[webdev] Web Design Update: January 25, 2008

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 31, January 25, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 32 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: JAVASCRIPT.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: NAVIGATION.
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.

Social Networking Sites Lock Out Disabled Users
By AbilityNet.
"Social networking sites may be revolutionizing internet communication, 
and creating new and exciting opportunities in both leisure and 
business, but is this Brave New World as democratic and inclusive as it 
appears?..."
http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/enation85

Empty Links and Screen Readers
By Mike Davies.
"...he most accessible link is one that contains link text. Different 
techniques of hiding links, from no link text, through to hiding by CSS 
can cause an accessibility barrier to screen reader users. Each screen 
reader presented its user with a different set of problems and 
barriers. What follows is a detail description of the test, tabulated 
results, summary of techniques that passed, failed or came close, and a 
list of web development recommendations..."
http://yuiblog.com/blog/2008/01/23/empty-links/

Testing for Accessibility
By Jim Thatcher.
"CalWAC 2008 presentation materials"
http://www.jimthatcher.com/testing0108/

Web Accessibility: The Flip Side of the Coin
By Miraz Jordan.
"In the free-flowing time-space continuum that is ordinary life we all 
benefit from accessible web sites. What's more, with features built in 
to the Mac Operating System, we can bend sites to our will. At warp 
factor 8 we can go for white text on a black background, zoom in, and 
even have the computer read a site aloud. Engage!"
http://tinyurl.com/35fgby

The New Accessigooglability
By Mike Cherim.
"If you told someone they could lose weight if they quit smoking, would 
they be in the wrong or, worse, be a bad person, to quit smoking for 
the sole purpose of losing weight? Let's examine: Losing excess weight 
is a good thing, and so is quitting smoking, right? So does their 
motivation leave something to be desired? I strongly suspect most of 
you wouldn't care one way or the other. The net result will be the 
same, the benefits will be realized regardless of their reasoning, and 
nobody will be hurt by their choice. It's seems that the motivation is 
actually sort of irrelevant. Now let's substitute weight loss with 
search engine optimization (SEO), and quitting smoking with web 
accessibility..."
http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=224


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

CSS Gradient Text Effect
By Nick La.
"Do you want to create fancy headings without rendering each heading 
with Photoshop? Here is a simple CSS trick to show you how to create 
gradient text effect with a PNG image (pure CSS, no Javascript or 
Flash)."
http://www.webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/css-gradient-text-effect/

100% Height Layout Using CSS
By Dave Woods.
"...Within this tutorial, I'll explain how 100% height can be achieved 
cross browser, using CSS..."
http://www.dave-woods.co.uk/?p=144

CSS Floats Without Text Wrap
By Dave Woods.
Understanding floats is extremely important when creating CSS layouts. 
One of the trickiest issues when dealing with floats is stopping text 
from wrapping underneath a floated element. "Within this short 
tutorial, I'll explain how this can easily be accomplished with no 
extra HTML markup required..."
http://www.dave-woods.co.uk/?p=148

A CSS layout that does not rely on DIV, FLOAT, CLEAR nor structural HACK
By Thierry Koblentz.
"This article demonstrates an original solution that addresses 
semantics, construct, and design issues to deliver robust layouts."
http://tjkdesign.com/articles/float-less_css_layouts.asp

Let the CSS WG Know What You Need From CSS3
By David Storey.
"Is there ever a time when you wish CSS allowed you to apply style in 
ways that either are not currently possible, or require hacks and extra 
markup to make it possible? Well now is the chance to let the working 
group know exactly what you want. Bruce Lawson is collecting your 
feedback on the WaSP site. Go there and leave a comment outlining what 
effects you'd like to achieve. You can also leave feedback on the CSS3 
Soapbox..."
http://www.css3.info/let-the-css-wg-know-what-you-need-from-css3/

Tell the CSS WG What You Want From CSS3
By Bruce Lawson.
"With all the tizzy about the CSS Working Group not listening to what 
designers really need, no-one noticed that in December, an invited 
expert to the group asked for such a steer from web professionals..."
http://tinyurl.com/26nko8


