[webdev] Web Design Update: March 27, 2009

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 7, Issue 39, March 27, 2009.

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

++ISSUE 39 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: COLOR.
04: DREAMWEAVER.
05: EVALUATION & TESTING.
06: EVENTS.
07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
08: JAVASCRIPT.
09: MISCELLANEOUS.
10: NAVIGATION.
11: PHP.
12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
13: TOOLS.
14: USABILITY.
15: XML.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Accessibility to the Face
By Rob Foster.
"...think a little harder about the people using your product or 
experience and what it might be like for those who may not have all their 
faculties..."
http://northtemple.com/2009/03/24/accessibility-to-the-face

Leveling the Playing Field: We're all Differently Abled
By Joseph C. Dolson.
"Accessibility and web accessibility are often highlighted as issues for 
people with disabilities. This is no surprise, all things considered, 
given the common definition of accessibility. 'Disability' is, however, 
an almost meaninglessly broad term. Many of those who could be considered 
disabled would not choose to self-identify as disabled. 'Disability' is a 
label, and like any label, the members of the labeled group are diverse 
and may exhibit the label in unexpected ways..."
http://tinyurl.com/dztobn

Access Enablement or Accessibility?
By Adrian Sutton.
"...If you're asking yourself 'does my site meet WCAG 2.0?' you're doing 
it all wrong. You should be asking 'is my site accessible?' Just meeting 
WCAG won't necessarily make your site accessible - do it if that's what 
is required to get paid, but don't fool yourself into thinking that it's 
the real aim."
http://tinyurl.com/cy2anm

New Accessibility Guidelines Part II: Operability
By Joseph C. Dolson.
"This article addresses operability, and is part two in a series 
discussing the impact of WCAG 2.0 on your website..."
http://tinyurl.com/dytz2n

Practical Accessibility Tips with WCAG 2.0
By Andrew Tetlaw.
"...As far as building web sites is concerned, I'm with James Edwards 
when he says it's our job as web developers and designers to ensure 
content accessibility..."
http://tinyurl.com/d8pv2n

All Change for WCAG 2.0 Presentation
By Patrick H. Lauke.
Slides from Patrick's talk are available.
http://www.splintered.co.uk/news/111/

Guideline 1.1. Provide Text Alternatives
By Olga Revilla.
"Provide text alternatives for any non-text content so that it can be 
changed into other forms people need, such as large print, braille, 
speech, symbols or simpler language..."
http://tinyurl.com/cphywv

Accessible
By Sam Ruby.
"This blog entry has an image with a text alternative. Who does it 
benefit?..."
http://intertwingly.net/blog/2009/03/20/Accessible

Open Source Accessibility - Making Programs and Content Available to 
Everyone
By Steve Lee.
"Accessibility means ensuring software and content is available to people 
with disabilities such as restricted movement,  blindness or learning 
difficulties and also for those with age related deteriorations like low 
vision or arthritis..."
http://tinyurl.com/dyds3s


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

IE8 Has Arrived
By Aaron Gustafson.
"As you may have heard, yesterday marked the official release of Internet 
Explorer 8. This new version of the oft-reviled browser has a completely 
rewritten rendering engine that was built, from the ground up, with the 
CSS 2.1 spec in hand. Improvements in this version include..."
http://www.webstandards.org/2009/03/20/ie8-has-arrived/

IE8 CSS Support and Rendering Mode
By Estelle Weyl.
"IE8 came out today. I appended the browser support blog post to include 
IE8 CSS Selector support. Most notable is that IE8 Supports all of CSS2.1 
and passes the Acid 2 test..."
http://www.evotech.net/blog/2009/03/ie8-css-support/

CSS Drop Caps Without Unnecessary HTML Elements or Classes
By Neal Grosskopf.
"Drop capitals are commonly seen in newspapers or books. They can be 
identified by looking at the first letter of a paragraph or a page that 
is usually larger than the rest of the paragraph, bolded and often times 
a different font-family..."
http://www.nealgrosskopf.com/tech/thread.asp?pid=41

The Stupidest Style Sheet Name Ever
By Jens Meiert.
"This might irritate some people, however one of the last names you might 
want to pick for your style sheet is 'style.css'."
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20090325/stupidest-style-sheet-name/


+03: COLOR.

