[webdev] Web Design Update: October 24, 2008

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 7, Issue 17, October 24, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 17 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: DREAMWEAVER.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
09: TOOLS.
10: TYPOGRAPHY.
11: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Obtaining Transcripts (transcribing) Videos and Podcasts
By University of Wisconsin.
"Transcribing for captioning and providing text transcripts for 
multimedia (video, podcasts, etc.) allows the content to be indexed and 
archived so that it is fully searchable. Individuals who are deaf or 
hard of hearing, and anyone with limited or no access to sound output 
also benefit. This includes anyone trying to access the content in a 
noisy environment, and people with missing, broken, or otherwise 
inadequate sound hardware.,,"
http://kb.wisc.edu/accessibility/page.php?id=6428

Accessible YouTube in 4 Easy Steps
By Stuart Johnston.
"With the approach of WCAG 2.0 and the continued rise of user generated 
content, it seems that there is still a lack of appropriate treatment 
for video. The technology for achieving WCAG-happy video exists and 
takes only a little effort to get a big return in added semantic 
value..."
http://tinyurl.com/6lhleu

Announcing the AEGIS Project
By Peter Korn.
"Today I am more than pleased to share with you news of the AEGIS 
project, a 12.6m investment in accessibility, with the vast majority of 
it focused on open source solutions. AEGIS stands for "open 
Accessibility Everywhere: Groundwork, Infrastructure, Standards". It is 
a major research and development investment in building accessibility 
into future mainstream Information & Communication Technologies..."
http://blogs.sun.com/korn/entry/announcing_the_aegis_project_a

The AEGIS Project
"The AEGIS project seeks to determine whether 3rd generation access 
techniques will provide a more accessible, more exploitable and deeply 
embeddable approach in mainstream ICT (desktop, rich Internet and 
mobile applications). This approach is developed and explored with the 
Open Accessibility Framework (OAF) through which aspects of the design, 
development and deployment of accessible mainstream ICT are 
addressed..."
http://www.aegis-project.eu/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Progressive Enhancement with CSS
By Aaron Gustafson.
"In the previous article in this series, we covered the basic concept 
of progressive enhancement; now, we can begin discussing how to use it. 
There are many ways to integrate progressive enhancement into your work 
using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and this article will cover a few 
of the biggies and get you thinking about other ways to progressively 
enhance your sites..."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/progressiveenhancementwithcss

Everything You Know About CSS Is Wrong
By Rachel Andrew.
"Digital Web running a provocative article on CSS techniques? Shurely 
shome mishtake! In this extract from the forthcoming Sitepoint book of 
the same name, Rachel Andrew explains how you can use tables for layout 
in modern web design with a clean conscience.
http://tinyurl.com/58s77m

An Exercise for Emerging CSS Experts: Avoid IDs and Classes
By Jens Meiert.
"To gain more expertise with CSS, there's a great albeit probably 
unsurprising tip to share: Try avoiding IDs and classes altogether. 
That's right, write your markup without any IDs and classes, at all..."
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20081021/exercise-for-emerging-css-experts/

Ending Expressions
By ieblog.
"Design criteria such as standard compliance, performance, reliability 
and security framed the design of IE8 as whole, for new as well as 
existing features. As a result, CSS expressions are no longer supported 
in IE8 standards mode..."
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/10/16/ending-expressions.aspx


+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Getting Started with Dreamweaver CS4
By Mark Fletcher.
"If you're new to Dreamweaver, I have just the answer you are looking 
for to get up to speed fast. I have created a series of interactive 
Adobe Captivate simulations that will help you get started with Adobe 
Dreamweaver CS4. These simulate the Dreamweaver web development 
environment and let you participate as if you were actually using 
Dreamweaver."
http://tinyurl.com/5rsebw

6 Things To Like About Dreamweaver CS4
By Alex Walker.
"Alex road tests the latest edition of Dreamweaver and finds more than 
enough good reasons to justify an upgrade. Some of the cool new 
features include: advanced JavaScript interpretation, a Code Navigator, 
and a more user-friendly interface."
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/things-dreamweaver-cs4/


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Quick and Dirty Usability Testing: Step Away from the Book
By Dana Chisnell.
"People often say to me, 'I want to do usability testing at my company, 
but there isn't time to do it the way it should be done, using all the 
steps in your book. So, since we can't do it 'right,' we don't do it at 
all.' They usually continue by saying how depressing that situation is. 
They're stuck..."
http://www.uie.com/articles/usabilitytesting_dc


+05: EVENTS.