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Personas 99% Bad?
By Peter Merholz.
"Over the last few days, I've taken part in (and facilitated parts of) 
an intense workshop meant to define the user experience of a new 
product. In the room we had representatives from pretty much the entire 
team ? software engineers, hardware engineers, industrial designers, 
interaction designers, marketing, brand, and even the CEO..."
http://www.peterme.com/?p=624

Personas and the Advantage of Designing for Yourself
By Joshua Porter.
"...Personas may or may not be necessary in your project. It depends on 
the group of people you're designing with. If you can't communicate 
what you need to without personas, then consider using them. If you 
can't get into the right mind set, consider using them. If you do end 
up creating a persona to get yourself into the right mind set or to 
communicate better with others, great! But that doesn't mean it's the 
right process for other designers and it doesn't mean that someone 
else's personas are right or wrong. Stop defending turf you don't need 
to! If other people do design without using personas, let them. 
Artifacts of the design process are insignificant compared with the 
design artifact itself."
http://tinyurl.com/2edrp2

Personas as Tools
By Joshua Porter.
"Yesterday's piece on personas wasn't really about personas as much as 
it was about tools. Every tool you use has benefits and drawbacks and 
as a designer you need to choose the best tool for the job..."
http://bokardo.com/archives/personas-as-tools/

How to Do Usability Testing Cheap and Fast
By Meryl Evans.
"...When doing on location testing, consider the following..."
http://meryl.net/2008/01/23/how-to-do-usability-testing-cheap-and-fast/


+04: EVENTS.

Ideas 4
January 30, 2008.
Perth, Australia.
http://www.webindustry.asn.au/ideas4/

A Practical Introduction to Website Accessibility
February 20, 2008.
London, United Kingdom.
http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/webintroaccessibility

Rich Media and Latest Trends in Accessibility
February 27, 2008.
London, United Kingdom.
http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/webrichmedia

Hidden Barriers Workshop - Web Access Centre
February 27, 2008.
London, United Kingdom.
http://tinyurl.com/2fmy38

Transitioning from WCAG 1.0 to 2.0 Training Course - Web Access Centre
February 27, 2008.
London, United Kingdom.
http://tinyurl.com/yv33sh

Web Accessibility Training
February 27, April 2, and April 30, 2008.
London, United Kingdom.
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/services/web-accessibility-training.shtml

Intermediate CSS Training
February 28, April 3, and May 1, 2008.
London, United Kingdom.
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/services/css-training-fund.shtml


+05: JAVASCRIPT.

Dangers of Remote Javascript
By Nat Torkington.
"As we move to a widget web, where the goodies on your site may not 
necessarily come from your site, it's worth sparing a thought for 
security. We at O'Reilly just got bit on perl.com, which redirected to 
a porn site courtesy a piece of remotely-included Javascript. One of 
our advertisers was using an ads system that required our pages to load 
Javascript from their site. It only took three things to turn perl.com 
into porn.com: (1) the advertiser's domain lapsed, (2) the porn company 
bought it, (3) they replaced the Javascript that we were loading with a 
small chunk that redirected to the porn site (note that nothing on or 
about perl.com changed). Our first concern was that we'd been hacked 
and "run this remote Javascript" inserted from our servers without our 
knowledge, but that hadn't happened-our change records and RT logs show 
we've had that Javascript and advertiser since May 2006..."
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/01/dangers_of_remo.html

Using Multiple JavaScript Onload Functions
By Lee Underwood.
"When scripts are written they're used to accomplish a given task, such 
as creating a rotating picture gallery, or to validate a form. For each 
task, a separate script is necessary. Often, a script is called using 
an onload function."
http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/onloads/

JavaScript Objects: More on String Methods
By James Payne.
"...In this episode we will continue our discussion of the Object 
String methods and how to use them..."
http://tinyurl.com/29zwnv


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Browser Version Timeline
By Eric Meyer.
"Way back in March of 2007, I moderated a SXSW panel called 'A Decade 
of Style'. As part of the introductory material, I created a 
browser-history timeline in Keynote, spread across two slides. I'd 
always meant to throw it up on the web for general edification and 
reference purposes. So I finally have, in a slightly simplified visual 
format (the original had a parchment-like background and so on)..."
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2008/01/16/browser-version-timeline/


+07: NAVIGATION.

