[webdev] Web Design Update: September 6, 2007

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Thu Sep 6 15:41:58 CDT 2007 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 11, September 6, 2007.

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

++ISSUE 11 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: EVALUATION & TESTING.
04: EVENTS.
05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
09: TOOLS.
10: TYPOGRAPHY.
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.

Provide an Accessible Alternative if You Must Use a CAPTCHA
By Roger Johansson.
"In several recent online and offline discussions on comment spam and 
other automated, improper use of forms, I have seen or heard people 
suggest using image-based CAPTCHAs (you know, those images of distorted 
letters and numbers) to prevent spambots and other programs from 
successfully submitting forms..."
http://tinyurl.com/23lt8f

The Problem With Captchas
By Mel Pedley.
"CAPTCHA is an acronym for 'Completely Automated Public Turing test to 
tell Computers and Humans Apart' and is a test that some use to 
determine whether the user is human. Tests are based upon the concept 
that a computer will not be able to respond correctly to certain kinds 
of questions..."
http://blackwidows.co.uk/blog/?p=142

RDFa - Implications for Accessibility
By Peter Krantz.
"Here are my initial thoughts on how I believe RDFa (Resource 
Description Framework attributes) will benefit web accessibility..."
http://www.standards-schmandards.com/2007/rdfa-and-accessibility/

Updating the 508 Web Accessibility Tutorial
By Jim Thatcher.
"The Section 508 Web Accessibility Tutorial is the most popular landing 
page on my site. The entire course is being updated. Check out the list 
of updated sections here. I know, it is about time..."
http://www.jimthatcher.com/update.htm

A Comparative: Accessibility and Usability
By Mike Cherim.
"Accessibility vs. Usability The comments made in response to Mel 
Pedley's excellent article, Web Usability, started to take on a life of 
their own as it pertained to the relationship between 'web 
accessibility' and 'web site usability.' I personally feel that the 
two, accessibility and usability, have an incredible amount of common 
ground and are hopelessly intertwined. Married until-death-do-you-part, 
if you will. Being a commenter myself, I had written the following..."
http://tinyurl.com/2hr2cz

Screen Readers: A Web Developer Failure
By Mike Davies.
"...My general rule of screen readers is - web developers never ever 
use them. The only people who should be testing in screen readers are 
people who need to use screen readers in their normal course of the 
day. Web developers using screen readers leads to a lot of spurious 
findings and misinformation. Visual versus aural, it's a completely 
different perception of awareness..."
http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/access/ScreenReadersAWebDeveloperFailure


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Mono-Image CSS Rollovers
By Andrew B. King.
Learn how to create menu rollovers with different graphic backgrounds
with one image. Save HTTP requests by combining on and off images
into one mini-sprite and position with CSS.
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/cssrollovers/

Style Sheet Property Reference
By Danny Goodman.
If you're looking for a thorough resource on style sheet properties 
you've come to the right place. This article the first part of a series 
covers colors selectors and more. It is excerpted from chapter four of 
Dynamic HTML The Definitive Reference Third Edition..."
http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/DHTML/Style-Sheet-Property-Reference/

Learning Style Sheet Properties
By Danny Goodman.
"In this second part of a series on style sheet properties, you'll 
learn how to handle code for backgrounds, borders, and more."
http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/DHTML/Learning-Style-Sheet-Properties/

Cascading Style Sheets Part 3: Media Style Sheets
By Sarah Horton.
"...The next articles in this series on Cascading Style Sheets focus on 
using the tools we have at hand to broaden our focus from the screen 
into other contexts. In this article, we cover the nuances of invoking 
external style sheets from HTML documents, and the anticipatory design 
approach we must adopt in order to design well in other contexts. In 
subsequent articles we will cover how to use CSS to create effective 
designs for print and small screens..."
http://www.peachpit.com/guides/content.aspx?g=webdesign&seqNum=335&rl=1