Persuasive 2009
April 27-29, 2009.
Claremont, California, U.S.A.
http://www.persuasive2009.net/


+06: JAVASCRIPT.

13 JavaScript Gotchas
By Estelle Weyl.
"We all know that can trip you up, but there are many that you may not 
know or may have forgotten. Here are a 13 common mistakes that can trip 
you up when coding javascript..."
http://www.evotech.net/blog/2008/10/13-javascript-gotchas/

JavaScript-less Google Maps Looks Like 1998
By Adam DuVander.
"Have you ever tried using Google Maps without JavaScript enabled? The 
experience is straight out of the old school web, but it's remarkable 
that this basic version exists at all..."
http://tinyurl.com/66t9le

JavaScript Will Save Us All
By Eric Meyer.
"Most of the browser development work these days seems to be going into 
JavaScript performance. That's a good thing for CSS3 and HTML5..."
http://tinyurl.com/5run4k


+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

Women in Tech: Shelley Powers
By Virginia DeBolt.
"This is the first of several interviews with women in technology. 
Today you'll learn about Shelley Powers. Shelley is perhaps best known 
as a writer. Her most recent books are Learning JavaScript and Painting 
the Web. She's also a programmer and web developer, and she applies a 
powerful and logical mind to everything she does."
http://www.blogher.com/women-tech-shelley-powers

Standards Suck goes to TPAC 2008 (Video)
By Marcos Caceres.
"Anne, Lachlan, and Marcos will be bringing you coverage from W3C's 
most important event of the year: Technical Plenary / Advisory 
Committee Meetings Week (TPAC). It's basically W3C's social event where 
all the working groups have a chance to intermingle, exchange ideas, 
eat too much and get really drunk! yes, we will have the cameras ready 
to catch all the action."
http://standardssuck.org/standards-suck-goes-to-tpac-2008

Chaals on Web Apps and HTML5 (Video)
By Marcos Caceres.
"Here in Mandelieu Marcos Caceres interviewed Anne's manager on Web 
Apps, being a chair, and RDF & HTML5. Charles McCathieNeville works for 
Opera Software (duh) and is the Chief Standards Officer there. He 
travels around the world promoting standards and discussing them. And 
in some other time he chairs the W3C Web Apps Working Group and edits 
the progress events specification."
http://standardssuck.org/chaals

Alex on CSS and Internet Explorer 8 (Video)
By Anne Van Kesteren.
"I interviewed Alex Mogilevsky here in Mandelieu during TPAC on CSS and 
the new Internet Explorer. Alex is a developer on the IE Team working 
on the new IE8 layout engine. He also participates in the W3C CSS 
Working Group."
http://standardssuck.org/alex

Chris Wilson on Internet Explorer 8 and the W3C HTML Working Group 
(Video)
By Lachlan Hunt.
Since we cannot get enough of the Internet Explorer Team here at 
Standards Suck we had Lachlan Hunt talk with Chris Wilson on his 
perspective of Microsoft's new browser and his W3C HTML Working Group 
chairing hat. As you can see in the background France is still lovely 
which makes you wonder why we sit inside most of the day.
http://standardssuck.org/chris


+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

The De Facto Web
By John Dowdell.
"HTML5 promises to make things more complex and unimplemented, instead 
of focusing on the basics like clicking. The discussion is lengthy and 
not very readable, even for fast-reading native English speakers, and 
is presided over by an uncredited Google staffer with an arbitrary 
manner..."
http://blogs.adobe.com/jd/2008/10/the_de_facto_web.html

