[webdev] Web Design Update: March 23, 2007

Fri Mar 23 06:19:45 CDT 2007

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 5, Issue 40, March 23, 2007.

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

++ISSUE 40 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.

Why Bother With Web Accessibility?
By Accessites.org.
"This presentation will help you see the value of web accessibility and 
why it makes sense for you, as a web developer, and why it is a 
must-have for your clients. Web clients may wonder why they should care 
and choose to spend a little extra to ensure their site is accessible. 
This presentation will hopefully provide the needed guidance, 
understanding, and motivation."
http://accessites.org/why/index.php

Now You See It, Now You Don't
By E-Access Bulletin.
"So just what is a decorative image? It seems to me that one person's 
eye candy is another person's emotional link to a website..."
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=106

IBM Tool 'Reads' Web Video for Blind
By Candace Lombardi.
"IBM has made a tool for Web browsers that will help the blind and 
visually impaired access streaming multimedia on the Web..."
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6166491.html

South by Southwest 2007 Accessified Presentation Slides
By Patrick H. Lauke and Ian Lloyd.
"Practical accessibility fixes any web developer can use."
http://accessify.com/sxsw2007/

Irl-Dean Seminar Presentation Materials
By Irish Design for All e-Accessibility Network.
"The presentations can now be found at the links below.."
http://tinyurl.com/264dkb

Choosing an Accessible CMS
By Joshue O. Connor.
"How do you go about choosing an accessible content management system 
(CMS)? What are the main criteria for success? And how to ensure ease 
of use for authors including screen reader users?..."
http://juicystudio.com/article/choosing-an-accessible-cms.php

Open Document Format (ODF) Accessibility Evaluator
By Jon Gunderson.
"Computer Science students at the University of Illinois are working on 
an web based Open Document Format (ODF) accessibility checking and 
repair tool for improving the accessibility of ODF documents to people 
with disabilities. They have just added some repair features and would 
love your feedback on the features and usability of the tool."
http://odf.cita.uiuc.edu

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Why Screen Readers Don't Support Aural CSS
By Colin Lieberman.
"In theory, aural style sheets are cool; lots of us have been excited 
about them for a long time. But screen readers don't support them..."
http://www.cactusflower.org/why-screen-readers-dont-support-aural-css

CSS Practice: Pseudo-Namespaces in Complex Projects
By Jens Meiert.
"Working in complex projects or in projects that don't provide a good 
overview of forthcoming page types and elements may require a defensive 
strategy for writing CSS. Such a defensive strategy strives for certain 
security measures to ensure better maintainability, and one tactic is 
CSS 'pseudo-namespaces'."
http://tinyurl.com/2b7ht2

Internet Explore and Column Collapse
By Russ Weakley.
"So, you have built a beautiful CSS layout. It looks sexy. You feel 
powerful, knowledgeable and wise. Then you start adding real content to 
the layout - images, lists, links etc. Suddenly you layout does not 
look so sexy in Internet Explorer. For some reason columns are suddenly 
wider. In some cases the column width increases so much that the entire 
layout breaks and the column drops below the rest of the content. Your 
confidence is shattered. You curse CSS and think about table-based 
layouts. At least they 'work' in IE. Of course, there is a solution."
http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/column-collapse/

+03: COLOR.

Colorblindness - A Usability Guide for Commercial Applications, Part 2
By Anthony Mitchell.
"There are restrictions against colorblind people holding certain 
positions in our society, but colorblind people sometimes get around 
those restrictions. Low and no-cost common-sense modifications can be 
made, and should be made, to reduce the impacts on society from a minor 
handicap that is often no more than a fashion inconvenience for those 
afflicted with it."
http://www.technewsworld.com/alert/56107.html

Color Shades
By Christopher Schmitt.
"During my brief talk at SXSW Interactive, I mentioned that you could 
use color shades. Color shades are small PNG images filled with a black 
or white color set to a certain opacity which can be used for tinting 
background colors or images..."
http://www.christopherschmitt.com/2007/03/16/color-shades/

