[webdev] Web Design Update: June 20, 2008

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 52, June 20, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 52 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
04: JAVASCRIPT.
05: MISCELLANEOUS.
06: PHP.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
07: TOOLS.
09: TYPOGRAPHY.
10: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

WebAIM Hosting TEITAC Content
By Jared Smith.
"Though our partnership with the National Center on Disability and 
Access to Education, I had the great opportunity to sit on the 
Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory 
Committee (TEITAC). The committee made recommended changes to Section 
508 of the Rehabilitation Act and Section 255 of the Telecommunications 
Act..."
http://webaim.org/blog/webaim-hosting-teitac-content/

Web Excessibility
By Mike Cherim.
"They say too much of a good thing isn't all that good. It's true, and 
this fact remains as the statement is applied to web development..."
http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=249

Digital Divide: Mobile Elite Emerges as Ruling Class in Business
By Joanna Bawa.
"The UK may be ahead of most of Europe when it comes to the universal 
provision of flexible working, but still barely a fifth (22%) of 
companies have made provisions for all of their employees to work 
flexibly on a daily basis. This is an ever-increasing risk in a country 
where nearly a third (31%) of employees say they would definitely 
change jobs to get access to flexible working conditions, all other 
factors remaining equal."
http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article4799.asp

Is alt Text Necessary for Photo Sharing Sites?
By Bruce Lawson.
"There is an argument raging right now about the HTML5 spec's proposal 
that alt text on the img element be optional..."
http://tinyurl.com/6ljdn2


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Faux Absolute Positioning
By Eric Sol.
"CSS layout is awesome, except when your layout calls for a header, a 
footer, and columns in between. Use float, and content changes can 
cause columns to wrap. Use absolute positioning, and your footer can 
crash into your columns. Add the complexity of drag-and-drop layouts, 
and a new technique is needed. Enter "faux absolute positioning." Align 
every item to a predefined position on the grid (as with absolute 
positioning), but objects will still affect the normal flow (as with 
float)."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fauxabsolutepositioning

Firefox Developers Accelerate CSS Implementation
By Peter Gasston.
"Firefox 3 isn't quite out yet, but already there are some exciting 
plans for CSS implementation in future versions..."
http://tinyurl.com/3l3nfj

Some new CSS Features in Firefox 3
By David Baron.
"Our developer documentation already has a list of the new CSS features 
in Firefox 3. I'd like to talk in some more detail about some of the 
more interesting or useful ones..."
http://dbaron.org/log/20080613-firefox3-css

HTML vs CSS, Part 2, Navigation Lists
By Niels Matthijs.
"Last time I talked about the balance between html and css, today it is 
time to give you a solid example as to illustrate my point. Hopefully 
this will clear up any remaining doubt left from the first article. 
This article will take a closer look at navigation lists and how an 
extra span + optional extra class can make our css work easier..."
http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/html-vs-css-pt2-navigation-lists


+03: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Wireframes: Struggles and Solutions, Part 1
By Sarah Harrison.
Sarah talks about some of the problems with using wireframes to 
document design decisions and makes a call for examples.
http://sourjayne.com/uxblog/?p=38

Demystifying Information Architecture
By Patrick Kennedy.
"This afternoon I presented my session at WebDU on the topic of 
information architecture for designers and developers. In the 
particular case of WebDU, these designers and developers mostly 
specialize in Flex and Flash."
http://tinyurl.com/5kzwtc

Sketching in Code: the Magic of Prototyping
By David Verba.
"The rise of Ajax and rich internet applications has thrown the 
limitations of traditional wireframing into painful relief. When you 
leave the world of page-based interactions, how do you document all but 
the simplest interactions? Flowcharts and diagrams don't work. 
Prototyping saves the day by focusing on the application and conveying 
its "magic." Prototypes can help you sell a decision that is 
fundamentally or radically different from the client's current solution 
or application. Sit a stakeholder down in front of a working prototype 
and show him or her why your approach is compelling."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sketchingincode


+04: JAVASCRIPT.

A Style All Their Own
By Luke Smith.
"Modifying a DOM element's style during user interaction is one of the 
pillars of creating DHTML interfaces that transition from state to 
state in a smooth, and (hopefully) intuitive way..."
http://yuiblog.com/blog/2008/06/12/a-style-all-their-own/

ARIA Slider, Part 2
By Hans Hillen.
In my previous post I gave an example for a very minimalistic ARIA 
slider, with the intention of demonstrating how simple it is to add 
ARIA using only a few attributes. I know there are some developers out 
there who wishfully think that, in order to make their rich interface 
widgets accessible, all they have to do is add ARIA to it. Others are 
skeptical about ARIA for that very reason. The truth is of course that 
ARIA is only part of the effort, and work is required to make any 
widget accessible (whether you're using ARIA or not). In this post I 
want to cover some of those issues and give an overview of what else to 
think about when creating an accessible slider."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=69

Progressive Enhancement with Ajax
By Jeremy Keith.
"When I was originally writing the DOM Scripting book, its scope was 
very clear - it was to be an introductory work on JavaScript and the 
Document Object Model, with an emphasis on best practices. I made a 
conscious decision not to cover advanced topics like XMLHttpRequest. 
But as the writing of the book progressed, Ajax really began to 
explode..."
http://www.uie.com/articles/hijax/


+05: MISCELLANEOUS.

