[webdev] Web Design Update: February 19, 2011

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Sat Feb 19 05:55:16 CST 2011 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 9, Issue 34, February 19, 2011.

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

++ISSUE 34 CONTENTS.

SECTION ONE: New references.
What's new at the Web Design Reference site?
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/
New links in these categories:

01: ACCESSIBILITY.
02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
03: COLOR.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
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.

Personalisation for Accessibility
By Martyn Cooper.
"...The rationale for personalisation for accessibility is clear.
Accessibility is essentially dealing with diversity - personalisation
avoids the always flawed attempt of doing so by a 'one size fits all'
solution..."
http://martyncooper.wordpress.com/2011/02/13/personalisation-for-accessibility/

Class Action Lawsuit Against Disney Alleges Inaccessible Websites and
Failure to Accommodate Blind Persons in Violation of ADA
"Three visually impaired women filed a class action complaint against
two Walt Disney companies alleging that Disney's websites relating to
its theme parks, hotels and restaurants are inaccessible to the
visually impaired, in violation of the Americans With Disabilities
Act..."
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/02/prweb5073794.htm


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

The Bright (Near) Future of CSS
By Eric A. Meyer.
"This article is an excerpt from Eric Meyer's recent book..."
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/02/11/the-bright-near-future-of-css/

CSS3 Tests
By Eric A. Meyer.
"Over the past couple of months, I've been hacking together some CSS3
tests. I did this to try to figure out what should be included in the
upcoming fourth edition of the CSS Pocket Reference (and thereafter
CSS: The Definitive Guide) and didn't plan to do anything public with
them, but at this point, I figure what the heck. Maybe they'll be of
interest to others..."
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2011/02/11/css3-tests/

border-radius Support and the CSS 3 Backgrounds and Borders Module
By Tiffany B. Brown.
"Last week, the CSS 3 Backgrounds and Borders module became a
Candidate Recommendation. That means the specification is stable.
Browser vendors can implement these features without a vendor prefix
if they haven't already..."
http://tiffanybbrown.com/2011/02/12/border-radius-support-and-the-css-3-backgrounds-and-borders-module/

Media Queries 101
By Virginia DeBolt.
"Media queries are part of the CSS 3 recommendations that worked
beginning with HTML 4 and CSS 2. Lately they have been touted as a
solution to designing for mobile devices. The trend has earned the
label 'responsive web design.' I thought it was time to look at the
basics of media queries..."
http://www.webteacher.ws/2011/02/17/media-queries-101/


+03: COLOR.

Hue, Saturation, Lightness
By Jon Hicks.
"I've met quite a few designers who are colourblind, but personally it
affects my ability to distinguish between green and brown, or blue and
purple. Tones and colour strength I can see, but certain colours are
hard to tell apart..."
http://hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/hue-saturation-lightness


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

10 Tips for Benchmark Usability Tests
By Jeff Sauro.
"To know if design changes improved the usability of an application,
you first need a baseline measure of usability from a benchmark test.
Here are 10 tips to use when planning your next benchmark test..."
http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/benchmark-tips.com


+05: EVENTS.

MIX
April 12-14, 2011.
Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.
http://live.visitmix.com/

WebDU
April 12-14, 2011.
Sydney, Australia
http://www.webdu.com.au/

Google I/O Developer Conference
May 10-11, 2011.
San Francisco, California,  U.S.A.
http://www.google.com/events/io/2011/

Web Directions Unplugged
May 12-13 2011.
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
http://unplugged11.webdirections.org/

Future of Web Design
May 17-18, 2011.
London, United Kingdom.
http://futureofwebdesign.com/london-2011/

WebVisions
May 25-27, 2011.
Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
http://www.webvisionsevent.com/

International PHP Conference
May 29-June 11, 2011.
Berlin, Germany
http://phpconference.com/


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Video: Rich Ziade and Jeffrey Zeldman Discuss Readability at School of
Visual Arts
By Jeffrey Zeldman.
http://www.zeldman.com/2011/02/11/video-rich-ziade-jeffrey-zeldman-discuss-readability-at-school-of-visual-arts/


