[webdev] Web Design Update: September 12, 2008

Fri Sep 12 15:47:45 CDT 2008

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 7, Issue 11, September 12, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 11 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS
09: TOOLS.
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.

Accessible Forms Using WCAG 2.0
By Roger Hudson.
"This document aims to provide web developers and others with practical 
advice about the preparation of accessible HTML forms. It compares the 
WCAG 1.0 accessibility requirements relating to forms with those 
contained in WCAG 2.0..."
http://www.usability.com.au/resources/wcag2/

Auditory Captchas Web Survey
By University of Washington.
"We are conducting this study to determine the usability and 
accessibility of a new interface to audio captchas. A captcha is a 
computer-generated challenge-response test that is intended to be 
easily solved by a human, but difficult for a computer to solve. 
Captchas are often used to prevent automated software from performing 
unauthorized actions, like creating user accounts or downloading 
software."
http://webinsight.cs.washington.edu/webeval/captchas2/.

Analysis - Target Web Lawsuit: The Six Million Dollar Question
By Majeed Saleh and Dan Jellinek.
"For years the web accessibility community has been waiting for clear 
legal precedent to be set enforcing the accessibility of websites for 
people with disabilities, but to date the wait has gone largely 
unrewarded..."
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=204

Accessibility In Suit And Tie
By Vitamin.
"...this article is for the suits who care: if you can't use 
cutting-edge tools, technologies or techniques, what can you do to 
ensure that you're doing all you can for all of your users? My 
tried-and-tested method is..."
http://tinyurl.com/6oxyke

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Core CSS: Part I
By Molly E. Holzschlag.
"...The first of my three part Core CSS reference is available for free 
download to registered members (registration is free too, of course) 
and there are very stylin' print versions of the cards available as 
well..."
http://refcardz.dzone.com/refcardz/corecss-part1

+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

When Role Playing Doesn't Work: Seven Guidelines for Grounding 
Usability Testing in Participants' Real Lives
By Isabelle Peyrichoux.
"When participants are better able to relate to a task, content, or 
data you are showing them, you'll get richer and more reliable insights 
that will help you to better evaluate and improve your product."
http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000317.php

+04: EVENTS.

International PHP Conference 2008
October 27-31.
Mainz, Germany
http://it-republik.de/php/phpconference/

+05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Information Architecture for Audio: Doing It Right
By Jens Jacobsen.
"Content today is increasingly delivered by audio both online and in 
the real world..."
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/information150

+06: JAVASCRIPT.

Validating ARIA Markup
By Gez Lemon.
"The HTML5 Validator  can be used to validate WAI-ARIA markup."
http://juicystudio.com/article/validating-aria-markup.php

A Few Live Region Examples
By Peter Thiessen.
"I recently posted a few Live Region examples on Code Talks. My end 
goal is to create a list of simple and easy to follow examples for Web 
developers to quickly learn how to apply Live Regions to their apps. 
The examples (with more to come in the near future) include..."
http://blog.overscore.com/?p=12

JavaScript Benchmark Quality
By John Resig.
"JavaScript Benchmarks aren't adapting well to the rapid increase in 
JavaScript engine performance. I provide some simple tests for 
verifying this and propose a modified setup which could be used by all 
JavaScript Benchmarks to achieve high-quality results."
http://ejohn.org/blog/javascript-benchmark-quality/

+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

Christian Heilmann Interview
By Christian Heilmann.
"At dconstruct in Brighton this year the BBC backstage people 
interviewed me about My job and also about Scripting Enabled. Here are 
the videos"
http://scriptingenabled.org/2008/09/bbc-interview/

+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS

Two Thousand Twenty Two
By Jeff Croft.
"Hixie suggests HTML 5 will reach the 'Proposed Recommendation' stage 
sometime in 2022. Go ahead, read it again. It's not a typo. Two 
thousand twenty two. I immediately stopped reading. Didn't even bother 
with the rest of the interview. Why? Because it just doesn't 
matter...while you count the days until HTML 5 is available to you, 
I'll be doing real work, on real websites, which have real users, for 
real clients."
http://jeffcroft.com/blog/2008/sep/11/two-thousand-twenty-two/

The Holy Wars of the Humble alt
By Hallvord R. M. Steen.
"Should the HTML5 specification require ALT attributes for all IMG 
tags? The raging debates on the public-html list seem endless. But 
let's see if we can get an overview..."
http://tinyurl.com/6la3vq

+09: TOOLS.

Color Contrast Comparison
By Joe Dolson.
"This test allows you to compare two colors and test them using the 
color contrast algorithms specified for the Web Content Accessibility 
Guidelines (WCAG) versions 1 and 2."
http://www.joedolson.com/color-contrast-compare.php

Color Contrast Test
By Joe Dolson.
http://www.joedolson.com/color-contrast-tester.php

+10: USABILITY.

Zebra Striping: More Data for the Case
By Jessica Enders.
"As designers or marketers, we share a desire that our tables and forms 
be easy to scan, read, and use. Does the widely practiced shading of 
alternate rows help, hurt, or have no effect? A previous study proving 
inconclusive, designer and researcher Jessica Enders has tackled the 
conundrum again, coming up with statistically relevant data and a set 
of recommendations."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/zebrastripingmoredataforthecase

Look at it Another Way
By Indi Young.
"Before you can solve a user's problems, you must see them as that user 
sees them. Once you understand what drives people's behavior, not only 
do new ideas flow freely, but the ideas that flow are appropriate and 
useful. Indi Young tells how to get out of your own way and hear what 
your users are telling you."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/lookatitanotherway

Marking Required vs. Optional Form Fields
By Erin Walsh.
"In a comparative test, Erin Walsh learned that spelling out that a 
form field is optional works significant better than indicating it with 
some visual means."
http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=32161

Usability Tip: Use Verbs as Labels on Buttons
By Dmitry Fadeyev.
"We're all familiar with the 'OK' and "Cancel' buttons you get on 
dialog boxes. Simple labels that ask us whether we agree or disagree to 
the next action the application wants to take. The interesting thing is 
that using exclamations like 'OK" and 'No' isn't all that usable. 
Instead, you should use verbs. Let me illustrate this with an 
example..."
http://tinyurl.com/55b6le

+11: XML.

Learn about SMIL 3.0 and Test It!
By Karl Dubost.
"SMIL stands for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language. It is an 
XML language which has been designed for creating interactive 
multimedia presentations, including timing and synchronization. For 
example, a fade effect from black to a photograph, or starting an 
animation at the same time than an audio file..."
http://www.w3.org/QA/2008/09/learn-test-smil30.html

[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.

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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.]