[webdev] Web Design Update: March 6, 2009

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 7, Issue 36, March 6, 2009.

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

++ISSUE 36 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: FLASH.
07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: NAVIGATION.
10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
11: USABILITY.


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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

CAPTCHAs, CAPTCHAs Everywhere
By Jim Thatcher.
"The whole CAPTCHA issue is a can of worms. They are appearing more 
frequently by the day, whether to sign up for email accounts or to play 
games. To avoid spam (they assert) some have added CAPTCHAs to the 
process of commenting on Blog entries. The letters stand for "Completely 
Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart". The 
name was coined by folks at Carnegie Mellon University in 2000. The basic 
idea goes back to Alan Turing which revolves around the idea of 
distinguishing a human from a computer. The idea of CAPTCHAs as they are 
used today simple enough. Here are some samples and some complaints..."
http://jimthatcher.com/captchas.htm

Are Negative CAPTCHAs Any More Accessible?
By Glenda Watson Hyatt.
"Are negative CAPTCHAs any more accessible? Are they an appropriate 
alternative to the distorted characters in images used for blocking 
spam?..."
http://tinyurl.com/ad2wsd

GOALS
By National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE) and 
WebAIM.
"Project Gaining Online Accessible Learning through Self-study (GOALS) is 
developing materials to help post secondary education improve web 
accessibility through system-wide efforts. Below is a draft of 4 
statements that, if present at a campus level, would "indicate" an 
institutional climate that can foster and maintain web accessibility 
efforts. Each of these indicators is defined by a series of benchmarks 
and each benchmark has examples of the types of evidence an institution 
would have if they attained a particular benchmark..."
http://ncdae.org/goals/indicators.cfm
Send comments or suggestions on Best Practice Indicators for 
Institutional Web Accessibility (Draft) to Cyndi Rowland.
http://ncdae.org/goals/indicators.cfm

Understanding Web Accessibility Obstacles
By Mike Cherim.
"...lists of resources that can help you gain better understanding of 
disabled users, the web accessibility obstacles they have to put up with, 
and the equipment they use..."
http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=345

Bull in a Caption Shop
By Joe Clark.
"...There's a proposal floating around for yet another 
captioning/subtitling file format. This one has three strikes against it 
- it comes from Google; it's linked to the ill-named, non-starter video 
format, Ogg, that nobody wants; and it is, furthermore, linked to 
HTML5..."
http://blog.fawny.org/2009/03/01/google-ogg/

Rethinking Web Accessibility for E-Learning
By Brian Kelly.
"Why would we want to rethink Web accessibility in an elearning context? 
Surely application of WAI's WCAG guidelines will provide universal 
accessibility? And the recently released WCAG 2.0 guidelines should 
improve things further."
http://tinyurl.com/afykwk

Mobile Accessibly
By Mobile Manufacturers Forum.
"The Global Accessibility Reporting Initiative (GARI) project was 
developed to provide a central information source to learn about 
accessibility in mobile devices. On this website you can learn about the 
various features that a phone may have and link through to manufacturers 
websites for specific information on particular models."
http://mobileaccessibility.info/index.cfm


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Hiding Content for Screen Readers
By Jared Smith.
"For years WebAIM has recommended a specific technique for hiding content 
visually, but allowing it to be read by screen readers. This involved 
using CSS to position the content above the top of the page. It has now 
been brought to our attention that if the off-screen content contains a 
focusable element (a link or form element), that the web browser will 
attempt to scroll to this element when it receives focus - thus scrolling 
to the top of the page. This could be confusing for sighted keyboard 
users."
http://webaim.org/blog/hiding-content-for-screen-readers/

When to Separate Style Sheets
By Jens Meiert.
"Three factors influence whether or not it makes sense to use separate 
style sheets: Probability, meaning (aka semantics), and granularity. As 
I'm a bit thinking aloud, and as this is yet another guerrilla post ?, 
refinement of these thoughts might be pending."
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20090305/separate-style-sheets/

Fluid Grids
by Ethan Marcotte.
"How awesome would it be if you could combine the aesthetic rigor and 
clarity of fixed-width, grid-based layouts with the device- and screen 
size independence and user-focused flexibility of fluid layouts? 
Completely awesome, that's how awesome. And with a little cunning and a 
tad of easy math, ALA's Ethan Marcotte gets it done. We smell a trend in 
the offing."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fluidgrids