Advancing Advanced Search
By Stephen Turbek.
"Advanced search is the ugly child of interface design -always 
included, but never loved. Websites have come to depend on their search 
engines as the volume of content has increased. Yet advanced search 
functionality has not significantly developed in years. Poor matches 
and overwhelming search results remain a problem for users. Perhaps the 
standard search pattern deserves a new look. A progressive disclosure 
approach can enable users to use precision advanced search techniques 
to refine their searches and pinpoint the desired results..."
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/advancing-advanced

When Search Words are Misleading
By Gerry McGovern.
"The words people use when searching are not always a true reflection 
of what they're really looking for."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-01-21-carewords.htm


+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

HTML 5
By Ian Hickson, editor.
Public review and comments from outside the Working Group are needed, 
especially in regard to accessibility features. "...to make comments 
regarding this document, please send them to 
public-html-comments at w3.org...All feedback is welcome...The publication 
of this document by the W3C as a W3C Working Draft does not imply that 
all of the participants in the W3C HTML working group endorse the 
contents of the specification..."
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/

HTML 5 Comments archive:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-comments/

HTML 5 Differences from HTML 4
By Anne van Kesteren, editor.
Again, the forum for comments is public-html-comments at w3.org.
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/

Simple Things Make Firm Foundations
By Tim Berners-Lee.
"...Let us try, as we make new technology, or plan a path for old 
technology, always to keep things as clean as we can."
http://www.w3.org/QA/2008/01/modularity.html

Compatibility and IE8
By Chris Wilson.
"In Dean's recent Internet Explorer 8 and Acid2: A Milestone post, he 
highlighted our responsibility to deliver both interoperability (web 
pages working well across different browsers) and backwards 
compatibility (web pages working well across different versions of IE). 
We need to do both, so that IE8 continues to work with the billions of 
pages on the web today that already work in IE6 and IE7 but also makes 
the development of the next billion pages (in an interoperable way) 
much easier. Continuing Dean's theme, I'd like to talk about some steps 
we are taking in IE8 to achieve these goals."
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/01/21/compatibility-and-ie8.aspx

MANY MORE articles on the compatibility and IE8 topic:

Beyond DOCTYPE: Web Standards, Forward Compatibility, and IE8
By Aaron Gustafson.
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/beyonddoctype

Bobbing Heads and the IE8 Meta Tag
By Shelly Powers.
http://tinyurl.com/2b8cms

Broken
By Jeremy Keith.
http://adactio.com/journal/1402

Doctype Switch 2.0
By David Dorward.
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/2008/01/23/doctype-switch-2.0.html

End of line Internet Explorer
By Mike Davies.
http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/standards/EndOfLineInternetExplorer

 From Switches to Targets: A Standardista's Journey
By Eric Meyer.
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fromswitchestotargets

IE8 and Opt-In Versioning Mechanism
By Karl Dubost.
http://www.w3.org/QA/2008/01/ie8-versioning-mechanism.html

Has Internet Explorer Just Shot Itself in the Foot?
By Andy Budd.
http://www.andybudd.com/archives/2008/01/has_internet_ex/

IE8 and the Future of the Web
By Rachel Andrew.
http://tinyurl.com/2fnfm6

In Defense of Version Targeting
By Jeffery Zeldman
http://www.zeldman.com/2008/01/22/in-defense-of-version-targeting/

<META HTTP-EQUIV="X-BALL-CHAIN">
By Robert O'Callahan.
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roc/archives/2008/01/post_2.html

Meta Madness
By John Resig.
http://ejohn.org/blog/meta-madness/

Microsoft Koan
By Mark Pilgrim.
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2008/01/23/microsoft-koan

Mistakes, Sadness, Regret
By Ian Hickson.
http://ln.hixie.ch/?start=1201080691&count=1

Not Your Father's Standards Switch
By Jeffery Zeldman.
http://www.zeldman.com/2008/01/22/not-your-fathers-standards-switch/

Standards Mode is the New Quirks Mode
By Roger Johansson.
http://tinyurl.com/37pmdd

Sunsetting Quirks Mode
By Sam Ruby.
http://intertwingly.net/blog/2008/01/23/Sunsetting-Quirks-Mode

The Importance of Being HTML5
By Jonathan Snook.
http://snook.ca/archives/browsers/importance_of_being_html5/

The Internet Explorer Lock-In
By Anne Van Kesteren.
http://annevankesteren.nl/2008/01/ie-lock-in

The Versioning Switch is Not a Browser Detect
By Peter-Paul Koch.
http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2008/01/the_versioning.html

Version Targeting in IE 8, and an Alternative Path for Microsoft
By Robert Nyman.
http://tinyurl.com/25rwvz

Version Two
By Eric Meyer.
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2008/01/23/version-two/

Versioning, Compatibility and Standards
By Maciej Stachowiak.
http://webkit.org/blog/155/versioning-compatibility-and-standards/


+09: TOOLS.

