[webdev] Web Design Update: August 7, 2009

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 8, Issue 06, August 7, 2009.

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

++ISSUE 06 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: EVENTS.
04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
05: JAVASCRIPT.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: NAVIGATION.
08: PHP.
09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
10: USABILITY.


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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Overview of WebAIM Cognitive Research
By WebAIM.
"This article provides a brief overview of the findings and 
observations of a cognitive accessibility survey. More detailed 
findings will be available later in a detailed report."
http://webaim.org/projects/steppingstones/cognitiveresearch

Free Tools for Captioning YouTube Videos
By Terrill Thompson.
"We at the University of Washington are working toward documenting a 
workflow that would support student interns in adding captions to the 
university's growing collection of YouTube videos. There are now a 
dozen or more tools that support the authoring and editing of captions, 
and over the last couple of weeks I've been exploring several of them. 
This is a semi-organized set of notes based on my experience with each 
tool..."
http://tinyurl.com/mb2dgd

Visit to Yahoo Accessibility Testing Lab
By Dennis Lembree.
"I was fortunate enough to get invited for a visit to Yahoo! 
Accessibility Testing Lab (in Sunnyvale, California). Victor Tsaran 
(@vick08) and Alan Brightman (@abrightman) were kind enough to spend 
about an hour and a half with me and several other computer 
professionals. Here are some notes from the meeting..."
http://tinyurl.com/m378dg


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Diagnostic Styling Reloaded
By Jens Meiert.
Eric cultivated the concept of 'diagnostic styling,' meaning using CSS 
to reveal specific problems within an HTML document. I myself have been 
working with diagnostic style sheets for quite a while, be it for 
general quality assurance or to track down specific semantics or 
maintainability problems ?
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20090801/diagnostic-styling-reloaded/

CSS3 Quick Reference Guide
By css3.info.
"Chris Hanscom over at Veign.com has been busy this week bringing his 
CSS3 Quick Reference Guide up to date in line with the latest CSS3 
specifications. The CSS 3 reference guide features one of the most 
complete and up-to-date cheat sheets on the new CSS 3 specification. 
See the new properties, selectors and allowed values that are being 
introduced in the CSS3 standard..."
http://www.css3.info/css3-quick-reference-guide/

Away With Widths - Use and Abuse
By Niels Matthijs.
"... This article explains why using as little widths as possible helps 
to maintain a flexible layout and might save you (or some fellow csser) 
a lot of time in the future..."
http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/away-with-widths-use-and-abuse


+03: EVENTS.

6th Annual AIGA Design Legends Gala
September 17, 2009.
New York, New York, U.S.A.
http://www.aiga.org/events-gala

Make/Think AIGA Design Conference
October 8-11, 2009.
Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A.
http://www.designconference.aiga.org

Web 2.0 Expo
November 16-19, 2009.
New York, New York, U.S.A.
http://www.web2expo.com/webexny2009/

Handcrafted Bulletproof CSS
November 23, 2009.
London, United Kingdom
http://carsonworkshops.com/2009/dancederholm/index.html

OZCHI '09 Conference
November 23-27, 2009.
Melbourne, Australia
http://www.ozchi.org


+04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Card Sorting
By Holger Maassen.
"The following article belongs to an upcoming series - A series on 
developing approaches to problem solutions with systematic use of 
creative techniques. I want to comply with this article and series to 
wishes and requests of friends and colleagues....Card sorting is a 
categorization technique where users sort cards describing and giving 
their picture, their understanding and their mental picture of 
concepts, workflows and information and knowledge."
http://ux4dotcom.blogspot.com/2009/08/card-sorting.html


+05: JAVASCRIPT.

JavaScript 2.0: A Sneak Preview
By Rob Gravelle.
"The JavaScript 2.0 / EMCAScript 4.0 proposal isn't due to be finalized 
until the end of the fall of 2009, but it's already garnering lots of 
strong reactions - both good and bad. Today, we'll be taking a look at 
some of the proposed specifications and you can decide for yourself 
whether they constitute improvements in the language or merely 
unnecessary standardization..."
http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/rg38/

String Objects and Regular Expressions in JavaScript
By Chrysanthus Forcha.
"Welcome to the fifth article in a five-part series on JavaScript 
regular expressions. In this article we begin the second and final 
phase of the series. In this phase we shall deal more with the 
properties and methods of the regexp object. We shall also deal with 
some properties and methods of the string object that are related to 
regular expressions...."
http://tinyurl.com/mfw5el


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Interview with Zoe M. Gillenwater (podcast)
By Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel.
Web designer and developer Zoe M. Gillenwater speaks with publisher 
Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel about her new book, Flexible Web Design. She 
discusses the difference between liquid and elastic layouts, examples 
of great flexible sites, and much more.
http://tinyurl.com/m8dpva