Designing for Color Impaired Users
By Wade Preston Shearer.
During some recent testing, we discovered that two of the most critical 
icons in our application failed for color-impaired users. My current 
project is an accounting application which contains many screens that 
utilize a common pattern for adding and removing. This pattern makes use 
of individual icons for each action. The icon for add is a plus symbol 
set within a green circle and the icon for remove is an 'x' set within a 
red circle.
http://northtemple.com/2009/02/07/designing-for-color-impair


+04: DREAMWEAVER.

The Demise of Dreamweaver Has Been Greatly Exaggerated
By Kim Cavanaugh.
"...I disagree with Mr. Arah would be a bit of an understatement as well. 
Let's take a look at some of his central arguments and see where he 
raises valid points and where his thinking goes off the rails..."
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=91D75

 From Table-Based to Tableless Web Design with CSS - Part 1: CSS Basics
By Sheri German.
"Take the first steps towards CSS layouts and away from table-based 
layouts..."
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/table_to_css_pt1.html


+05: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Recalled Behaviour is Not Fact
By Jessica Enders.
"When discussing survey forms, questions about behaviour are often called 
"factual questions" to distinguish them from questions about opinion or 
perceptions. The use of the term "factual" is a misnomer, however, and in 
this article we'll look at why..."
http://formulate.com.au/articles/recalled-behaviour-not-fact/

Why Requirements Stink
Scott Berkun.
"Requirements suck for two major reasons. 1. Requirements is not 
Design...2. Two many cooks..."
http://www.scottberkun.com/blog/2009/why-requirements-stink/

Testing Before You Design
By Wade Preston Shearer.
"In interaction design, we talk a lot about user testing. After we have 
put together some rough prototypes, we like to put them in front of our 
users, give them some scenarios, and observe them attempt to perform some 
predetermined tasks. Something that I think is often overlooked however 
is observing the user using their current system. Most of the time the 
applications that we are designing are replacing current systems-even if 
the 'system' isn't a software application and it is paramount that we 
understand it."
http://northtemple.com/2009/02/07/testing-before-you-design


+06: EVENTS.

WCAG 2.0 Accessibility Webinars for Flash and PDF
March 31, 2009.
April 1, 2009.
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=158
The first PDF & WCAG 2.0 webinar presented is available:
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=180

International Online Conference for Teaching and Learning
March 30-31, 2009.
Online.
http://www.internationalonlineconference.org/

Understanding WCAG 2.0 & Preparing Websites with Improved Accessibility
April 22, 2009.
Perth, Australia
http://www.webindustry.asn.au/ideas5/


+07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Rapid Prototyping Tools
By Dan Harrelson.
"Prototypes as a design deliverable are on the rise, and for good reason. 
I am strong believer that prototyping helps us to design better 
experiences. We are working in a world of rich, dynamic interfaces, both 
on the web and on our devices. The experiences we design are interactive, 
responsive, and have emotion. Prototypes allow us to articulate the 
feeling and function of a design in a way that a wireframe does not. But 
how do you select the best prototyping tool for the job?..."
http://www.adaptivepath.com/blog/2009/03/24/rapid-prototyping-tools/

16 Design Tools for Prototyping and Wireframing
By Gary Barber.
"In recent years the number of tools available to help you document and 
design your web site has just exploded. It seems that we all need a 
wireframing or prototyping tool at our fingertips (at least in the design 
arena). So in order to save you the hard work required to find one, I've 
assembled this list. It can be expanded upon, so if you use an unlisted 
application, please let me know and I'll add it to the list."
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/tools-prototyping-wireframing/


+08: JAVASCRIPT.

Docking boxes (dbx) Version 3.0
By James Edwards.
"Docking boxes (dbx) adds animated drag 'n' drop, snap-to-grid, and 
show/hide-contents functionality to any group of elements."
http://www.brothercake.com/site/resources/scripts/dbx/


+09: MISCELLANEOUS.

Cynthia Waddell, Executive Director of the ICDRI Interview
By ehousestudio.
"Cynthia Waddell, known globally for her tremendous achievements in the 
advancement of web accessibility, spoke with {e} this week. She reflects 
on her career path, her continuous efforts to bring civil rights to 
people with disabilities and clears up some common misconceptions about 
Section 508."
http://tinyurl.com/cw4rc3

Tim Bray on the Future of the Web
"Tim Bray talks about why he is not convinced with the buzz surrounding 
Rich Internet Applications and shares his ideas on Cloud Computing. He 
also expresses his opinion regarding the debate REST vs. WS-* and the 
future directions web technologies will be taking."
http://www.infoq.com/interviews/tim-bray-future-of-web