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

User Testing Footage of header/id Combinations, @summary and @longdesc 
for HTML5 WG
By Joshue O Connor.
"I am making available to the HTML 5 WG the following user testing
footage of header/id combinations, @summary and @longdesc in use by a
blind power screen reader user. Each of the videos demonstrates these
methods/attributes in current use with commentary and discussion on
each. This footage should be useful for anyone interested in how these
features are really helpful for people with disabilities. The videos can
also be used as a point of reference in future discussion.   I am
presenting them to the group so they will hopefully find them
enlightening and act as a record of the usefulness of all of these
features. The tests are using JAWS 7 on Win XP SP2..."
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Sep/0103.html

But What Does It All Mean? Understanding eye-tracking results, Part 1
By Teresa Hernandez.
"I thought I'd take a shot at dispelling some small fraction of the 
confusion surrounding eye-tracking research.  Over the next few weeks 
I'll address some recurring questions I get about our research, and the 
optimal use of eye-tracking studies..."
http://blog.eyetools.net/eyetools_research/2007/08/but-what-does-i.html

But What Does It All Mean? Understanding eye-tracking results, Part 2
By Teresa Hernandez.
"People often ask me what exactly they can learn from eye tracking..."
http://blog.eyetools.net/eyetools_research/2007/08/but-what-does-1.html

But What Does It All Mean? Understanding eye-tracking result, Part 3
By Teresa Hernandez.
"A heat map can be defined several different ways, but as they say, all 
roads lead to Rome. I find the 2 most useful ways of describing a heat 
map are..."
http://blog.eyetools.net/eyetools_research/2007/09/but-what-does-i.html


+04: EVENTS.

Mobile Web Americas
October 2-4, 2007.
Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
http://www.mobilewebexpo.com/

An Event Apart San Francisco
October 4-5, 2007.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://www.aneventapart.com/events/sf07/

I Invent the Future - Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing
October 17-20, 2007.
Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
http://gracehopper.org/2007/

HTML Basics
October 11 or November 7, 2007.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.
http://uttc.umn.edu/training/courses/description.jsp?secName=HTML101

Designing Accessible Web Sites
October 11 or November 28, 2007.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.
http://uttc.umn.edu/training/courses/description.jsp?secName=DSIGN111

Usability Boot Camp
October 16-17, 2007.
Washington D.C., U.S.A.
http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/wmu/usability.shtml

Website Makeover: Focusing on Your Visitors' Major Tasks with Ginny 
Redish
November 7, 2007.
Washington D.C., U.S.A.
http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/wmu/casestudy.shtml


+05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

A Map-Based Approach to a Content Inventory
By Patrick C. Walsh.
"After giving it some thought, I find that the thing I like most about 
the map is that it is pure, stripped down navigation. Harry Beck 
decided that including streets, districts and other geographical 
information on his underground maps was distracting and added little 
value. All you need to know is how to get from A to B. I suspect that 
the same may be true in information spaces."
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/a-map-based-approach


+06: JAVASCRIPT.

WAI-ARIA in HTML
By Gez  Lemon.
"The Web Accessibility Initiative's Accessible Rich Internet 
Applications (WAI-ARIA) roadmap includes a plan for developing the 
roles and states necessary to make rich Internet applications 
accessible. The accessible properties are added using the namespacing 
capabilities of user agents that support XHTML delivered as 
application/xhtml+xml. As Internet Explorer doesn't support this MIME 
type, it cannot make use of namespacing in the markup. To make up for 
this, WAI's protocols and formats working group have a document 
outlining how to add WAI-ARIA roles and states to HTML content 
delivered as text/html. The technique essentially serializes the role 
and state information in the class attribute. HTML user agents don't 
parse namespace information, but as the DOM API supports namespaces, 
the role and state information can be inserted with the namespace 
directly in the DOM so that HTML documents delivered as text/html can 
use WAI-ARIA roles and states. The protocols and formats working group 
provide an ECMAScript library to insert the information specified in 
the class attribute into the DOM..."
http://juicystudio.com/article/wai-aria-in-html.php