Web Squared - Web 2.0 Five Years On
By Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle.
"Five years ago, we launched a conference based on a simple idea, and 
that idea grew into a movement. The original Web 2.0 Conference ( now 
the Web 2.0 Summit ) was designed to restore confidence in an industry 
that had lost its way after the dotcom bust. The Web was far from done, 
we argued. In fact, it was on its way to becoming a robust platform for 
a culture-changing generation of computer applications and services..."
http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/public/schedule/detail/10194

Re: Did CERN Try To Sell the Web?
By Tim Berners-Lee.
"...Hey, if they had been MIT they might have encouraged me to spin it 
out as a startup, with the help of some experienced people who had done 
it before, and well, maybe the world would have just waited 17 years as 
it did for RSA.  I am sure in fact a bunch of competing systems would 
have ended up without a single interoperable space..."
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2009Aug/0014.html


+07: NAVIGATION.

Web Site Navigation Menu Placement
By Mike Cherim.
"I was asked in an email recently what my feelings were regarding the 
placement of a navigation menu on a web site. The person asking wanted 
to know the latest scoop on the advantages or disadvantages of various 
menu placements. Is a right-hand vertical menu better somehow than a 
left-hand vertical menu? How about a horizontal navigation menu at the 
top of the page? Over the years I've made them all at one time or 
another, though lately most have been vertical right-hand menus. I 
responded with all I knew about the subject, then admitted the info may 
be dated. Here's basically what I offered.."
http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=341

Using CSS to Hide a Portion of the Link Text
WebAIM Thread.
"...I am investigating using CSS to hide a portion of link text.
If anyone has strong, or medium, feelings about this method I'd love
to hear them..."
http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=3932


+08: PHP.

17 PHP Practices That Should Be Banished Forever
By Samuel Folkes.
"The following is a list of 17 PHP programming practices that in my 
opinion should be banished into oblivion. Forever and ever. Amen. 
Please note that this list is in no particular order. So, without 
further ado..."
http://tinyurl.com/nahthd


+09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

The Different Aspects of Video Accessibility
By Silvia Pfeiffer.
"In the last week, I have received many emails replying to my request 
for feedback on the video accessibility demo. Thanks very much to 
everyone who took the time..."
http://blog.gingertech.net/2009/08/03/aspects-of-video-accessibility/

My August Plans
By Shelley Powers.
"...I do not think that HTML 5, as currently written, is a good 
document. I think there is much that is good in it, but the good is 
overshadowed by the bad: bad practices, bad decisions, even bad 
organization..."
http://burningbird.net/node/38

The HTML5 Equilibrium
By Jeremy Keith.
"HTML5 is a strange character with what appears to be a split 
personality. Hardly surprising then that something so divided would 
appear to be so divisive..."
http://adactio.com/journal/1600/

Behold Leviathan, Confused
By Kyle Weems.
"Sooner or later HTML5 will not be the most interesting topic to wax 
poetic about. This is not that day..."
http://www.cssquirrel.com/2009/08/03/behold-leviathan-confused/

Talismans, Active Listening, and a Half-Time Show
By John Foliot.
"First of all, I would like to suggest that today the @summary debate 
has digressed to something of a fight over a Talisman..."
http://john.foliot.ca/talismans-active-listening-and-a-half-time-show/

Disappearing Silverware
By Sam Ruby.
"...In general, blocking the work of others is something I plan to 
discourage.  If that ends up making HTML5 more like Perl than Python, 
so be it.  After all, those that prefer rigid alternatives still have 
that option..."
http://intertwingly.net/blog/2009/08/06/Disappearing-Silverware


+10: USABILITY.

When Security Gets in the Way
By Don Norman.
"...Does more security necessarily translate into less usability? No, a 
more secure lock is no more difficult to operate than a cheap, insecure 
one. With appropriate technology we can make some of these systems even 
easier to use while simultaneously enhancing security..."
http://jnd.org/dn.mss/when_security_gets_in_the_way.html

Content Analysis: A Practical Approach
By Colleen Jones.
"In this column, I'll walk you through a content analysis--and offer 
tips and tricks along the way that will help make your next content 
analysis more effective."
http://tinyurl.com/lnv7m5

The Content Conundrum
By Christopher Detzi.
"...Sure, we have a sense of what content is available, and we've 
likely considered it to some extent when creating flows, wireframes, 
and prototypes. But the design artifacts that we create represent only 
part of the overall user experience that we're designing. The content 
that sits inside of our design framework is often the final arbiter of 
success, yet we sometimes diminish its importance and separate 
ourselves from it. The more we separate our design activities from 
content development, the greater the risk of design failure..."
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/the-content


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+11: 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.]