+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

HTML5 Accessibility Chops: The placeholder Attribute
By Steve Faulkner
"The placeholder attribute can be used to place text inside an empty
input type="text" or textarea, the text is removed when the element
receives focus."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=751

W3C Confirms May 2011 for HTML5 Last Call, Targets 2014 for HTML5 Standard
By W3C.
"W3C today extended the charter of the HTML Working Group with clear
milestones for HTML5, the cornerstone of W3C's Open Web Platform for
application development. In May 2011, the Working Group will advance
HTML5 to "Last Call," an invitation to communities inside and outside
W3C to confirm the technical soundness of the specification. The group
will then shift focus to gathering implementation experience. W3C is
developing a comprehensive test suite to achieve broad
interoperability for the full specification by 2014, the target date
for Recommendation..."
http://www.w3.org/2011/02/htmlwg-pr.html.en

HTML5 Will Be Done in 2014, What Comes Next?
By Scott Gilbertson.
"...Whether it's in the spec or separate APIs, both Jacobs and Le
Hegaret believe that at least some of the features in future versions
of HTML may well involve the collision of the web and television.
Netflix, Sony and LG all recently joined the W3C and are interested in
what will happen as more televisions begin to connect directly to the
web. Television on the web will likely bring a new set of requirements
- possibly new tags, new APIs and a whole new platform looking to
implement them. Le Hegaret says that there have already been proposals
for features in HTML.next, though nothing is official just yet...."
http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/02/html5-will-be-done-in-2014-what-comes-next/

A Few HTML5 Questions That Need Answering
By Christian Heilmann.
"I just released the notes of my 'Using HTML5 sensibly' talk over on
the Mozilla hacks blog and there are a few questions that need
answering by anyone who wants to be part of publishing on the web in
the future..."
http://www.wait-till-i.com/2011/02/14/a-few-html5-questions-that-need-answering/

Conformance, Tests and Specifications - a Tabloid Life
By Karl Dubost.
"At a regular pace in a tabloid fashion, we can see different people
throwing at the face of each people their table of numbers, of greens
and reds. Each of these tables showing percentages, scores and used as
a flag for claiming a virtue of conformance to the specification. 'We
are a modern browser', 'We have a score of 100% for HTML5', etc. Let's
make it clear. These are wrong assessments of Conformance..."
http://my.opera.com/karlcow/blog/2011/02/15/conformance-specifications


+08: TYPOGRAPHY.

Type Study: An All CSS Button
By Dan Cederholm.
"This is part of a series of guest posts covering tips and tricks for
working with fonts on the web. Today's post was written by Dan
Cederholm of SimpleBits..."
http://blog.typekit.com/2011/02/10/type-study-an-all-css-button/


+09: USABILITY.

Why Whitespace Matters
By Paul Boag.
"In this post I aim to explain why whitespace matters and how to keep
whitespace in a design without compromising business objectives.
However, before I can do that we need to be clear what we mean by
whitespace..."
http://boagworld.com/design/why-whitespace-matters/

Are Marketing Images Damaging Your Website?
By Gerry McGovern.
"There is growing evidence that traditional marketing imagery reduces
the credibility and trustworthiness of a website..."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2011/nt-2011-02-14-Marketing-images.htm

Non-Profit Organization Websites: Increasing Donations and Volunteering
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Giving money on charity websites is 7% harder than spending money on
e-commerce sites. Donating physical items is even harder. For
non-profit websites, social media is secondary; the top priority is to
write clearer content. "
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/nonprofit-donations.html


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

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

Accessibility Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/accessibility.html

Association Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/associations.html

Book Listings.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/books.html

Cascading Style Sheets Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/css.html

Color Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/color.html

Dreamweaver Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/dreamweaver.html

Evaluation & Testing Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/testing.html

Event Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/events.html

Flash Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/flash.html

Information Architecture Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/architecture.html

JavaScript Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/javascript.html

Miscellaneous Web Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html

Navigation Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/navigation.html

PHP Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/php.html

Sites & Blogs Listing.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/sites.html

Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/standards.html

Tool Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/tools.html

Typography Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/type.html

Usability Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/usability.html

XML Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/xml.html

[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.]

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