[webdev] Web Design Update: November 3, 2007

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Sat Nov 3 07:10:01 CDT 2007 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 19, November 3, 2007.

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

++ISSUE 19 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: PHP.
10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
11: TOOLS.
12: TYPOGRAPHY.
13: USABILITY.
14: XML.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Section 508 to be Updated
By Jared Smith.
"Section 508 is being updated. I participate on the Telecommunications 
and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee (TEITAC) 
which has been working on recommended language for the last year or so. 
We are getting closer to finalized language and hope to make our 
recommendations to the U.S. Access Board in January. Because Section 
508 and the Telecommunication Act, which we're also updating, have such 
far reaching impact on accessibility, we invite you to review the draft 
provisions and send us feedback..."
http://webaim.org/blog/section-508-to-be-updated/

CAPTCHA - if you're name's not down you're not coming in.
By Henny Swan.
"CAPTCHA's and accessibility have been hotly debated both in 
newsgroups, the press and also recently brought up on this blog. Many 
people are feeling marginalized by their use and frustrated at not 
being able to access the online services they want. Facebook, for 
example, makes heavy use of CAPTCHA even once you're logged in. Google 
also uses CAPTCHA although they have looked into providing audio 
alternatives to the visual CAPTCHA. These are two of the fastest 
growing Internet companies on the web today who are setting precedents 
of how web pages are delivered. This article looks at what CAPTCHA is, 
what it is for, problems and possible solutions..."
http://tinyurl.com/2zqtyt

Web Accessibility Now - Because Nationwide Class Action Suits are Bad 
for You
By Karcher Group.
"...Not addressing the accessibility needs of all of your potential 
site users is not just mean, it is bad for business. And so is getting 
sued."
http://dev.thekarchergroup.com/archives/27

Is an Accessible Website Always Usable?
By Leona Tomlinson.
"...accessibility and usability should be combined to ensure the 
website can be accessed by the widest possible audience. AbilityNet is 
able to offer information, advice and a range of services to help make 
a website accessible and usable for everyone ? including accessibility 
audits, disabled end user testing, training, support, accessible web 
design and a range of useful resources."
http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article4269.asp

How to Write Good Alt Text for the Images on Your Web Page
By Virginia DeBolt.
"To make Web pages accessible, use alt text for images. That's what 
we're always taught. But there are good and bad uses of alt text. There 
are also cases when having no alt text is actually the right thing to 
do."
http://www.ehow.com/how_2110225_alt-text-images-web-page.html

About WCAG 2.0 Presentation
By WAI.
"About WCAG 2.0 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines is a presentation 
that covers the benefits of WCAG 2.0, shortcuts for using WCAG 2.0, how 
it differs from WCAG 1.0, and other topics listed in the outline below. 
It does not cover the actual requirements in WCAG 2.0, WCAG 1.0, the 
basics of Web accessibility, the business case for accessibility, 
policies, laws, or other aspects of accessibility. The presentation 
"slides" and extensive notes are designed for presenters to use for 
their own presentations on WCAG 2.0. The presentation is also available 
for anyone who wants to use it to learn about WCAG 2.0."
http://www.w3.org/WAI/presentations/WCAG20_about/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Simple CSS Drop Shadows, Revisited
By Craig Saila.
"One of the more enduringly popular articles on this site has been 
'Simple CSS drop shadows,' which explains how to use progressive 
enhancement techniques to create drop shadows on text and boxes. 
Although the technique still works, support for complex DOM scripting 
and CSS as improved dramatically, making these simple CSS drop shadows 
even easier to do. Using client-side scripting, this duplicated content 
is no longer required (unless support for version-five browsers or 
lower is still required) and a drop shadow can be created on any 
element accessible via the DOM. Also, this revised method purposely 
avoids using class names to trigger effects in order for the effect to 
be as non-intrusive to the basic markup as possible. (The W3C has 
proposed two CSS methods to handle text and block shadows, and these 
are discussed later in this article.)..."
http://saila.com/webdesign/shadow-revisited/

Ruby-Position, Size, and Other Style Sheet Properties
By  Danny Goodman.
"In this ninth part of an ongoing series on style sheet properties, 
you'll learn about size, scrollbars, and more..."
http://tinyurl.com/ywqexw

Simple Box
By Tedd Sperling.
"...this is a box with rounded corners. I have reviewed the available 
references and found similar solutions, but none that do it this way..."
http://sperling.com/examples/box/

Text and Image Zoom
By Tedd Sperling.
"Note that the image and text on this web page remains about the same 
relative sizes through all zooms -- try it. This is accomplished by: a) 
using em's instead of pixels for images (note: there are no sizes used 
in the img tag link); b) and by using css to place the image. Please 
check out the css source code for this site..."
http://sperling.com/examples/zoom/

Media Attribute - what have you done for me lately?
By Emil Stenstrom.
"I've been thinking for a while about the media attribute on link tags. 
Some people might find that thinking deep thoughts about HTML 
attributes is kind of strange, but I know you, my dear readers, know 
the feeling..."
http://friendlybit.com/css/media-attribute/


+03: DREAMWEAVER.

