[webdev] Web Design Update: May 29, 2009

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 7, Issue 48, May 29, 2009.

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

++ISSUE 48 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: FLASH.
04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
05: JAVASCRIPT.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
08: TYPOGRAPHY.
09: USABILITY.


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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Accessibility and Hierarchies of Impairment
By Sarah Lewthwaite.
"...Much accessibility research focuses strongly on achieving 
accessibility for people with mobility, sensory and some text 
impairments - this is clearly important work, however, it does not 
represent the totality of necessary accessible practice..."
http://tinyurl.com/qlfel3

Accessibility of MakingHomeAffordable.gov
By Jim Thatcher.
"MakingHomeAffordable.gov is a fairly simple site. It should be easy to 
use for people with disabilities, to access information and interact 
with the site. The suggestions provided here will make that happen. 
Without following these suggestions, people with disabilities will have 
serious difficulty interacting with the site. The following are the 
areas that need attention..."
http://jimthatcher.com/making.htm

Accessibility of Data.Gov
By Jim Thatcher.
"This is the fourth in a series of reports on the accessibility of 
Obama Administration web sites. I believe that, during the campaign, 
when then candidate Obama said he wanted a campaign accessible to all, 
he meant it. Had he known how difficult it was for some people with 
disabilities to access his campaign web site, he would have insisted it 
be fixed. Now I think the same for the new administration web sites. 
They must be, in my opinion, models of accessibility..."
http://jimthatcher.com/data.htm

Web Accessibility - The Next Generation
By Mark Greenfield.
"...The goals for this project are to teach the students about people 
with disabilities and how they use computers, teach the basics on how 
to create a web site with an emphasis on accessibility, and have the 
students help me create a new site for Rachael that will be fully 
accessible..."
http://www.markgr.com/web-accessibility-the-next-generation/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Styling Elements of Nested HTML Lists
By: Alejandro Gervasio.
"Welcome to the second part of a three-part series on designing with 
nested HTML lists. This series shows you how to nest HTML lists by 
using a hands-on approach, and demonstrates how to use them for 
building standards-compliant drop-down menus..."
http://tinyurl.com/qjp32d

Floats, Clears, and Color Flashes
By Jeffery Zeldman.
"I'd read about using ':after' clearing but hadn't implemented it and 
thought I could solve the problem an easier way. This afternoon, with 
about five minutes' work, I did so."
http://www.zeldman.com/2009/05/22/floats-clears-and-color-flashes/

CSS Quick-Question Edition
By Chris Coyier.
"This is our sixth installment of Ask SM, featuring reader questions 
about Web design focusing on HTML, CSS and JavaScript. These entries 
are not all questions, but rather quick Twitter responses to the query, 
'What has been your most difficult CSS challenge?'"
http://tinyurl.com/pr4kpv

The CSS Overflow Property
By Chris Coyier.
"Every single element on a page is a rectangular box. The sizing, 
positioning, and behavior of these boxes can all be controlled via 
CSS..."
http://css-tricks.com/the-css-overflow-property/

Creating Intrinsic Ratios for Video
By Thierry Koblentz.
"Did you ever want to resize a video on the fly, scaling it as you 
would an image? Using intrinsic ratios for video, you can. This 
technique allows browsers to determine video dimensions based on the 
width of their containing block. With intrinsic dimensions, a new width 
triggers a new height calculation, allowing videos to resize and giving 
them the ability to scale the same way images do..."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/creating-intrinsic-ratios-for-video/

Transform your Text With text-transform
By Lorraine Nepomuceno.
"Text-transform is an incredibly useful CSS property, yet also one of 
the most underused..."
http://www.devlounge.net/design/transform-your-text-with-text-transform

Apple's Navigation Bar Using Only CSS
By westciv.
"In this article we are going to make the toolbar below, using nothing 
but HTML and CSS. If it doesn't look overly impressive, then you aren't 
using Safari 4. I've not written this to show you something you can use 
in every browser today (though as we shall see it degrades gracefully 
in browsers that don't support various CSS3 features), but to show what 
will soon be possible, and coming down the pipelines of CSS in real 
live browsers."
http://tinyurl.com/qhyrp4


+03: FLASH.

