[webdev] Web Design Update: March 30, 2007

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 5, Issue 41, March 30, 2007.

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

++ISSUE 41 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: DREAMWEAVER.
05: EVALUATION & TESTING.
06: EVENTS.
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.

WCAG 2.0, Validity and The Holy Trinity
By Jack Pickard.
"...it is my contention that in order to ensure that your content is 
robust enough to work with unknown future user agents, it must be 
constructed in a predictable manner so that these unknown future user 
agents can render it predictably, otherwise someone using the 
as-yet-unknown user agent could encounter problems that would impact 
upon whether or not users with disabilities were able to use the site. 
Did I mention the user agents would be unknown? Validity is a concept 
that, whilst related to universality, if not achieved may result in 
accessibility problems with a particular user agent. If you want to 
ensure - as the WAI do with WCAG 2.0 -  that content has to be robust 
enough to work with unknown future technologies, then you simply must 
tie down the structure of that content to an agreed specification of 
some sort, so that the future user agent can understand how it is meant 
to work with it. So we need validity included. Maybe not at level 1, 
but it needs to be there..."
http://tinyurl.com/36hkz4

Automated PDF Accessibility Testing
By Alastair Campbell.
"The report showed: It's not tagged, the most basic form of applying 
accessibility to PDFs. The security settings actively prevent 
accessibility. No images have alternative texts. The language is not 
set. Now I would be the first to admit that accessifying PDFs can be 
real pain, and to do so you currently have to pay an Adobe tax, because 
no one else will create the tools (even though it's a published format 
and anyone can). However, I don't understand why you would actively 
prevent accessibility?"
http://alastairc.ac/2007/03/automated-pdf-accessibility/

Setting and Retrieving Accesskeys with JavaScript and DOM
By Ian Lloyd.
"I've written an article which is published on Think Vitamin about the 
thorny subject of accesskeys. Love 'em or loathe 'em, they can be 
useful to some people, but not necessarily when they are forced on 
people. In the article I demonstrate how JavaScript and the DOM can be 
used to set and recall chosen accesskeys, but all done unobtrusively 
and with an evil factor of zero."
http://tinyurl.com/2675a6


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

When Readers Choose to Use Their Own Style
By Jonathan Christopher.
"When taking into consideration the average person browsing the Web, 
there isn't much cause for concern regarding user style sheets 
interfering with your intended CSS. Many people are not aware of the 
fact that you're able to control virtually every aspects of any 
document rendered in your own browser. This can be attributed to the 
fact that in order to take advantage of such a feature, a working 
knowledge of CSS is required..."
http://tinyurl.com/2gwcsa

10 Quick Tips for an Easier CSS Life
By search-this.com.
"As with most things, a logical and structured approach is the best way 
to go. Therefore I have put together 10 quick tips (in no special 
order) to help make your CSS coding as pain-free as possible."
http://tinyurl.com/2yvbtq


+03: COLOR.

CSS Values for Colors
By Mauricio Samy Silva.
"In this article we will explain how to specify colors for a CSS 
property that accepts color values."
http://bitesizestandards.com/bites/css-values-for-colors


+04: DREAMWEAVER.

CS3 Launch Event Webcast
By Adobe.
The video is up in case you missed it.
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/launchevent/webcast/

CS3 Sneak Preview: The CSS Panel.
By Adrian Senior.
"Not everyone can create the right CSS rules, in the right place, on 
the first try. To get things right, it's often necessary to move, 
rename, or otherwise change the structure of your CSS. Additionally, 
many people like to introduce CSS changes incrementally to a site, 
first by getting the CSS working on a single page, and then working on 
the entire site. Others prefer to step back further and get the CSS 
working on a single element before trying to make it work for a whole 
page. The Manage CSS feature makes it easier for you to move CSS rules 
from document to document, from the head of a document to an external 
sheet, between external CSS files, and more. You can also convert 
inline CSS to CSS rules, and place them where you need them-just by 
dragging and dropping."
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=C4592

CS3 Sneak Preview: Device Central
By Adrian Senior.
"Integrated with Dreamweaver CS3 as well as throughout the family of 
Creative Suite 3 software, Adobe Device Central simplifies the creation 
of mobile content with built-in mobile device skins and regularly 
updated device profiles. Besides the ability to quickly access 
essential technical specifications for each device, Adobe Device 
Central displays HTML content and allows you to scroll using the 
buttons on the device. The Small Screen Rendering (SSR) mode will 
shrink the text and images to show accurate rendering as it would 
appear on the device. Now you can easily design, preview, and test 
engaging mobile content and rich user interfaces..."
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=EBE2E


+05: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Inside Your Users' Minds: The Cultural Probe
By Ruth Stalker-Firth.
"Drawing on the field of ethnography, Ruth Stalker-Firth introduces a 
method for studying user behavior and motivations outside the lab."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/culturalprobe


+06: EVENTS.