The Education of Geeks and Freaks
By Tom Green.
"The official title on my business card is 'Professor, Interactive 
Multimedia', and I teach at the School of Media Studies and Information 
Technology at the Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning 
in Toronto. I am willing to bet that a fair few of you reading that 
title will be thinking: 'Those that can, do. Those that can't, teach.' 
I thought I would deal with that one right off the top. I'm used to it 
and it really doesn't bug me. What is bugging me, though, is that if 
Post Secondary Educators don't change their attitude towards you-and 
soon-you are going to find it really hard to find trained staff for 
your businesses..."
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/education_of_freaks_and_geeks

Managing People: Easy, 1-2-3
By Tiffani Jones.
"...If you boil good management down to its essential components, I'm 
sure the following tips would be included. They're not exhaustive, but 
I've found them very helpful over the course of my career. Here goes 
nothin..."
http://blueflavor.com/blog/2008/jun/18/managing-people-easy-1-2-3/


+06: PHP.

Basic Pagination
By Crayon Violent.
"...A basic pagination routine seems long and scary at first, but once 
you close your eyes, take a deep breath, and look at each piece of the 
script individually, you will find it's actually pretty easy stuff..."
http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorial/basic-pagination


+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

When Validation Becomes Unimportant
By Jens Meiert.
"Validation becomes unimportant once you're ahead of the game, and not 
a second earlier. Even then, truly mastering HTML and CSS, it will 
usually be best to stick with valid markup and styling, but fighting 
latency might then mean a by all means legitimate reason to stretch a 
little bit..."
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20080616/validation-unimportant/

@media 2008 Presentation Slides
By Lachlan Hunt
"I have published the slides from my @media 2008 presentation in 
London. Overall, I think the presentation went very well. James Graham 
and I managed to speak for almost an hour about HTML 5..."
http://lachy.id.au/log/2008/06/atmedia-slides


+08: TOOLS.

Surf Right Toolbar
By Royal National Institute of Blind People and Web Accessibility Tools 
Consortium.
"We're very excited to release a beta version of our Surf Right 
Toolbar. The Surf Right Toolbar is designed to make adjusting certain 
options within Internet Explorer quicker and easier, using either the 
mouse or keyboard. Developed by RNIB and the Web Accessibility Tools 
Consortium (WAT-C) the Accessibility Toolbar is a free download and 
currently in beta version. We'd love to hear what you think of it and 
any ideas for additions that you'd like to see by emailing us at 
webaccess at rnib.org.uk."
http://tinyurl.com/63sq49

Tool for Checking HTML Compatibility Guidelines in XHTML
By Olivier Thereaux.
"I am happy to announce the first release of a library/tool which helps 
web authors check for issues of compatibility with legacy HTML 
agents..."
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-html/2008Jun/0007.html


+09: TYPOGRAPHY.

The Paragraph in Web Typography and Design
By Jon Tan.
"Paragraphs are punctuation, the punctuation of ideas. After selecting 
a typeface, choosing the right paragraph style is one of the 
cornerstones of good typography. This is a brief inquiry into paragraph 
style for the Web..."
http://tinyurl.com/6r2zq5

Text Prefs
By message.uk.com.
A text preferences survey "...which aims to answer some fundamental 
questions about usability on the web to put some hard facts into the 
subject, rather than rely on anecdotal evidence and received wisdom 
from the book publishing world."
http://www.message.uk.com/textprefs/
Details:
http://www.message.uk.com/index.php?page=86


+10: USABILITY.

Smart Defaults in Registration Forms
By Luke Wroblewski.
"Ever get an invitation to join a Web site in your Inbox? With the 
increasing popularity of social Web applications, it's getting hard to 
find people who have not. So chances are you know the drill. Get 
invited by a friend via email, then go to the Web site and fill in a 
registration form so you can join. Here's an example of that 
progression on MySpace..."
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?690

User-Centered Design and Usability: Its Role in a Project
By Marco Battilana.
"The role of the User-Centered Design (UCD) process is vital to the 
success of site and/or application development yet it remains something 
of a foreign concept. It is also frequently bundled in with "Usability" 
and tacked on to the end of a project instead of taking its proper 
place as the underlying foundation. So, what is User-Centered Design 
and how should it be applied?..."
http://tinyurl.com/3g6k52

What Color Do You Like? The Usability of Look and Feel (Strategy With 
Icons, Images, Branding Elements)
By Frank Spillers.
"...The graphical or visual aspects of an interface are the most easily 
recognizable. They require no methodology (Graphic design vs usability) 
or design distinctions, (What is design?). Everyone from CEO to 
programmer can understand an interface by it's visual treatment. For 
some the interface is "eye-candy" and for others representative of 
organized emotional response and visual perception. Oftentimes, the 
confusion over who dictates the design can lead to confusion and often 
a gratuitous use of..."
http://tinyurl.com/4ukv3k


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+11: 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 
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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 
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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.]