HTML5 Spell Death to Flash?
By Remy Sharp.
"The web community has gone loopy over Google announcing they're 
supporting HTML5 in a big way, particularly and almost specifically 
because of the YouTube to demo using the video tag (I'll add: rightly 
so)..."
http://remysharp.com/2009/05/28/html5-spell-death-to-flash/


+04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

How Site Personas Can Enhance Your Site
By Paul Boag.
"If your website was a person, what type of person would it be?..."
http://boagworld.com/site-content/site-personas

All About Card Sorting: An Interview with Donna Spencer
By Steve Baty.
"Donna Spencer is one of Australia's best-known information architects, 
organizer of the UX Australia conference, and a frequent presenter at 
UX conferences in Australia, the US, and Europe. I caught up with Donna 
between her appearances at the IA Summit and RedUX DC to talk about 
card sorting and her new book, Card Sorting: Designing Usable 
Categories, which Rosenfeld Media recently published."
http://tinyurl.com/pmau3a


+05: JAVASCRIPT.

Comparison of ARIA Roles Exposed via MSAA and UI Automation in IE8
By Steve Faulkner.
"The Microsoft MSAA API cannot provide mapping for all ARIA roles as it 
does not have defined roles and properties for all those defined by The 
ARIA specification, the Microsoft UI Automation API can. UI automation 
provides exposure of all WAI-ARIA roles and properties via the 
ControlType and AriaRole properties..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=241

ECMAScript 5 Strict Mode, JSON, and More
By John Resig.
"Previously I analyzed ECMAScript 5's Object and Property system. This 
is a huge new aspect of the language and deserved its special 
consideration. There are a number of other new features and APIs that 
need attention, as well. The largest of which are Strict Mode and 
native JSON support..."
http://ejohn.org/blog/ecmascript-5-strict-mode-json-and-more/

Developing an Accessible Web 2.0 Widget Framework
By Eric Miraglia.
"As we continue to work on YUI 3, we're thinking hard about 
accessibility. And no one here is thinking harder about that topic than 
Todd Kloots, who has authored a variety of blog posts on the subject as 
well as presenting a comprehensive tech talk on the art and science of 
accessible development..."
http://yuiblog.com/blog/2009/05/22/video-kloots-a11y/


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Burnout
By Scott Boms.
"Web professionals are often expected to be 'always on'-always working, 
absorbing information, and honing new skills. Unless our work and 
personal lives are carefully balanced, however, the physical and mental 
effects of an "always on" life can be debilitating..."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/burnout/

Interview - Jeffrey Zeldman
By net.
"Jeffrey Zeldman could be called the godfather of web standards. Oliver 
Lindberg catches up with him to talk about the current state of play, 
how to improve standards and how web designers can survive the economic 
downturn..."
http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/home/jeffrey-zeldman

Jared Smith of WebAIM - Interview
By Christopher Fearon.
"Jared Smith is the Associate Director of WebAIM. He is a highly 
demanded presenter and trainer and has provided web accessibility 
training to thousands of developers throughout the world."
http://tinyurl.com/qf2jxm

Jim Byrne of Jim Byrne and Associates - Interview
By Christopher Fearon.
"Jim Byrne has been a web developer and accessible web design 
consultant since 1996."
http://tinyurl.com/p6mpy5


+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Language Semantics and Operational Meaning
By Larry Masinter.
"...W3C can, and should, define languages in which the meaning is 
defined in the document, in terms of abstractions rather than in terms 
of operational behavior. The result is more robust standards, those 
that have wider applicability, that can be used for more purposes, and 
that create a more vibrant and extensible web."
http://www.w3.org/QA/2009/05/language_semantics_and_operati.html

HTML 5: Now or Never?
By Kevin Yank.
"Here at SitePoint, we have started thinking about HTML 5, and whether 
or not the time is right to publish a book about it. To help us decide, 
we asked a number of web luminaries what they thought. Their answers 
were both varied and interesting. Take a look and decide for yourself: 
is it time you started learning about HTML 5?..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/05/26/html-5-now-or-never/

