHP 5.2.0
By Matthew Weier O'Phinney.
"I'd read about this some months back on the php internals list, but at 
the time hadn't understood the consequences. Basically, __get() no 
longer returns a reference and returns values in read mode, which makes 
modifying arrays using overloading impossible using traditional 
methods."
http://tinyurl.com/y3mxuc


+11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Bribing Bloggers
By Joel Spolsky.
"There's an interesting debate going on about whether bloggers should 
accept gifts from vendors. Lately Microsoft, working through their PR 
agency, Edelman, has been getting rather aggressive about trying to buy 
good coverage from bloggers. A few months ago they invited bloggers out 
to Seattle to meet Bill Gates, with all expenses paid (hotel, airfare, 
etc). Last week they send out a round of expensive laptops with Vista 
preinstalled. These are not loans, by the way: they're completely free 
laptops ('yours to keep!')....Effectively Microsoft has bought 
publicity and goodwill. And even though the blogger has fully disclosed 
what happened, their message is corrupting the medium. I've been 
thinking long and hard about this, and the only conclusion I can come 
to is that this is ethically indistinguishable from bribery...These 
gifts reduce the public trust in blogs."
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/12/28.html

Opquast Best Practices
By Elie Sloim et. al.
"Opquast is a repository of best practices for the improvement of 
on-line services quality..."
http://www.opquast.com/bonnes-pratiques/

Who Will Read Your Semantic HTML?
By Jesse Skinner.
"...We need to think about who or what it is that will actually be 
extracting the meaning we're adding to our documents by using Semantic 
HTML. And basically I can think of three groups..."
http://tinyurl.com/yyuj9o


+12: TOOLS.

28k and 56k Modem Emulator
By Dave Child.
"Regardless of your connection speed, this will show you how your site 
loads on PCs with older connections. Update 29 December 2006: It was 
gone, but now it's back."
http://www.ilovejackdaniels.com/resources/modem-emulator/


+13: TYPOGRAPHY.

Admiration for Typography on the Web
By Jonathan Christopher.
It's been said that Web design is 95% typography, and I can definitely 
agree with that. Many times a site design could be improved extensively 
with a quick change of a font-family. Keeping that in mind, how does 
one decide on a good looking font-family for their design?"
http://mondaybynoon.com/2007/01/01/admiration-for-typography-on-the-web/


+14: USABILITY.

Elastic Layout - Wrong Term?
By Alastair Campbell.
"The top two articles for 'Elastic Design' on Google are Roger 
Johansson Fixed or fluid width? Elastic! and Alistapart's Elastic 
design by Patrick Griffiths. Both good articles, and recommended 
reading (before this article if you aren't familiar with them). So why 
the post? Well, I think elastic is the wrong term for what the layouts 
achieve. Also, there is a mistaken assumption about accessibility..."
http://alastairc.ac/2007/01/elastic-layout-wrong-term/

Long Pages Rule, Except When They Don't
By Heidi Adkisson.
"...The problem I've seen in testing with very long forms (particularly 
when people need to enter information carefully, as with financial 
data) is that they are difficult for people to check over before 
submitting. Errors can be hard to find because it requires scrolling up 
and down the page to locate them. And, if something technically goes 
wrong, people potentially have a huge amount of re-entry to do..."
http://www.iathink.com/2006/12/index.html

Do People Need the Gizmos We're Selling?
By Paul Zeven.
"...To me, simplicity is imperative, not just because products have 
become more complex over the years, but also because every aspect of 
our lives continues to get more complex...Rather than simplifying our 
daily routines, most technology has actually made our lives more 
complex. Spending hours learning to use a new gadget is the last thing 
most of us want to do. The ability to take a product out of the box and 
just have it work, without the need to read a manual for hours, is now 
high on most consumers' priority lists when deciding on a purchase..."
http://tinyurl.com/v6ltt


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+15: 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.

WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription. For information on how 
to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit:
http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdevlist
The Web Design Reference Site also has a RSS 2.0 feed for site updates.


+ TEXT EMAIL NEWSLETTER (TEN).

As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the 
accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) guidelines.  Please let me know 
if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier. For TEN 
guideline information please visit:
http://www.headstar.com/ten


+ 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.]

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