[webdev] Web Design Update: February 8, 2008

Fri Feb 8 06:21:20 CST 2008

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 33, February 8, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 33 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: EVENTS.
04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
05: JAVASCRIPT.
06: NAVIGATION.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
08: TYPOGRAPHY.
09: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Alt in HTML5 Required? - To Be or Not to Be
By Steve Faulkner.
"There has been much discussion both within and outside of the W3C 
HTML5 Working Group about the HTML5 editor's decision to make the alt 
attribute optional, to cover those cases where: 'In certain rare cases, 
the image is simply a critical part of the content, and there might 
even be no alternative text available'."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=35

Accessibility Tools for Quality Assurance - Color Contrast
By Martin Kliehm.
"Accessibility testing tools are great for quality assurance (QA), even 
when the website doesn't have to be accessible. For example, color 
contrast is a very subjective thing. It depends on technical factors 
like the quality and settings of the screen, environmental factors like 
glaring sunlight, and the physical abilities of the person viewing it. 
It's literally subjective in the eye of the designer..."
http://learningtheworld.eu/2008/color-contrast-tools/

Assistive Technology - a Video Tour of Accessibility
By Jon Gibbins.
"Getting our own experiences of accessibility inspires us to think and 
validates what we do with accessibility in mind. I've started putting 
together this list of videos that demonstrate accessibility in order to 
help others gain insight into how assistive technology is used, 
particularly with regards to the Web, and its value to those who use 
it..."
http://lab.dotjay.co.uk/notes/assistive-technology/videos/

Helping Others Understand Web Accessibility
By Roger Johansson.
"When I hold workshops for people who want to learn more about web 
standards and accessibility, I often notice that the attendants really 
have tried to improve their accessibility knowledge. But they get 
overwhelmed when they go to the official documentation from the W3C and 
try to understand it..."
http://tinyurl.com/24qszt

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

CSS Reference
By Tommy Olsson and Paul O'Brien.
"Welcome to the SitePoint CSS Reference! We've worked hard to make this 
the most detailed and up-to-date reference on the subject available..."
http://reference.sitepoint.com/css

Font-Based Layouts Becoming Fashionable?
By Alastair Campbell.
"Layouts are becoming an issue again. The (browser) landscape is 
changing, as are the fashion in layouts, but not really in unison. 
Before I continue, I should state that my perspective is not one of a 
visual designer's, so my decisions tend to be weighted towards 
usability and accessibility..."
http://alastairc.ac/2008/02/font-based-layouts-becoming-fashionable/

Sub-Pixel Problems in CSS
By John Resig.
"Something that jumped at me, recently, was a rendering dilemma that 
browsers have to encounter, and gracefully handle, on a day-by-day 
basis with little, to no, standardization..."
http://ejohn.org/blog/sub-pixel-problems-in-css/

CSS Adjacent Sibling Selectors
By Eric Wendelin.
"Among the types of CSS selectors, one that is often overlooked is the 
CSS Adjacent Selector..."
http://eriwen.com/css/css-adjacent-sibling-selectors/

Stay on :target
By Brian Suda.
"In this article, I want to introduce you to a really powerful CSS3 
pseudo selector called :target."
http://www.thinkvitamin.com/features/css/stay-on-target

Come On My Selector, part 2: The Future
By Niels Matthijs.
"Building on my previous article on basic css selectors, I'll continue 
by listing the css selectors that can already be used today, but are 
not yet supported in all browsers. A final article will close this mini 
series on css selectors by focusing on a very nasty IE6 bug..."
http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/css-selectors-pt2

CSS: Selector Variables
By Jens Meiert.
"Especially complex projects suffer from higher cost of selector 
changes, and long sequences of simple selectors do impact the 
understandability and efficiency of style sheets. One solution might be 
selector variables or 'synonyms', a concept I proposed to the CSS 
Working Group yesterday..."
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20080207/selector-variables/

+03: EVENTS.

Usability In Practice: 3-Day Intensive Camp
April 7-9, 2008 in New York, New York, U.S.A.
May 19-21, 2008 in London, United Kingdom.
June 16-18, 2008 in San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
July 21-23, 2008 in Melbourne, Australia.
http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/camp.html

Interaction Design 101 with Bruce 'Tog' Tognazzini
April 7-9, 2008 in New York, New York, U.S.A.
May 19-21, 2008 in London, United Kingdom.
June 16-18, 2008 in San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
July 21-23, 2008 in Melbourne, Australia.
http://www.nngroup.com/events/tutorials/interaction.html

Information Architecture Essentials
April 9, 2008.
Sydney, Australia.
http://www.steptwo.com.au/seminars/080409/index.html

Andy Clarke Workshop
Transcending CSS: Styling For A Beautiful Web
May 14, 2008.
London, United Kingdom.
http://carsonworkshops.com/design-dev/clarke/14May2008.html

Website Makeover: Focusing on Your Visitors' Major Tasks with Ginny 
Redish
May 15, 2008.
Washington D.C., U.S.A.
http://www.usa.gov/webcontent/wmu/spring2008/websitemakeover.shtml

25th Annual HCIL (Human-Computer Interaction Lab) Symposium
May 20-30, 2008.
College Park, Maryland, U.S.A.
http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/soh/

Designing and Writing Forms for the Web
May 29, 2008.
Washington D.C., U.S.A.
http://tinyurl.com/27qsxk

+04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

IA is Not Just About Navigation
By Patrick Kennedy.
"I am always quite surprised, after one of my workshops, when someone 
remarks 'I didn't know there was so much to it! I thought IA was just 
about coming up with the nav'. Whilst I've written recently about the 
many faces of IA, I think there is more to such comments than just a 
different definition of IA being expressed. Probing a bit further, I 
found that these remarks were based on a rather superficial view of the 
work involved. It wasn't obvious, until I ranted for a whole day, that 
it takes a bit of effort to whip up the navigation for a site."
http://www.gurtle.com/ppov/2008/02/01/ia-is-not-just-about-navigation/

+05: JAVASCRIPT.