On the Inclusion of BibTeX in HTML5
By darcusblog.
"As part of the HTML5 effort, editor Ian Hickson has proposed a new way 
to encode structured data in HTML. Ian has since included within the 
proposal encodings of various widely used standards to describe events, 
contacts and citations. These vocabularies have normative status within 
the proposed spec, and have a privileged place within the DOM..."
http://tinyurl.com/qec4vd

A Loose Set of Notes on RDFa, XHTML, and HTML5
By Shelley Powers.
"There's been a great deal of discussion about RDFa, HTML5, and 
microdata the last few days, on email lists and elsewhere. I wanted to 
write down notes of the discussions here, for future reference. Those 
working issues with RDFa in Drupal 7 should pay particular attention, 
but the material is relevant to anyone incorporating RDFa..."
http://tinyurl.com/ofeq5g

The Accessibility of HTML 5 autofocus
By Bruce Lawson.
"...potential accessibility problems are not restricted to the HTML 5 
use of autofocus; current JavaScript ways of doing it can cause the 
same problems..."
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2009/the-accessibility-of-html-5-autofocus/

HTML5 Microdata - Over-cooked?
By Frances Berriman.
"Microdata is HTML5's answer to how we should go about embedding 
machine-readable data in our mark-up..."
http://fberriman.com/2009/05/24/html5-microdata-over-cooked/

Google Bets Big on HTML 5: News from Google I/O
By Tim O'Reilly.
"While the entire  HTML 5 standard is years or more from adoption, 
there are many powerful features available in browsers today. In fact, 
five key next-generation features are already available in the latest 
(sometimes experimental) browser builds from Firefox, Opera, Safari, 
and Google Chrome. (Microsoft has announced that it will support HTML 
5, and as Vic noted, 'We eagerly await evidence of that.')"
http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/05/google-bets-big-on-html-5.html

HTML5 Could Be the OS Killer
By David Coursey.
"For companies that compete with Microsoft, HTML5 is almost the Holy 
Grail, offering the ability to run applications regardless of the 
underlying operating system. While the browser isn't more important 
than operating system today, Google this week firmly suggested it is 
only a matter of time..."
http://tinyurl.com/mk8krj

Open Video- Chicken, Meet Egg
By Tristan Nitot.
"One of the many cool things that Firefox 3.5 will bring is Open Video. 
What is it? It's native video in the browser using the HTML 5 video 
element, combined with the non-proprietary Ogg Theora codec..."
http://tinyurl.com/mfvr2j


+08: TYPOGRAPHY.

Web Fonts Now (How we're doing with that)
By Jeffery Zeldman.
"The Web Fonts Wiki has a page listing fonts you can legally embed in 
your site designs using the CSS standard @font-face method..."
http://tinyurl.com/qc3sa9

Introducing Typekit
By Jeffrey Veen.
"...We've been working with foundries to develop a consistent web-only 
font linking license. We've built a technology platform that lets us to 
host both free and commercial fonts in a way that is incredibly fast, 
smoothes out differences in how browsers handle type, and offers the 
level of protection that type designers need without resorting to 
annoying and ineffective DRM..."
http://blog.typekit.com/2009/05/27/introducing-typekit/

Why Typekit Will Change Everything
By Andy Clarke
"Well, perhaps not quite everything. Today Jeffrey Veen let the cat out 
of the proverbial. He announced Typekit."
http://tinyurl.com/nmcs2t

+09: USABILITY.

11 Usability Design Guidelines
By John Rhodes.
"This is a transcript of an audio that I've only released to a few 
people..."
http://www.webword.com/wp/2009/05/23/11-usability-design-guidelines/

How to Listen to the User and Hear the Experience
By Demetrius Madrigal and Bryan McClain.
"...This article will include contents similar to the training 
curriculum performed by hostage negotiators. We'll provide you with a 
very brief overview of Active Listening as well as discuss some of its 
numerous applications. We'll detail each of the Active Listening 
techniques and how and when to use them. Finally, we'll discuss the 
importance of training in order to make these advanced communication 
techniques work in the context of research..."
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2009/05/21/how-to-listen/

Great Websites are Boring to Manage
By Gerry McGovern.
"Great websites help you complete simple, common tasks in a fast, 
efficient manner. They are boring to design and manage."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2009/nt-2009-05-25-boring-to-manage.htm


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+10: 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.


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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.]