Web Workflow and CSS with Dreamweaver CS3 (Stephanie Sullivan and Greg 
Rewis)
April 26, 2007.
Atlanta Georgia, U.S.A.
http://tinyurl.com/29zvy7

Knowbility AccessU
May 8-9, 2007.
Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
http://www.knowbility.org/conference/

Introduction to  Web Accessibility
July 3, 2007.
London, United Kingdom
http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/webintroaccessibility

Web Design World
July 9-11, 2007.
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
http://www.ftponline.com/conferences/webdesignworld/2007/seattle/home.aspx

O'Reilly Open Source Convention 2007
July 23-27, 2007.
Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2007/

World Usability Day (2007 date set)
November 8, 2007.
http://worldusabilityday.org/


+07: JAVASCRIPT.

Cross-Browser Scripting with importNode()
By Anthony Holdener.
"Anthony Holdener explores the world of XML DOM support for web 
browsers and presents a new technique for cross-browser scripting."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/crossbrowserscripting

The Ajax/Flash Continuum
By Jeremy Keith.
"Whenever I'm talking or writing about Ajax I'm at pains to point out 
one of the biggest issues that I see with a lot of big Ajax apps out 
there. The problem in a lot of cases is that they are using Ajax at 
all. Let me explain. The whole reason for using standards like (X)HTML, 
CSS and JavaScript, in my opinion, is that they allow you to build 
sites using progressive enhancement. Fancy browsers get the fancy 
experience; simple browsers get the simple experience. Ajax can fit 
quite nicely into this mix. By adding some unobtrusive Ajax 
enhancements, you can enrich the user experience without sacrificing 
universal access to your content But this doesn't scale up..."
http://domscripting.com/blog/display/102


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

The Top 5 Dumbest Things Web Developers Do Today
By Christopher Jason.
"The Web is certainly much different in 2007 than it was in 1997 when I 
created my first Web site. There were things back then that were really 
annoying (under construction .gifs, blinking text, and ugly frames)- I 
certainly contributed to the ugliness. But 2007 has its share of 
terrible Web practices too. That got me thinking: what bothers me the 
most about Web pages today? Here's my top 5 list of the poorest things 
Web developers are doing in 2007. If you find some of your methods on 
this list, don't get angry. Leave some comments and get the discussion 
going.."
http://www.christopherjason.com/articles/dumb-web-design-2007/

How Much Does a Web Page Cost?
By Sean Carton.
"...The bottom line is Web development is expensive, involves lots of 
people, lots of management, and lots of back-and-forth with the 
client...Unfortunately, few of us walk our clients through really 
understanding the process (and the hours) that make it all happen The 
next time you encounter someone with sticker shock when handing him an 
estimate, don't dismiss him. Walk him through what needs to be done and 
see if he still thinks that page can be whipped out in a couple of 
hours. It's an educational opportunity that shouldn't be missed."
http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3625267

Dean Hachamovitch Interview
By Oliver Lindberg.
"It's taken Microsoft half a decade to come up with a major upgrade to 
its browser. Why did it take so long and is it too little too late? 
Oliver Lindberg grills Dean Hachamovitch, general manager of the 
Internet Explorer team."
http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/home/dean-hachamovitch

YUI Theater - Doug Geoffray: 'From the Mouth of a Screenreader'
By Eric Miraglia.
"We held our annual internal front end engineering conference at Yahoo! 
earlier this month, and one of our invited guests was Doug Geoffray of 
GW Micro. Doug came by to teach Yahoo! front end engineers about the 
history and current state of screen-reader support in software, 
including the nature of the current challenges we face developing 
screen-reader-accessible dynamic web pages. While this talk is 
historically comprehensive and covers a lot of ground related to how 
screen readers have evolved on the desktop, the context is important 
for us on the front end as we begin to confront the same challenges 
that desktop software developers have been addressing for many years..."
http://yuiblog.com/blog/2007/03/28/video-geoffray/


+09: NAVIGATION.

Don't Click Here - Avoid Verbs?
By Hal Goodtree.
"...Here at Online Copywriter, we're sensing a sea change when it comes 
to links using verbs..."
http://tinyurl.com/ysxmzv


+10: PHP.