MAMA (Metadata Analysis and Mining Application)
By Brian Wilson.
"MAMA is a structural Web-page search engine?it trawls Web pages and 
returns results detailing page structures, including what HTML, CSS, 
and script is used on it, as well as whether the HTML validates. In 
this document, and the ones that link from it, you'll find data that 
has been pulled from MAMA so far. There is a lot of information here, 
but every effort has been made to keep it readable and interesting for 
the various types of people who might be interested in such data."
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/mama/

MAMA: Markup Validation Report
By Brian Wilson.
"Web standards are good for the Web! Most of the readers of this site 
will understand why this statement holds true?ease of maintenance, 
cross platform compatibility, access by people with disabilities, the 
list goes on! But how does the reality of the Web hold up to these 
ideals?..."
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/mama-markup-validation-report/

Opera Study: Only 4.13% of the Web is Standards-Compliant
By Ryan Paul.
"Browser maker Opera has published the early results of an ongoing 
study that aims to provide insight into the structure of Internet 
content. To conduct this research project, Opera created the Metadata 
Analysis and Mining Application (MAMA), a tool that crawls the web and 
indexes the markup and scripting data from approximately 3.5 million 
pages..."
http://tinyurl.com/3n7lgf

Opera: Just 4.13% of Web's Code is Valid
By Josh Catone.
"A new study from Opera finds that the overwhelming majority of web 
sites don't adequately support web standards. The good news is that 
compared to previous studies, more web sites are valid today than they 
were in previous years. The bad news is that just 4.13% of the URLs 
included in the studies sample size - which was over 3.5 million web 
pages - passed the W3C validator..."
http://tinyurl.com/49fba4

Normative References to Moving Targets are Dangerous
By Karl Dubost.
"The work of W3C is sometimes a bit opaque. It is not obvious to people 
outside of the Working Group. You often only read the end result, a 
Working Draft, even sometimes the specification..."
http://www.w3.org/QA/2008/10/normative-references-conformance.html

This Week in HTML 5 - Episode 10
By Mark Pilgrim.
"The big news this week is offline caching. This has been in HTML 5 for 
a while, but this week Ian Hickson caught up with his email and 
integrated all outstanding feedback...And now, a short digression into 
video formats..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/this-week-in-html-5-episode-10


+09: TOOLS.

Captioning Video with 'World Caption'
By University of Wisconsin.
"Captioning video benefits not only deaf and hard of hearing 
populations, but also those learning language e.g, children and English 
as a second language speakers, anyone in a noisy environment, or anyone 
who is searching for web content that is video based....System 
Requirements: World Caption requires Mac OS X version 10.4 or later..."
http://helpdesk.wisc.edu/accessibility/page.php?id=6525


+10: TYPOGRAPHY.

Ubiquitous Web Font Embedding Just Got a Step Closer
By John Allsopp.
Web designers are closer than ever to having the power to embed web 
fonts via standards. But ethical and business problems remain. John 
Allsopp proposes a solution.
http://tinyurl.com/5gqkjv


+11: USABILITY.

The Magic of Metaphor
By Colleen Jones.
"Metaphor teaches. Metaphor influences. Are you drawing on its power? 
Perhaps not, because many major works on writing for interactive 
products make little mention of it. To help encourage better use of 
metaphor, this column describes both the usefulness of shallow 
metaphors and the potential of deep metaphors, while offering tips and 
examples..."
http://uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000341.php

Toward a More Human Interface Device: Integrating the Virtual and 
Physical
By Jonathan Follett.
"As we create our digital lives--communicating and socializing with 
others, collecting content for business and pleasure, building objects 
with software, buying products--we understand that, despite its 
moniker, this existence is only half virtual. While it's a given that 
engaging in our digital experiences requires physical devices, it may 
be less obvious that the input method affects the way in which we 
communicate with our computers-particularly, the way we feel about the 
experience..."
http://uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000338.php



[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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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 
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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.]