Building HTML/CSS Sites: Use a Template
By Stefan Vervoort.
"If you are developing HTML/CSS websites with occasionally a little bit 
of JavaScript (just like myself), it can be very un-productive to write 
your basic codes over and over again. For example, if you want to include 
a JS file for your dropdowns, a CSS framework file and print CSS files 
every time you start working on a new project, you better read this 
article for some time-solving solutions..."
http://tinyurl.com/ccta2r

Object Oriented CSS
By Nicole Sullivan.
"How do you scale CSS for millions of visitors or thousands of pages? 
Nicole first presented Object Oriented CSS at Web Directions North in 
Denver. Since then, the response has been overwhelming. OOCSS allows you 
to write fast, maintainable, standards-based front end code. It adds much 
needed predictability to CSS so that even beginners can participate in 
writing beautiful websites..."
http://wiki.github.com/stubbornella/oocss

13 Reasons Why CSS Is Superior to Tables in Website Design
By Matt Jurmann.
"For the past few days, we've been scouring the web searching for the top 
13 reasons why Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are superior to table-based 
layouts when designing a website..."
http://tinyurl.com/apqm96

Vertical Centering With CSS
By Douglas Heriot.
"There are a few different ways to vertically centre objects with CSS, 
but it can be difficult to choose the right one. I'll show you all the 
best ways I've seen and also how to create a nice little centered 
website..."
http://blog.themeforest.net/tutorials/vertical-centering-with-css


+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Fast Publishing of RDFa with Dreamweaver
By David Peterson.
"One of the biggest hurdles in adopting any new technology is the 
availability of good tools to work with. RDFa has suffered from that for 
too long. So it was with much enthusiasm that I read this morning of the 
launch of an RDFa extension for Dreamweaver version 8 to CS4. This is 
great news as it hasn't been the easiest to publish RDFa by hand."
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/03/05/publish-rdfa-with-dreamweaver/


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Consensus on Observations in Real Time: Keeping a rolling list of issues
By Dana Chisnell.
"Design teams often need results from usability studies yesterday. Teams 
I work with always want to start working on observations right away. How 
to support them while giving good data and ensuring that the final 
findings are valid?.."
http://tinyurl.com/bqza6r

Looking for Love: Deciding What to Observe For
By Dana Chisnell.
"Last winter I worked with a team that wanted to find out whether a 
prototype they had designed for a new intranet worked for users. Their 
new design was a radical change from the site that had been in place for 
five years and in use by 8,000 users. Going to this new design was a big 
risk. What if users didn't like it? Worse, what if they couldn't use 
it?..."
http://tinyurl.com/ces9kp

Thinking Inside the Right Box: Developing Tasks for Usability Test 
Participants
By Dana Chisnell.
"One question I get in workshops on usability testing is How do I get 
participants to do the tasks I want them to do?..."
http://tinyurl.com/bvnpfp

Yes or No: Make your Recruiter Smarter
By Dana Chisnell.
"Basically what we're talking about is giving your recruiter enough 
literacy in the domain you're in to be intelligent when screening rather 
than a human SurveyMonkey..."
http://tinyurl.com/7fg2wx

Project GOALS Evaluates 100 Pages in Higher Education for Accessibility 
against Section 508 Standard
By National Center on Disability and Access to Education (NCDAE) and 
WebAIM.
"Of the 100-page sample, 97% contained accessibility errors..."
http://ncdae.org/community/newsletter/april2008/#eval508


+05: EVENTS.

CSUN Technology & Persons with Disabilities Conference Tweetup
(Event will be webcast and real-time captioned.)
March 18, 2009.
Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
http://csuntweetup.com/

Higher Ed Experts' Webinar Series
March 24-26, 2009.
Online
http://tinyurl.com/55jzd3

The Chronicle Technology Forum
April 5-7, 2009.
Arlington, Virginia, U.S.A.
http://chronicle.com/technologyforum/

Technical Communication Summit 2009
May 3-6, 2009.
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.
http://conference.stc.org/

Max Design CSS and Accessibility
May 28-29, 2009.
Brisbane, Australia
http://maxdesign.com.au/workshop2009

Workshop on Human Computer Interaction (WoHCI 2009)
July 20-24, 2009.
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
http://conferences.computer.org/compsac/2009/workshops/WOHCI2009.htm

UX Australia 2009
August 25-27, 2009.
Canberra, Australia
http://www.uxaustralia.com.au/conference-2009


+06: FLASH.