Don Norman: The Three Ways That Good Design Makes You Happy
"In this talk from 2003, design critic Don Norman turns his incisive eye 
toward beauty, fun, pleasure and emotion, as he looks at design that 
makes people happy. He names the three emotional cues that a 
well-designed product must hit to succeed."
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/don_norman_on_design_and_emotion.html

Let's Find a Way To Do This Right!
By Joe Dolson.
Most new projects come with some kind of baggage. An old version of the 
site with, shall we say, incredible code, an expensive CMS with rotten 
core HTML generation, tools the site owner has fallen in love with which 
fail to offer even a nod in the direction of accessibility, or demands 
for some kind of concept which only barely registers as possible within 
the boundaries of HTTP protocol.
http://tinyurl.com/d4bflm

How Many Webpages Can One Person Manage?
By Gerry McGovern.
"As Microsoft has found out, simply adding content to your website does 
not add value. Indeed, in some situations it actually destroys it. There 
is a real danger that the more webpages you add the worse your website 
becomes."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2009/nt-2009-03-23-webpages-manage.htm


+10: NAVIGATION.

Mega Drop-Down Navigation Menus Work Well
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Big, two-dimensional drop-down panels group navigation options to 
eliminate scrolling and use typography, icons, and tooltips to explain 
the user's choices."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mega-dropdown-menus.html

Modern Sitemap and Footer
By Nick La.
"Back in the old days, almost every website had a sitemap where they 
listed out all the pages. The purpose of the sitemap is to help visitors 
and search engine spiders to find information on the site. Now, a lot of 
modern websites have dropped the sitemap page, instead they place the 
sitemap in the footer area. I'm going to review 20 websites (from big 
corporation to small portfolio sites) who organized their footer cleverly 
to enhance usability..."
http://www.webdesignerwall.com/trends/modern-sitemap-and-footer/


+11: PHP.

The ABC's of PHP Part 3 - Basic Script Building in PHP
By Peter Shaw.
"In this episode we will look at some simple PHP syntax, and we'll write 
a couple of small scripts to get our feet wet, and get a feel for the 
language..."
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/peter_shaw032309.php

Building a Simple Quiz
By Chris Coyier.
"I had to build a quiz for a client a little while ago. A few multiple 
choice questions, submit button, and it grades the quiz and tells you how 
you did. It's kinda dorky and really really simple PHP, but I figure it 
might be a good starter for some folks and a good primer in the basic 
theory of building a form in HTML and dealing with the data on another 
page with PHP..."
http://css-tricks.com/building-a-simple-quiz/

10 Useful PHP Tips Revisited
by Chris Shiflett and Sean Coates.
Last November Smashing Magazine posted an article titled '10 Advanced PHP 
Tips to Improve Your Programming', which was met with many negative 
comments. It seems that many of the tips were either incomplete, or 
directly giving bad advice. To remedy this, they have asked Chris 
Shiflett and Sean Coates to write a rebuttal article which they have 
done. This new article goes into detail of each of the previous 10 
points, explains the issues with the previous suggestions, and then gives 
solid advice on what should be done.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/03/24/10-useful-php-tips-revisited/


+12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

How Educators Can Get the Most from WaSP InterAct
By Virginia DeBolt.
"Educators, this one's for you. The WaSP InterAct Curriculum Framework is 
now available. The curriculum is for high school, community college and 
university level teaching of  Web Design and Development. The focus is on 
using best practices and web standards to create students trained and 
capable in the skills most needed by industry..."
http://tinyurl.com/dysrsl

HTML5 Gallery
By Rich Clark.
"HTML5 gallery has two primary aims, the first is to showcase sites that 
use html5 for markup, so that we can see how people have interpreted the 
specification and how they've implemented it. This leads me on to the 
secondary aim which is to help people learn about html5 and how it should 
be used and how to implement it."
http://html5gallery.com/

Consequences
By John Foliot.
"...if the next generation programming language (that HTML5 seeks to be) 
wishes to be a more mature and robust language, it must also assume the 
responsibility of that maturity..."
http://john.foliot.ca/?p=65

Feeling Cynical about Web Accessibility and Standards?
By Jesse Rodgers.
"...Call it a long winter, annoying problems repeating themselves for 
years, and new experts making the same mistakes..."
http://tinyurl.com/cxgdev

