[webdev] Web Design Update: April 25, 2008

Fri Apr 25 06:15:24 CDT 2008

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 44, April 25, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 44 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: JAVASCRIPT.
05: MISCELLANEOUS.
06: NAVIGATION.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
08: TOOLS.
09: TYPOGRAPHY.
10: USABILITY.
11: XML.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

"Off left" Banned by Google?
By Bob Easton.
"Hidden text can be a spammer's haven...Yes, Google was right. Spam was 
stuffed into hidden text on my site. They were not complaining about my 
accessibility technique."
http://www.access-matters.com/2008/04/19/off-left-banned-by-google/

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Crafting Ourselves
By Eric A. Meyer.
"My referrers lit up recently due to Jonathan Snook's article about CSS 
resets and how he doesn't use them. To Jonathan and all the doubters 
and nay-sayers out there, I have only one thing to say: Good for you..."
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2008/04/17/crafting-ourselves/

Why Reset Style Sheets Are Bad
By Jens Meiert.
"Okay, Jonathan set the pace, Eric countered, a few people carried on, 
and me, officially having announced comprehensive reset and undo style 
sheet criticism in January, feels finally obliged to politely point out 
that reset style sheets are bad: A novice should not use them, an 
expert would not use them..."
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20080419/reset-style-sheets-are-bad/

+03: EVENTS.

Universal Design Workshop
May 21-22, 2008.
Urbana/Champaign, Illinois, U.S.A.
http://courses.cita.uiuc.edu/2day/

+04: JAVASCRIPT.

Where to Include JavaScript Files in a Document
By Robert Nyman.
"Today I thought we'd talk about how, or rather were in the document, 
to include JavaScript files..."
http://tinyurl.com/6gztnk

+05: MISCELLANEOUS.

All Web Directions North Slides and Podcasts Now Online
By Maxine Sherrin.
"There was a whole host of genuinely excellent presentations at Web 
Directions North back in January. The good news for people who weren't 
there is that so many of the presenters were incredibly generous with 
their knowledge and expertise and have allowed us to publish their 
slides and podcasts..."
http://tinyurl.com/4yce3u

+06: NAVIGATION.

Extend the Searchbar with OpenSearch
By Martin Kliehm.
"OpenSearch is known as an open source format to syndicate and 
aggregate search results. It was developed by Amazon / A9 and quickly 
gained support from the big search engines. Their involvement is 
somewhat intimidating - your site's not Google, so who wants to 
syndicate your search results anyway?..."
http://learningtheworld.eu/2008/opensearch/

Managing Taxonomies
By James Kelway.
"Taxonomy creep inevitably occurs to all sites and there is a need to 
be able to monitor and adjust the taxonomies without impacting on the 
user experience or the workflow of the content producers. Here I 
propose to set out a process that businesses can employ that will 
ensure their taxonomies are accurate. That they reflect the industry, 
user groups and business objectives of the site and will utilize their 
web technologies and people available."
http://userpathways.com/2008/04/03/managing-taxonomies/

Benefits of Plain English URLs
By Gadgetopia.
"The plain-english URLs are more memorable to the customer, and they 
impart some meaning. When picking URLs, we envision someone at the 
client's firm reading the URL to someone over the phone. How easy is it 
going to be?..."
http://gadgetopia.com/post/6346

+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Will The Road to HTML 5 Be Rough?
By Mike Cherim.
"...I'm not sweating this transition, I have confidence it'll work 
itself in time. It's just the period in between that I question. I 
suspect conditionally-served style sheets and hacks for IE will 
probably be with us for a while - as long as old models exist. One 
concern I do have, if I can properly read the writing on the wall: Will 
people be saying how antiquated HTML 5 is once it's fully adopted by 
all sites and all user agents, and mostly being properly implemented, 
at around the time some of the web movers and shakers are working 
diligently on HTML 6?"
http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=264

Reverse Ordered Lists
By Lachlan Hunt
"One of the newly introduced features in HTML 5 is the ability to mark 
up reverse ordered lists. These are the same as ordered lists, but 
instead of counting up from 1, they instead count down towards 1. This 
can be used, for example, to count down the top 10 movies, music, or 
LOLCats, or anything else you want to present as a countdown list..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/reverse-ordered-lists

New Image Report Feature in Validator.nu
By Henri Sivonen.
"There have been lots and lots of e-mail on the public-html mailing 
list about making the alt attribute syntactically required in HTML5..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/image-report

+08: TOOLS.

WebAnywhere
By WebInSight.
"A web-based screen reader to provide blind web users equal access to 
the web from any computer without requiring the installation of 
special, expensive software."
http://webinsight.cs.washington.edu/projects/webanywhere/

+09: TYPOGRAPHY.

Simple CSS: Creating More Readable Text
By David Rodriguez.
"Typography is an important part of Web design. Just like in the print 
world, your content needs to be readable to your viewers for it to be 
of any use. As a general rule, you want to make sure your Web site 
provides as little resistance as possible to the user, and the easier 
your site is to read, the better. CSS provides three very useful 
properties to enhance the readability of your site: font, line-height, 
and letter-spacing."
http://www.wpdfd.com/issues/86/simple_css_creating_more_readable_text/

+10: USABILITY.

Expectations and Usability: Habits
By Peter J. Meyers.
This is part two of my series on expectations and usability. I have to 
apologize for originally saying this entry would be about standards. By 
"standards", I meant standard practices, not web standards (W3C, etc.), 
so, to avoid confusion, I've decided to use a broader word: habits. 
When we browse the web, many habits come into play, and just about all 
of them influence our expectations.
http://www.usereffect.com/topic/expectations-and-usability-habits

Press Releases: Spin and Propaganda
By  Gerry McGovern.
"Press releases are a form of propaganda. Publishing them on your 
website shows your customers how you are attempting to spin the 
media..."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-04-21-press-releases.htm

+11: XML.

Do You Know XML?
By Ric Johnson.
"Test you knowledge of XML..."
http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2008/04/do_you_know_xml_1.html

XML Design: Data or Documents?
By Michael C. Daconta.
"The iTunes XML format is an example of dumping a data structure to 
XML. In this post, I examine two examples of this and discuss its 
ramifications to XML design."
http://tinyurl.com/45fcln

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+12: 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.]