Adobe Flash - pros and cons
By Robert Nyman.
"It seems to be a constant fight whether to use Adobe Flash in web pages, 
so I thought I'd share my views on it..."
http://www.robertnyman.com/2009/03/02/adobe-flash-pros-and-cons/


+07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

The Elements of Social Architecture
By Christina Wodtke.
"While our designs can never control people, they can encourage good 
behavior and discourage bad. In this excerpt from Information 
Architecture: Blueprints for the Web 2nd Edition, Christina Wodtke tells 
us how to make products that delight people and change their lives by 
remembering the social in social architecture..."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/theelementsofsocialarchitecture

Card Sorting - Downloads
By Syntagm.
"This page has the downloads you need you need to start printing and 
processing card sorts."
http://www.syntagm.co.uk/design/cardsortdl.shtml


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

An Interview with CSS Guru Christopher Schmitt
By Karlyn Morissette.
"Today I'm bringing you my interview with author, speaker and CSS Guru 
Christopher Schmitt..."
http://tinyurl.com/dfvuy8

See Me Speak
By Jeremy Keith.
"While I was in Nashville for the Voices That Matter conference, I sat 
down for an enjoyable little chat with Nikki McDonald. It began with a 
discussion of my uncanny resemblance to Severus Snape before moving on to 
more webby matters..."
http://adactio.com/journal/1556


+09: NAVIGATION.

Old News Reduces Search Results Quality
By Gerry McGovern.
"News shouldn't be kept on a website longer than one month. After
that it only gets in the way..."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2009/nt-2009-03-02-news-search.htm

The Dos and Don's of Website Navigation Usability
By Matt Jurmann.
"Having poor website usability is like driving your car without a map 
through an area that you've never visited before. Unless you have an 
incredible aptitude for finding your way around, you're going to get 
lost."
http://tinyurl.com/byt6ro

Simple Scalable CSS Based Breadcrumbs
By Veerle Pieters.
"A few days ago I was implementing breadcrumbs in a website I'm working 
on. Not that I sincerely believe every site needs this, but on some 
occasions and to some users breadcrumbs are practical. Anyhow, it gave me 
the idea to write an article about it because it's been a while since I 
last wrote about anything CSS-related. The one I'll share with you is a 
very simple one. It uses only one simple graphic. The rest is basic CSS 
styling with an unordered list as HTML code..."
http://tinyurl.com/cuvqhx


+10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Lost in Translation
By Henny Swan.
"Opinions are split on whether the battle for web standards in won or not 
with many claiming that web standards are now no longer the vanguard but 
mainstream. Awareness is higher, laws exist to reinforce it and there is 
a good grass roots army of developers out there who will do their 
darnedest to built accessible standards compliant websites..."
http://www.iheni.com/lost-in-translation/

The Road to HTML 5: spellchecking
By Mark Pilgrim.
"The feature of the day is spell checking, by which I mean client-side 
in-browser checking of text in standard <textarea> and <input type=text> 
elements..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/the-road-to-html-5-spellchecking

The Road to HTML 5: contentEditable
By Mark Pilgrim.
"The feature of the day is contentEditable, by which I mean client-side 
in-browser "rich text" editing. All major browsers support this now, 
including Firefox 3, Safari 3, Opera 9, Google Chrome, and Internet 
Explorer (since 5.5). Of course, the devil is in the details..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/the-road-to-html-5-contenteditable

Web Standards Test: Top 100 Sites
By Jeffrey Zeldman.
"While working on the third edition of Designing With Web Standards, I 
decided to visit Alexa's Top 100 US Sites to see how many of the top 100 
use valid markup, how many nearly validate (i.e. would validate if not 
for an error or two), and which DOCTYPEs predominated..."
http://www.zeldman.com/2009/03/05/web-standards-test-top-100-sites/


+11: USABILITY.

Forget the mobile web: One site should work for all
By Bruce Lawson.
"...Usability guru Jakob Nielsen wrote on his useit.com site recently: 
'Mobile-phone users struggle mightily to use websites, even on high-end 
devices. To solve the problems, websites should provide special mobile 
versions.' He's wrong..."
http://tinyurl.com/bdfloe

Readability
By lab.arc90.
"Reading anything on the Internet has become a full-on nightmare. As 
media outlets attempt to eke out as much advertising revenue as possible, 
we're left trying to put blinders on to mask away all the insanity that 
surrounds the content we're trying to read...
http://lab.arc90.com/2009/03/readability.php

Website Aesthetics - What Has It Got To Do With Usability?
By Alistair Gray.
"...There needs to be a closer working relationship between design and 
user experience. Aesthetics and usability support each other and when 
they work together they can be the difference between a good website and 
a first-rate one."
http://tinyurl.com/dflk9k


[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 
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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 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.]