Introducing WAVE 4.0
By Jared Smith.
" WebAIM is pleased to announce the release of WAVE 4.0. We invite you 
to test WAVE and provide feedback, recommendations, and bug reports on 
this beta version at this time..."
http://webaim.org/blog/introducing-wave-4/

NVDA (Non Visual Desktop Access) - a free and open source screen reader 
for Windows
By Steve Faulkner.
"...If you do want to experiment with a screen reader, rather than 
paying out large amounts of cash, why not try one of the free screen 
readers that are available such as NVDA (Non Visual Desktop Access), a 
free and open source screen reader for Windows..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=23


+10: TYPOGRAPHY.

Typography: Where Engineers and Designers Meet
By Jeff Atwood.
"Over the Christmas break, my wife and I visited New York City for the 
first time. One of the many highlights of our trip was the Museum of 
Modern Art, which is running a year-long special exhibit, 50 Years of 
Helvetica. It's a tiny exhibit tucked away in a corner of MoMA. Blink 
and you'll miss it amongst all the other wonderful art. But even a 
small exhibit provides ample physical evidence that Helvetica-- a 
humble font, nothing more than a collection of mathematical curves 
shaped into letterforms-- had a huge impact on the world..."
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001038.html


+11: USABILITY.

Strategic Usability: What Do People Want?
By Peter J. Meyers.
"Usability is not one tool or technique. I'm constantly frustrated by 
the attitude among some specialists that their particular area of 
expertise or favorite tool holds the one-and-only secret to the 
ultimate user experience..."
http://www.usereffect.com/topic/strategic-usability-what-do-people-want

What Makes a Good Form?
By Formulate.
"So you have a form, and you want to make it 'good'. Where do you 
start?..."
http://formulate.com.au/articles/what-makes-a-good-form/

Usability ROI Declining, But Still Strong
By Jakob Nielsen.
"The average business metrics improvement after a usability redesign is 
now 83%. This is substantially less than 6 years ago, but ROI remains 
high because usability is still cheap relative to gains."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/roi.html

Bad UI of the Week: Read This (OK/Cancel)
By David Chisnall.
"David Chisnall explores some of the problems with the ubiquitous 
dialog box, and how it is commonly abused by developers. Would you like 
to know more?"
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1146301

Bad Usability Calendar
By Netlife Research.
"It's here; a new edition of the (in)famous Bad Usability Calendar. The 
past three calendars have all been successful in distributing examples 
of bad design around the world. Check out the fresh examples of 
exaggerated use fancy Web 2.0 design, cover flow, personalization, 
pull-down menus and more..."
http://www.badusability.com/

Hockey Sticks and User
By Mike Hughes.
"...If you are going to do less, you must make sure you are focusing on 
those things that add the most value. And that brings the hockey stick 
curve into play."
http://uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000263.php


+12: XML.

Support for XHTML in 2008
By David Dorward.
"XHTML has been one of my pet hates for a while, and I've ranted about 
it at length. This isn't going to be another one of my rants made up 
mostly of pointing to different specifications and complaining about 
the holes in them (although I'm tempted)."
http://blog.dorward.me.uk/2008/01/23/xhtml-and-google.html

SVG On Acid?
By Doug Schepers.
"ACID3, that is. Most of you will have heard of the ACID tests put 
together by the Web Standards Project in order to promote 
interoperability among browsers. Microsoft recently made a hit in the 
blogosphere by announcing that the next version of their browser, IE8, 
passed the ACID2 test, showing their commitment to Web standards. Ian 
Hickson, who wrote the second ACID test, is now working on ACID3. He 
recently started a contest to get contributions from the community on 
what features they want tested..."
http://www.w3.org/QA/2008/01/svg_on_acid.html


[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.]