How to Use Dreamweaver 8 or Dreamweaver CS3 to Remove Font Tags
By Virginia DeBolt.
"Have an old website that needs an update? Have some old HTML that you 
want to bring into a modern site. Adobe Dreamweaver makes the job easy."
http://www.ehow.com/how_2097967_dreamweaver-cs-remove-font-tags.html


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

In Appreciation of Measures That Tell Stories
By Alison J. Head.
"Not long ago, usability measures and Web analytics were few and far 
between. The usual standards amounted to little more than task 
completion, error rates, and click streams. Yet, they served us well..."
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/in-appreciation-of

The Limitations of Server Log Files for Usability Analysis
By Karl Groves.
"...It is recommended that an organization not spend extensive amounts 
of time and money to gain usability data from server logs. An 
organization would be better served by hiring an experienced human 
factors engineer to perform an expert review or conduct a formal study 
with users. The results would be much quicker, more accurate, and more 
informative."
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/the-limitations-of

A 'Requirements' Rope Trick
By Chris Baker.
"Requirements analysis is the bit of a project when we figure out what 
has to be done to complete the project successfully..."
http://usabilitynotes.typepad.com/usabilitynotes/


+05: EVENTS.

World Usability Day Events at the University of Minnesota
November 8, 2007.
Minneapolis, Minnesota U.S.A.
http://1help.umn.edu/usability/wud.html

On-Line Web 2.0 Accessibility Course using the emerging W3C Accessible 
Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) Specifications
November 26-December 19, 2007.
http://www.cita.uiuc.edu/courses/web20online/

Usability Matters Org 07 (UMO2007)
November 30, 2007.
Hyderabad, India
http://umo.in/umo2007/

MobileHCI 2008
September 2-5, 2008.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
http://mobilehci2008.telin.nl/


+06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Preparing and Planning an Audit
By Sue Henczel.
"In recent years, much progress has been made in the way organizations 
gain value from information audits..."
http://www.freepint.com/issues/251007.htm#feature

Today's IA Tip for Beginners
By Peter Van Dijck.
"Sites that put 'community' in a separate tab most likely think of 
community as an add-on to their business, not as core to their 
business."
http://tinyurl.com/26zbqa


+07: JAVASCRIPT.

ECMAScript Documentation
By ecmascript.org.
"The ECMA-262 standard is the official documentation for the ECMAScript 
language."
http://www.ecmascript.org/docs.php

What I Think About ES4
By Chris Wilson.
"Dean Edwards asked me in a comment on the IEBlog what I personally 
thought of the ES4 proposal..."
http://tinyurl.com/yr98ry

Open Letter to Chris Wilson
By Brendan Eich, inventor of JavaScript.
"You seem to be repeating falsehoods in blogs since the Proposed 
ECMAScript 4th Edition Language Overview was published, claiming 
dissenters including Microsoft were ignored by me, or "shouted down" by 
the majority, in the ECMAScript standardization group..."
http://tinyurl.com/yw5qer

New Browser War Brewing Over JavaScript?
By Robert Scoble.
"I've been getting lots of emails and calls on this, so I know that at 
least some developers care about the proposal for a new ECMAScript 
titled the ES4 proposal. I am still trying to figure out which side to 
take in this, but from what I've been able to learn there are a few 
sides to this..."
http://tinyurl.com/yux8q8

Object-Oriented JavaScript: Part 3
By Cristian Darie, Bogdan Brinzarea.
"This week wraps up our section on Object-Oriented JavaScript with a 
look at prototypes, the JavaScript execution context, var x, this.x, 
and x, inheritance using closures and prototypes and more..."
http://tinyurl.com/yspmn6

JavaScript Statements
By James Payne.
"In our last tutorial we covered where to place JavaScript code, how to 
work with variables, and print stupid things to the screen. In this 
installment we will be working with Conditional Statements, Switch 
Statements, and if there is time, Operators. So call up your date and 
cancel (who am I kidding? You'd rather go on a date than study this) 
and let's get to work."
http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/JavaScript/JavaScript-Statements/


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

Working with Clients
By Christian Watson.
"Whether you work for an agency or an internal web team, working well 
with clients is integral to the success of your web projects. Here is a 
collection of articles to help you do it better..."
http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/000801.php


+09: PHP.