Color Commitment
By Natalie Jost.
"Within a given design, I'm seeing 15-20 different colors. That doesn't 
mean a wild color scheme consisting of each band of the rainbow; more 
often it's simply varying shades of the same color. I won't pick on any 
site in particular, but I'll give a fictional example so you can see 
what I mean."
http://www.standardsforlife.com/color-commitment

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

User Research Doesn't Prove Anything
By Steve Baty.
Recently, I was reading through a sample chapter of a 
soon-to-be-published book. The book and author shall remain nameless, 
as shall the book's topic. However, I was disappointed to read, in what 
otherwise appeared at first glance to be an interesting publication, a 
very general, sweeping statement to the effect that qualitative 
research doesn't prove anything and, if you want proof, you should 
perform quantitative research. The author's basic assumption was that 
qualitative research can't prove anything, as it is based on small 
sample sizes, but quantitative research, using large sample sizes, does 
provide proof. This may come as a shock to everyone, but quantitative 
research does not provide proof of anything either."
http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000180.php

+05: EVENTS.

Real World Accessibility for Ajax and Web Apps
May 7, 2007.
Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
http://furtherahead.com/workshops/texas/

CSS and Accessibility Workshop with Russ Weakley and Roger Hudson
May 3 and 4, 2007 in Melbourne, Australia.
May 14 and 15, 2007 in Sydney, Australia.
May 21 and 22, 2007 in Canberra, Australia.
May 28 and 29, 2007 in Brisbane, Australia.
http://www.maxdesign.com.au/workshop2007/

Adobe MAX 2007
September 30 - Oct 3, 2007 in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
October 15 - 18, 2007 in Barcelona, Spain.
November 1 - 2, 2007 in Tokyo, Japan.
http://www.adobemax2007.com/

+06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Wireframing With Patterns
By Lindsay Ellerbyns.
"When you're starting out as an information architect (IA), being part 
of a strong community of fellow practitioners helps immensely. A little 
over a year ago, on Sunday, February 22, 2006, I participated in an 
informal workshop on wireframing techniques that took place here in 
Toronto. Bryce Johnson, Director of User Experience Design at Navantis 
Inc., facilitated and hosted the workshop at his workplace. The 
knowledge sharing and the wireframing best practices that emerged from 
the workshop, plus the sense of community I experienced there, helped 
me build a foundation as an information architect and got me started on 
developing my own design workflow. Now, I'd like to share the 
techniques I've learned with a broader community of information 
architects."
http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000179.php

+07: JAVASCRIPT.

Unobtrusive Connected Select Boxes - Yet Another Solution Approach
By Christian Heilmann.
"...Bradley Wright took it onto himself to solve the issue...His 
approach was to create a massive dropdown with all the information and 
then use JavaScript to chunk it up.."
http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=411

JavaScript: the Big Divide
By Peter-Paul Koch.
SXSW 2007 Presentation Slides.
http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2007/03/javascript_the.html

The Perfect Popup was Imperfect...
By Ian Lloyd.
"But now it's history. The Perfect Popup is dead, long live The Perfect 
Pop-up..."
http://accessify.com/news/2007/03/perfect-popup-unobtrusive-update/

+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

Have Web Conferences, As We Know Them, Played Out Their Role?
By Robert Nyman.
"From my own experiences, and based on what I've heard from friends, I 
start to wonder if web conferences as we see them now will lose their 
charm and become extinct, or at least more rare. Personally, I can't 
motivate the cost of attending them to myself, since I feel that you 
don't learn enough..."
http://tinyurl.com/yts253

Ten Questions for Sarah Blow
By Russ Weakley.
"Sarah Blow is a software engineer and .Net developer. She has been 
working in the industry since 2004 and has a passion for technology, 
the mobile web and innovation. Sarah founded London Girl Geek Dinners 
in 2005 and the events have been growing ever since. Sarah talks about 
her job, the mobile web, London Geek Girls, women in technology, 
inspirations and more"
http://webstandardsgroup.org/features/sarah-blow.cfm

+09: NAVIGATION.