+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

50 Designers x 6 Questions
By Vitaly Friedman and Sven Lennartz.
"Some months ago we've selected 50 prominent designers and design 
companies, contacted them and asked to answer five design-related 
questions, sharing their knowledge and experience with fellows 
developers. 35 designers have responded then. For each of 5 questions 
we've received 5 precise answers. The result was 175 professional 
suggestions, tips and ideas from some of the renowned web-developers 
all around the world..."
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/09/05/50-designers-x-6-questions/

Interview with Hakon Wium Lie, Part 1
By Peter Gasston.
"...Hakon Wium Lie the 'father of CSS', spared us some time to answer a 
few questions about the evolution of web design and the future of 
CSS..."
http://www.css3.info/interview-with-hakon-wium-lie-part-one/

Interview with Hakon Wium Lie, Part 2
By Peter Gasston.
"Here's the concluding part of our interview with Hakon..."
http://www.css3.info/interview-with-hakon-wium-lie-part-two/


+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Part I - Traditional HTML Semantics
By John Allsopp.
"This is the first in a series of articles which aims to survey the 
issue of semantics in current web design and development (for the HTML 
based web, not the 'Semantic Web')..."
http://microformatique.com/?p=83

Part II - Standardizing Vocabularies
By John Allsopp.
"In this part, we'll look at other sources of semantics from outside 
HTML itself, including the mechanisms used to 'inject' these 
semantics..."
http://microformatique.com/?p=97

Part III - Directions in HTML Semantics
By John Allsopp.
"The World Wide Web is a simple thing really. It is, at the bottom, 
HTTP and HTML. Throw in some image formats (delivered via HTTP), CSS 
for styling (delivered via HTTP), JavaScript for interaction design, 
and that's more or less it..."
http://microformatique.com/?p=108

Understanding and Extending Semantics in HTML
By Roger Johansson.
"...He [John Allsopp] does have a point, though I'm not sure I agree 
with it. I'm not saying I disagree either, just that I don't know. What 
do you think? Should new elements and attributes be added to the HTML 
specification when there is a need for them? Should there be another 
way of extending and improving the semantics of HTML without requiring 
the specification to be updated? Perhaps combining the two approaches 
would be better?"
http://tinyurl.com/2bgyd3

Parsing Microformats
By Brian Suda.
"Brian Suda explains how to handle hCard, the vCard microformat 
embedded in HTML."
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2007/09/04/parsing-microformats.html


+09: TOOLS.

Name that Color
By Chirag Mehta.
"Click and drag over the Color Wheel to make a color..."
http://chir.ag/phernalia/name-that-color/

Table Inspector
By James Graham.
http://james.html5.org/tables/table_inspector.html

Dust-Me Selectors
By Sitepoint.
"Dust-Me Selectors is a Firefox extension (for v1.5 or later) that 
finds unused CSS selectors..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/dustmeselectors/


+10: TYPOGRAPHY.

Welcome to Part II of Type Terminology
By John Boardley.
"In part one, Who Shot the Serif?, we learned among other things that 
serifs-like milkshakes-come in many flavors: The main two flavors are 
Adnate and Abrupt; with Adnate serifs generally being more organic; 
Abrupt Serifs on the other hand are usually squarer, bigger/chunkier 
(the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the font world)..."
http://tinyurl.com/2apbyt


+11: USABILITY.

Thinking in the Right Terms: 7 Components for a Successful Web Site 
Redesign
By Jared M. Spool.
"...In our research, we've uncovered seven essential long-term 
components to reach a successful redesign project..."
http://www.uie.com/articles/components_for_redesign/

How to Embed Usability and UCD Internally
By Ismail Ismail.
"Integrating usability into any organization can be a difficult and 
isolating experience. Get the lowdown on how to achieve this within 
your organization."
http://tinyurl.com/2dq8gd


12: XML.

XML Basics
By Mamun Zaman.
"When I first heard about XML, I thought it was something similar to 
HTML. Needless to say, I was wrong. XML and HTML were designed with 
different goals. XML was designed to describe data and HTML was 
designed to display data. In this article we will try to learn some 
basics about XML. Then we will learn about DTD and XML schemas..."
http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/XML/XML-Basics/


[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.

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.]

More information about the Webdev mailing list