AJAX and Screen Readers: Content Access Issues
By Steve Faulkner.
The rise in the use of AJAX to dynamically change content without 
refreshing the page has resulted in accessibility problems for users of 
Assistive Technology such as Screen Readers. The problem can be divided 
into two issues."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=15

New WAI-ARIA Working Drafts Published
By Steve Faulkner.
"WAI-ARIA, the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite, defines a 
way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible to people 
with disabilities. It especially helps with dynamic content and 
advanced user interface controls developed with Ajax (also known as 
AJAX), HTML, JavaScript, and related technologies."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=34

JavaScript-Based Injection Attacks
By John Resig.
"The Google Caja team has put forward a fantastic document on 
JavaScript-based injection attacks. This is a fascinating subject and 
one that receives little attention (but will, undoubtedly, receive more 
in the upcoming months and years as JavaScript receives more 
attention)..."
http://ejohn.org/blog/javascript-based-injection-attacks/

Javascript Regular Expressions
By Gareth Heyes.
"Ronald and I had a good conversation about Javascript regular 
expressions comparing them to PHP. He was having difficultly with the 
syntax because he was used to preg in PHP so I promised to share my 
knowledge gained from developing various online scripts..."
http://www.thespanner.co.uk/2008/02/01/javascript-regular-expressions/

+06: NAVIGATION.

Search Behavior Patterns
By John Ferrara.
"A search engine on an organization's website or intranet is often 
built to support an overly narrow model of user behavior, which goes 
something like this..."
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/search-behavior

Better Than Free
By Kevin Kelly.
"Where as the previous generative qualities reside within creative 
digital works, findability is an asset that occurs at a higher level in 
the aggregate of many works. A zero price does not help direct 
attention to a work, and in fact may sometimes hinder it. But no matter 
what its price, a work has no value unless it is seen; unfound 
masterpieces are worthless. When there are millions of books, millions 
of songs, millions of films, millions of applications, millions of 
everything requesting our attention -- and most of it free -- being 
found is valuable."
http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/01/better_than_fre.php

Better Living Through Taxonomies
By Heather Hedden.
"Large websites and intranets can benefit from improved methods of 
search and navigation. These include site maps, A-Z indexes, 
sophisticated search engines, and generally improved navigational 
design-and playing a potential role in all of these methods is 
well-planned taxonomy."
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/better_living_through_taxonomies

Aarron Walter on Findability, SEO, and Web Standards
By An Event Apart.
"...We asked Aarron to explain how proper use of web standards can lead 
to honest and effective search engine optimization (SEO)..."
http://tinyurl.com/35aeud

+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

HTML 5: A Change in Course... Straight for the Iceberg
By Justin James.
"The W3C recently released a working draft specification for HTML 5. In 
its current iteration, this is the worst specification I have ever 
read...It's a shame that the true goals and principles of HTML have 
been thrown by the wayside..."
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/programming-and-development/?p=599

Web Standards Aren't
By Molly E. Holzschlag.
"...What we have today, on the Web, are not standards in the truest 
sense. We are at a time in the evolution of the Web where the idea of 
'standards' is more of a profound misnomer than ever..."
http://www.molly.com/2008/01/31/web-standards-arent/

 From Web Standards Diva to Web Standards Devo
By Molly E. Holzschlag.
"I'm challenging the status quo. I'm just asking that you take a look 
at the semantics of the situation and not be led into a sense of 
comfort that we actually have achieved any semblance of a standard. If 
that were true, all browsers would behave the same way, and my code 
would be just like your code, and every CMS and development software 
would be interoperable, use correct nomenclature, and follow the specs. 
Is that the Web we have? Clearly not. And as we grow and expand both on 
the desktop and into mobile devices, these issues become more 
fragmented, not less..."
http://tinyurl.com/yno3yn

Breaking the Web
By Jonathan Nicol.
"Another nagging doubt I have concerns future versions of Internet 
Explorer. We know that IE8 will use the IE7 rendering engine by 
default, but what of IE 9? IE 10? IE 11? Will these new versions also 
default to IE7 rendering mode, which seems to only way for Microsoft to 
truly adhere to the 'don't break the web' rule? Or will IE9 instead 
default to IE8 rendering mode, IE10 to IE9 rendering mode, and so on? 
If that is the case, all that X-UA-Compatible will achieve is to break 
the web later, rather than sooner..."
http://f6design.com/journal/2008/02/01/breaking-the-web/

+08: TYPOGRAPHY.

Advanced Web Typography
By Josh Pyles.
"Have you noticed some sites using custom fonts and font weights 
without resorting to images or flash? You may have noticed this in 
Panic's beautiful Candybar website (see above). This is a great effect 
for certain fonts such as Helvetica Neue that are included by default 
with OS X that have additional weights other than 'Regular', 'Italic' 
and 'Bold.' Here's how you do it.."
http://pixelmatrixdesign.com/blog/comments/advanced_web_typography/

+09: USABILITY.

User Skills Improving, But Only Slightly
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Users now do basic operations with confidence and perform with skill 
on sites they use often. But when users try new sites, well-known 
usability problems still cause failures."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/user-skills.html

The Need for Speed: Externalize your JavaScripts and CSS
Virginia DeBolt.
"Let's say you have an HTML page that weighs in at 8K. You have some 
CSS that might contain 32K. And you have a couple of JavaScripts that 
are 4K and 12K. That adds up to 56K..."
http://tinyurl.com/ysv5mk

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+10: 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.

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+ 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.]