PHP Security Tip Number 15
By Cal Evans (editor).
"As developers, most of us are very messy. I've worked on countless 
projects and at each either run across or left a trail of diagnostic 
files laying around."
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1849

PHP Security Tip Number 16
By Cal Evans (editor).
"This idea was originally posted as a comment to a previous PHP 
Security Tip. I believe that this is an important issue, and worth 
being a tip itself."
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1857

PHP Security Tip Number 17
By Cal Evans (editor).
"Application security should not be a 'when all else fails' situation. 
It's not something you can "put in later". As we've mentioned before, 
there is no single silver bullet to solve your application security 
issues. Security is something that should be rolling around in the back 
of your dead in the design phase, the coding phase, the testing phase, 
even after you've rolled your code into production."
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1866

PHP Security Tip Number 18
By Cal Evans (editor).
"When you allow users to upload files, your system may be at risk. 
Handle file upload scripts with care. Without proper security 
precautions, you can leave a gaping hole in your system."
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1867

PHP Security Tip Number 19
By Cal Evans (editor).
"Sometimes, the best application security you can install is simply 
disconnecting the network cable from your server."
http://devzone.zend.com/node/view/id/1871


+11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Webpatterns Wiki
By John Allsopp.
"WebPatterns is a place to discuss, document and collaborate on 
patterns for web design and development. The primary focus of the 
webpatterns project is to intelligently name the main constructs or 
components that web designers, developers, Information Architects and 
other web professionals use to build web pages, web sites and web 
applications. This wiki is for collaboratively documenting these 
patterns, which will hopefully develop collaboratively into a 'pattern 
language' that is tentatively named 'webpatterns'."
http://webpatterns.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Re-Starting the HTML Engine
By Kurt Cagle.
"A couple of weeks ago, the W3C made an announcement that caught a 
great number of people by surprise. After nearly a decade of 
inactivity, the HTML working group was being restarted, in order to 
handle the fairly significant amount of development that has occurred 
on top of the HTML standard since HTML 4.3 became the last formal HTML 
standard prior to the introduction of XHTML..."
http://www.understandingxml.com/2007/03/restarting_the_html_engine.html

ESW Wiki
By W3C HTML Working Group.
"A view of issues in the development of HTML."
http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/

HTML Issue: Abbr and Acronym
By W3C HTML Working Group.
"There has been a discussion of: Eliminating one of the two elements: 
abbr and acronym. Eliminating both abbr and acronym elements and adding 
SHORT. Others have suggested adding initialism. Still others have 
suggested adding a @type attribute to abbr with values such as 
'acronym', 'initialism', 'truncation', and "other"."
http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/AbbrAcronym01

HTML Design Principles (Proposed)
By W3C HTML Working Group.
"Don't Break The Web...Degrade Gracefully...Solve Real Problems...Avoid 
Needless Complexity...Priority of Constituencies...Don't Reinvent The 
Wheel...Pave The Cowpaths...Evolution Not Revolution...Media 
Independence...Well-Defined Behavior...Handle Errors...Universal 
Access...Support World Languages...Secure By Design...Visible 
Metadata...Mostly Semantic Markup..."
http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ProposedDesignPrinciples


+12: TOOLS.

SpamCheck
By SiteSell.
"...Submit your planned newsletter/ad/etc. (via SpamCheck Form or via 
e-mail). In seconds, we'll return a Spam Score and recommendations on 
how to reduce the likelihood of your e-mail being filtered..."
http://spamcheck.sitesell.com/


+13: TYPOGRAPHY.

Arial or Helvetica? (A Quiz)
By Derren Wilson.
"Once there was a typeface called Helvetica. It was extremely popular. 
Later came a software company called Microsoft. They 'borrowed' 
Helvetica for their operating system and called it Arial. This inferior 
typeface is now on millions of desktops all over the world. Can you 
tell the difference between the original and the rip-off
in these ten examples?"
http://www.iliveonyourvisits.com/helvetica/

How to Spot Arial
By Mark Simonson.
"Many of the characters in Helvetica and Arial are very similar to each 
other, although none are quite identical. Other characters are quite a 
bit different, and they are the key to telling which is which. Here are 
some of the most obvious ones..."
http://www.ms-studio.com/articlesarialsid.html


+14: USABILITY.

Designing for "Mature" Users	
By Mark Hall.
"...research-based guidelines that you should know when designing sites 
that are visited by older users. "
http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/mar07.asp#kath

Does User Annoyance Matter?
Jakob Nielsen.
"Making users suffer a drop-down menu to enter state abbreviations is 
one of many small annoyances that add up to a less efficient,
less pleasant user experience. It's worth fixing as many of these 
usability irritants as you can."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/annoyances.html

Ruining the User Experience
By Aaron Gustafson.
"...There's a lot we, as designers of the web experience, can learn 
from something as simple as a water glass..."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/ruininguserexperience

Keep It Simple, Stupid!
By Vitaly Friedman and Sven Lennartz.
"Let's put it straight - simplicity is more complex than you probably 
think it is..."
http://tinyurl.com/2aasms

Photos Make Websites More Credible
By Jens Meiert.
"One finding of Stanford University's important work concerning web 
credibility is that photos [can] make websites more credible...."
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20070328/photos-make-websites-more-credible/


[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.]