PHP Operators
By James Payne.
"What can you do without operators? Not much, if you're trying to do 
without them in a programming language, and PHP is no exception. On 
Monday, we barely had time to show you a long list of the operators in 
PHP. Today, we're going to show you what they do..."
http://www.devshed.com/c/a/PHP/PHP-Operators/

PHP Style Switcher
By Tedd Sperling.
"Are you tired of looking for a JavaScript code that allows you to 
easily change style sheets? Do you want something that is simple, 
short, and will work if the user has turned off their JavaScript?..."
http://sperling.com/examples/styleswitch/

PHP Multiple Style Switcher
By Tedd Sperling.
"Are you tired of looking for a JavaScript code that allows you to 
easily change style sheets? Do you want something that is simple, 
short, and will work if the user has turned off their JavaScript? If 
so, this PHP technique is the slickest I have found..."
http://sperling.com/examples/styleswitch1/

CSS-PHP Variable
By Tedd Sperling.
The question has been asked numerous times in the css forum, if there 
is a way to use a variable from inside css and the answer has always 
been 'No'. Well... technically, if you are using just css, then that 
answer is correct. However, with just a minor amount of PHP code (6 
lines) you can use variables in css..."
http://sperling.com/examples/pcss/

Smart Menu
By Tedd Sperling.
"So, you want a self-aware menu -- something that will not permit the 
user to reload the current page. Well... it's very easy with a PHP 
solution..."
http://sperling.com/examples/smart-menu/

Date and Time
By Tedd Sperling.
"So, you want to place time and/or date in your web site. Well... 
that's very easy to do and there are several different methods. I 
prefer to use PHP..."
http://sperling.com/examples/time/


+10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Web Standards to the Rescue
By National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
"One look at the source of this site says it all: no tables, no spacer 
gifs, no JavaScript rollovers, and that's just the beginning. A Web 
Standards template for NASA is here..."
http://portalcss.gsfc.nasa.gov/nasa_template/

Explaining Semantic Mark-Up
By Robert Nyman.
"I have a strong interest in semantics in general, and when it comes to 
web developing, the benefits of properly marking up a document should 
not be neglected. One problem is that some people don't understand the 
difference it makes, so therefore let me humbly make an attempt to 
explain why semantics is important..."
http://www.robertnyman.com/2007/10/29/explaining-semantic-mark-up/


+11: TOOLS.

Colour Contrast Visualiser
By stainlessvision.com.
"This tool allows you to visualise good colour combinations on a 
Photoshop style colour picker. It's primary use is finding acceptable 
colours from an existing inaccessible combination - while maintaining 
the aesthetic appeal of the original."
http://www.stainlessvision.com/projects/colour-contrast-visualiser

How z-index Works
By Thierry Koblentz.
"This page is to demonstrate how elements stack."
http://tinyurl.com/yuec5b


+12: TYPOGRAPHY.

Content and Presentation
By Mark Boulton.
"I've worked with some agencies over the past year who see the 
separation of design to a surface layer as a given. It's sad, but the 
amount of times I've been asked to design a 'theme' is on the increase. 
On one hand, that is a triumph for things like Web Standards, but on 
the other, design, and typography is being left as the icing on the 
cake. And that brings me back to web 2.0. Typography has an important 
place in the web at the moment. Social interaction, and how to design 
for it, it a hot design topic in Berlin (and my guess is it will be in 
SXSW). But don't forget that the medium of social interaction is 
language, and the way language is shaped and looks is typographic 
design. Web 2.0 is all about typographic design."
http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/content_and_presentation/


+13: USABILITY.

Download Time and E-Learning
By Jared Spool.
"...If users are waiting for content and not doing anything else, 
they'll see that as painful. It would be the equivalent of an engaging 
live instructor, in a classroom, suddenly becoming silent for minutes 
at a time. It's distracting to the educational process and not helping 
the user with their goal - to learn the material. That said, there are 
ways to mitigate the problem..."
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2007/10/25/download-time-and-e-learning/

Common Usability Terms, pt. I: Spatial Memory
By Thom Holwerda.
"This is the first article in a series on common usability and 
graphical user interface related terms. On the Internet, and especially 
in forum discussions like we all have here on OSNews, it is almost 
certain that in any given discussion, someone will most likely bring up 
usability and GUI related terms - things like spatial memory, widgets, 
consistency, Fitts' Law, and more. The aim of this series is to explain 
these terms, learn something about their origins, and finally rate 
their importance in the field of usability and (graphical) user 
interface design. We start off with spatial memory - my personal 
favorite."
http://tinyurl.com/yqej3a

Generic Commands
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Applications can give users access to a richer feature set by using 
the same few commands to achieve many related functions. The iPod Touch 
provides good and bad examples of this powerful principle of 
interaction design."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/generic-commands.html


+14: XML.

Bye Bye XML 1.1?
By Anne Van Kesteren.
"It seems that the XML Core WG is considering to change XML 1.0 with 
respect to handling of element names and attribute values..."
http://annevankesteren.nl/2007/10/xml11-rip


[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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