Best Practices for Stylizing and Customizing Links in CSS
By Patrick Griffiths.
"Links give the Web its power and interconnectivity. But your links 
don't have to be blue underlined text. Let the HTML Dog show you how 
you can stylize and customize HTML links while keeping your site 
accessible."
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=696189&rl=1

The Importance of a Semantic URL
By Robert Nyman.
"I'm constantly baffled why most companies and web developers don't 
understand, or care about, the importance of using good semantic URLs. 
Therefore, I though I'd outline some reasons to help you understand why 
you really should care..."
http://www.robertnyman.com/2007/03/16/the-importance-of-a-semantic-url/

Replicating Browser Behavior: The Top Link
By Mike Cherim.
"...see no problem with replicating this type of browser behavior on a 
web page. In fact, after weighing the facts, I think it's beneficial..."
http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=177

+10: PHP.

PHP Security Tip Number 11
By Cal Evans (editor).
"I think we can all agree that users are at once the boon and the bane 
of our applications. On the one hand, if it weren't for users, we 
wouldn't have security problems. On the other hand, if we didn't have 
users, we wouldn't need the application to begin with. So we can all 
agree with the fact that in most cases, users aren't going away."
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1817

PHP Security Tip Number 12
By Cal Evans (editor).
"We've talked about filtering, we've talked about validating, we've 
talked about filtering again. Filtering inputs into your application is 
an important concept and the pre-cursor to many good security 
practices. However, once you have the input filtered and validated you 
can't simply sit back and relax. You have to stay vigilant when 
programming to ensure security throughout your application."
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1821

PHP Security Tip Number 13
By Cal Evans (editor).
"We've talked about filtering, we've talked about validating, we've 
talked about filtering again. Filtering inputs into your application is 
an important concept and the pre-cursor to many good security 
practices. However, once you have the input filtered and validated you 
can't simply sit back and relax. You have to stay vigilant when 
programming to ensure security throughout your application."
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1833

PHP Security Tip Number 14
By Cal Evans (editor).
"Almost any application running PHP on the back-end uses web 
technologies for it's front end. Many developers who think hard on PHP 
security, don't spend a thought on front-end security for their 
application. Here's a tip to think long and hard about when building 
your HTML and JavaScript."
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1842

+11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

in Web-
By Virginia DeBolt.
"(with apologies to ee cummings)..."
http://www.webteacher.ws/2007/03/in-web.html

Rules and Context
By Andy Rutledge.
"Among the more counterintuitive characteristics of art and design is 
the fact that these endeavors are governed by rules. The rules of 
artistry (and therefore design) are inviolate and unchanging. If you 
don't obey the rules, your results will be boring, uninspiring, 
uncommunicative, and less than compelling. In short: poor art or poor 
design..."
http://www.andyrutledge.com/rules-and-context.php

+12: TOOLS.

RoboBraille
By RoboBraille Consortium.
"RoboBraille automates the translation of text documents into Braille 
and speech. The service is available free of charge to all 
non-commercial users."
http://www1.robobraille.org/websites/acj/robobraille.nsf

+13: TYPOGRAPHY.

The 100 Percent Easy-2-Read Standard
By Oliver Reichenstein.
"Most websites are crammed with small text that is a pain to read. 
Why?..."
http://www.informationarchitects.jp/100e2r

IE 7 Does Not Resize Text Sized in Pixels
By Roger Johansson.
"...It partly compensates for that by allowing the user to scale/zoom 
the entire page, including images (which quickly leads to massive 
horizontal scrolling because of its bad implementation). But if you 
choose 'Page/Text Size' from the menu to change the text size, nothing 
happens if it has been sized in pixels or an absolute unit (points, 
millimeters, centimeters, inches, or picas)..."
http://tinyurl.com/22x3uv

+14: USABILITY.

Easy to Use: Why the Web Demands Simplicity
By Gerry McGovern.
"The more sophisticated a society and its economy becomes, the easier 
it is for its citizens to do what they need to do."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2007/nt-2007-03-19-easy.htm

The Difference Between Usability and User Experience
By Jared Spool.
"...Usability answers the question, 'Can the user accomplish their 
goal?'...User experience answers the question, 'Did the user have as 
delightful an experience as possible?'..."
http://tinyurl.com/2xb8fk

[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.]