[webdev] Web Design Update: March 11, 2010

Thu Mar 11 06:29:02 CST 2010

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 8, Issue 37, March 11, 2010.

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

++ISSUE 37 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: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
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.

Defining A Good Accessibility Statement
By John Rochford.
"This post lists the recommendations of eight Web articles I found that 
opine about a good accessibility statement. I also found three that 
advocate a site-help page be used instead.  All are referenced below..."
http://tinyurl.com/yhh2knj

Google's Smart Captioning Move
By Suzanne Robitaille.
"Ah, video and search. Frank Sinatra said it best: Try, try, try to 
separate them - it's an illusion. Here's proof of that: Speech 
Technology. This week, Google sealed the deal on video search 
capabilities for its YouTube portal, saying it would provide 
auto-captions for all of its uploaded videos using proprietary Google's 
Speech Technology..."
http://tinyurl.com/ybb95ak

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Setting Rather Than Resetting Default Styling
By Thierry Koblentz.
"For a long time, the very first line in my styles sheets was: * 
{padding:0;margin:0;}..."
http://tinyurl.com/y93ez4z

CSS3-Only Tabbed Area
By Chris Coyier.
"When you think of 'tabs', your mind might go right to JavaScript. Watch 
for a click on a tab, hide all the panels, show the one corresponding to 
tab just clicked on. All major JavaScript libraries tackle tabs in some 
way. But there is a way to accomplish this same idea with 'pure CSS'. 
Just as we did with the CSS Image Switcher, let's tackle this 
traditionally JavaScript project with only CSS..."
http://css-tricks.com/css3-tabs/

Creating Beveled Images with CSS
By James Edwards.
"Recently, I wanted a simple CSS method for adding a beveled effect to 
images. It's easy enough to create a sense of depth just with normal 
outset borders (below left), but what I wanted is something that would 
actually look like part of the image, as though it were a bevel on the 
image itself..."
http://tinyurl.com/yle5th6

+03: COLOR.

Types of Color Blindness
By Daniel Fluck.
"In the first part of Color Blind Essentials we learned some 
fundamentals about color vision deficiency like the history, 
occurrences, causes, genetic inheritance patterns and more. With this 
second chapter I want to explain you the different types color blind 
people can suffer from..."
http://www.colblindor.com/2010/03/09/types-of-color-blindness/

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Do's and Don'ts of Usability Testing
By Demetrius Madrigal and Bryan McClain.
"Usability testing is one of the least glamorous, but most important 
aspects of user experience research. Over the years, it has also been 
one of the forms of user research we have performed most frequently. In 
doing so, we've learned quite a few best practices and encountered some 
potential pitfalls. We think it's important that we share what we've 
learned with the many stakeholders, designers, and engineers who might 
find this information helpful."
http://tinyurl.com/yexqhtc

Why You Only Need To Test With Five Users (Explained)
by Jeff Sauro.
"...The five user number comes from the number of users you would need 
to detect approximately 85% of the problems in an interface, given that 
the probability a user would encounter a problem is about 31%. Most 
people either leave off the last part or are not sure what it means. 
This does not apply to all testing situations such as comparing two 
products or when trying to get a precise measure of task times or 
completion rates but to discovering problems with an interface. Where 
does 31% come from?  It was found as an average problem frequency from 
several studies..."
http://www.measuringusability.com/five-users.php

+05: EVENTS.

MIX
March 15-17, 2010.
Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.
http://live.visitmix.com/

Canadian Post-Secondary Web Conference
May 26-28, 2010.
Ontario, Canada.
http://pseweb.ca/

Fronteers 2010
October 7-8, 2010.
Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
http://fronteers.nl/congres/2010

+06: FLASH.

Creating an accessible animated presentation in Flash
By Thea Eaton.
"Since the publication of the animated presentation Creating Accessible 
Sites in Flash for the Adobe Accessibility Resource Center, we've been 
thrilled to see an overwhelming response from people requesting more 
details about the presentation itself and how it was made. In this 
article, I discuss some of the necessary steps to take when making a 
SWF-based presentation accessible..."
http://tinyurl.com/y88dozr

Flash and Standards: The Cold War of the Web
By Daniel Mall.
"You've probably heard that Apple recently released the iPad. The 
absence of Flash Player on the device seems to have awakened the HTML5 
vs. Flash debate. Apparently, it's the final nail in the coffin for 
Flash. Either that, or the HTML5 community is over hyping its still 
nascent markup language update. The arguments run wide, strong, and 
legitimate on both sides. Yet both sides might also be wrong. 
Designer/developer Dan Mall is equally adept at web standards and Flash; 
what matters, he says, isn't technology, but people."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/flashstandards/

+07: JAVASCRIPT.

Crockford on JavaScript - Episode IV: The Metamorphosis of Ajax (93 min.)
By Eric Miraglia.
"Last week, Yahoo! JavaScript architect Douglas Crockford delivered the 
fourth installment of his Crockford on JavaScript series..."
http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2010/03/09/video-crockonjs-4/

+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

Interview: Paul Cotton on Microsoft Participation in the W3C HTML 
Working Group
By Philippe Le Hegaret.
"First, let me thank you personally on becoming a co-chair of the W3C 
HTML Working Group. I am very happy with Microsoft's commitment to the 
HTML Working Group and to HTML 5. Microsoft is collaborating very 
actively, and helping drive consensus around many HTML 5 proposals 
related to Canvas, Accessibility and Extensibility..."
http://www.w3.org/QA/2010/03/interview_paul_cotton_on_micro.html

+09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Web Standards For E-Books
by Joe Clark.
"which did not replace cinema, which did not replace books. E-books 
aren't going to replace books either. E-books are books, merely with a 
different form..."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/ebookstandards/

Everything You Need To Know About HTML5 Video And Audio
By Simon Pieters.
"...This article aims to provide all the nitty-gritty details of HTML5 
media, the DOM API, events, and so forth, so you can implement your own 
HTML5 player with fallback to old browsers...."
http://tinyurl.com/ykkra9c

Exploring HTML 5
By David Chisnall.
"David Chisnall continues his look at the new features of HTML 5 by 
exploring some of the features that are useful beyond web applications..."
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1561902

The i, b, em, and strong Elements
By Oli Studholme.
"While many HTML4 elements have been brought into HTML5 essentially 
unchanged, several historically presentational ones have been given 
semantic meanings..."
http://html5doctor.com/i-b-em-strong-element/

Latest HTML5 Working Draft Published Despite Claims of 'Sabotage'
By Scott M. Fulton.
"Should the next version of HTML, the Web standard that embodies how 
pages are laid out and constructed, include explicit specifications for 
inline, 2D dynamic graphics?..."
http://tinyurl.com/yd88lrl

+10: USABILITY.

Closeness of Actions and Objects in GUI Design
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Users overlook features if the GUI elements - such as buttons and
checkboxes - are too far away from the objects they act on."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/action-object-closeness.html

Is Technology Becoming More Usable-or Less-and With What Consequences?
By Daryle Gardner-Bonneau.
"My name is Daryle Gardner-Bonneau. I am 56 years old, and technology 
seems to have left me behind. I never thought I would be standing on the 
wrong side of the digital divide, but this is where I seem to be, and I 
appear to be moving ever further from the deepening chasm that divides 
the 'savvy' from the 'unsavvy.'.."
http://tinyurl.com/ycmolkp

[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.]