Higher Standards for Web Standards
By Steven Martin.
"...But before touting a new standard or standards organization, vendors 
need to be clear about what specific issue is being solved and hold all 
parties accountable..."
http://tinyurl.com/c4jl95

When is the Right time for Accessibility?
By Derek Featherstone.
"...My feeling - at least right now - is that our job is to ensure that 
accessibility and accessibility architecture is kept in mind from the 
outset of a project/product/technological exploration, but not 
necessarily implemented at the outset..."
http://boxofchocolates.ca/archives/2009/03/22/the-right-time

Accessibility or Standards Compliance?
By Tom Babinszki.
"People often ask me what is more important, creating web sites which are 
fully accessible for people with disabilities, or ones which comply with 
local or national standards. There is a point to doing both, but probably 
a combination of the two works best..."
http://www.evengrounds.com/blog/accessibility-or-standards-compliance


+13: TOOLS.

Accessible Web Video: JW Player Controls
"JW Player Controls is the Flash-based JW FLV Player with a customized 
Accessibility plug-in, wrapped with JavaScript controls from the Dojo 
Toolkit, using SWFObject for Flash embedding, and mostly FamFamFam Silk 
Icons for toolbar icons."
http://www.wac.ohio-state.edu/examples/jwplayercontrols/

Easy SlideShare
By Chris Heilmann.
"Easy SlideShare is an alternative way of reading SlideShare 
presentations. We wanted to make sure that everybody who wants to read 
your presentations on-line can do so - regardless of age, ability and web 
proficiency..."
http://icant.co.uk/easy-slideshare/about/

Easy YouTube
By Chris Heilmann.
"The Easy YouTube Player is an alternative way of watching YouTube 
videos. Instead of simulating YouTube we wanted to make sure that 
everybody who wants to see videos on-line can do so - regardless of age, 
ability and web proficiency..."
http://icant.co.uk/easy-youtube/docs/index.html


+14: USABILITY.

W3C Welcomes Feedback on Redesigned Web Site
By W3C.
"W3C invites public feedback on a beta release of a W3C site redesign. 
The new site features a harmonized design, simplified information 
architecture, new style for technical reports, and new content, including 
calendars and aggregated blogs. W3C welcomes feedback on the usability of 
the site, links to useful information, contributions of content to new 
pages, and bug fixes. Take a 10-minute screencast tour of the site, learn 
more about the redesign, and find out how you can help."
http://www.w3.org/News/2009#item37

The Elegance of Imperfection
By David Sherwin.
"Asymmetry, asperity, simplicity, modesty, intimacy, and the suggestion 
of a natural process: these attributes of elegant design may seem 
relevant only to a project's aesthetics. But the most successful web 
designs reflect these considerations at every stage, from idea to 
finished product. Bring heart to the experiences you create by infusing 
them with intelligence that transcends aesthetics and reflects the 
imperfection of the natural world."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/theeleganceofimperfection

The 10 Most Common Reasons for Poor Usability - Part 1
By Damian Rees.
"...Here's our ten most common reasons for why a product has poor 
usability..."
http://tinyurl.com/ce7tsc

50 Swinish Ways to Annoy Web Users
By Chris Lake.
"I experienced a few issues this morning while browsing around on the 
web. I'm still amazed by some of the issues I chance upon in an average 
day, often on mainstream media websites..."
http://econsultancy.com/blog/3547-50-swinish-ways-to-annoy-web-users

White Space: How to Get it 'Right'
By Mark Boulton.
"Space is important in layout. Space can be created by content - such as 
text, images, lists, logos etc. - or it can be created by the space 
in-between content, called negative space, or whitespace. Space can be 
passive; a by-product of the layout process. Or, it can be active; there 
for a reason, to guide the user's eye, or help them make a decision..."
http://thinkvitamin.com/features/white-space-how-to-get-it-right/

Evolution vs Revolution - Changing your Site's Design
By Peter Merholz.
"I tend not to talk much about web design any more, but my attendance at 
IA Summit 2009 brought a thought to mind. I sat in Jared Spool's talk on 
'Revealing Design Treasures from the Amazon' where he pointed out what 
others can learn from Amazon's design decisions."
http://www.peterme.com/?p=740


+15: XML.

X/HTML 5 Versus XHTML 2
The competition to become the next markup language for the Web is heating 
up. This article takes a look at what's cool and what's uncool about the 
competing technologies.
http://xhtml.com/en/future/x-html-5-versus-xhtml-2/


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+16: 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.]