[webdev] Web Design Update: June 17, 2011

Fri Jun 17 06:22:28 CDT 2011

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 9, Issue 51, June 17, 2011.

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

++ISSUE 51 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: DREAMWEAVER.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: NAVIGATION.
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.

US Non-profit Group Sues CNN.com for Uncaptioned Online Video
By Josh Richman.
"A Berkeley-based non-profit group has filed a lawsuit against Time
Warner for allegedly discriminating against the Deaf and hearing
impaired by not providing captioned online videos on CNN.com..."
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_18280743?nclick_check=1

Barriers to Improving the Accessibility Game Plan
By Karl Groves.
"...I would say, without a doubt, that we (accessibility advocates/
evangelists/ consultants/ whatever) definitely need a new game plan.
Overall accessibility people are viewed as a band of boorish hysterics
by most of the people we come across. Everyone not already "clued in"
to accessibility approaches us like we're Milton from Office Space. We
definitely need to improve our game plan. To do so, we need to
recognize what things stand in our way..."
http://www.karlgroves.com/2011/06/16/barriers-to-improving-the-accessibility-game-plan/

Use Consistent Text Alternatives Across Desktop and Mobile
By Henny Swan.
"Sounds obvious doesn't it, keeping content consistent, but the devil
is in the detail. When it comes to writing alt text teams rarely pool
their work,  let alone have a considered approach to what is
appropriate alternative text across websites and mobile..."
http://www.iheni.com/mobile-text-alternatives/

On Using H1 for All Heading Levels in HTML5
By Roger Johansson.
"One of the problems that HTML5 aims to solve is that of heading
levels, particularly in documents where content is cut and pasted from
other documents or inserted through syndication from another source.
In previous versions of HTML you need to manually make sure that any
headings in the inserted or copied content are of the right level,
i.e. h1-h6..."
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201106/on_using_h1_for_all_heading_levels_in_html5/

Accessibility and the YouTube Players
By Terrill Thompson.
"I was recently asked why some YouTube players are more accessible
than others. Indeed there's a lot of variation out there, especially
among players that folks have embedded into their own web pages. This
is largely due to there being various versions of the YouTube player
over time. The current versions have the best accessibility so far..."
http://terrillthompson.blogspot.com/2011/06/accessibility-and-youtube-players.html

CAPTCHAs Shown to Yet Again Impede Accessibility
By Media Access Australia.
"The question of accessible CAPTCHAs has been raised once again as
they are shown to impede ticket purchase on the 2012 London Olympic
website..."
http://www.mediaaccess.org.au/latest_news/general/captchas-shown-to-yet-again-impede-accessibility

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Testing the Accessibility of CSS Generated Content
By Lucica Ibanescu.
"This article is about how screen readers speak the content added with
CSS pseudo-elements :before and :after (in CSS3 they are ::before and
::after)."
http://cssgallery.info/testing-the-accessibility-of-the-css-generated-content/

Clip Your Hidden Content for Better Accessibility
By Thierry Koblentz.
"There's a balance between creating a clean, simple visual design and
providing accessible content and functionality. One common solution is
to provide text to screen readers that is hidden via CSS.
comparison of form inputs with visible and invisible labels..."
http://yaccessibilityblog.com/library/css-clip-hidden-content.html

Useful :nth-child Recipes
By Chris Coyier.
"I get a little giddy when I come across perfect uses for :nth-child
or :nth-of-type (read about the difference). The better you understand
them, the more css nerdgasms you get to have..."
http://css-tricks.com/useful-nth-child-recipies/

A Whole Bunch of Amazing Stuff Pseudo Elements Can Do
By Chris Coyier.
"It's pretty amazing what you can do with the pseudo elements :before
and :after. For every element on the page, you get two more free ones
that you can do just about anything another HTML element could do.
They unlock a whole lot of interesting design possibilities without
negatively affecting the semantics of your markup. Here's a whole
bunch of those amazing things. A roundup, if you will..."
http://css-tricks.com/pseudo-element-roundup/

Towards a Unified Ruby Model
By Elika Etemad (fantasai).
"...Here's more than you ever wanted to know about ruby, the
annotation typesetting paradigm used in East Asia, and it's markup
design. Briefly, ruby text is annotations set within the line spacing
above, below, or to the side of the text being annotated. It looks
like this..."
http://fantasai.inkedblade.net/weblog/

The Design Axiom - Why CSS Will Never Catch Up with Design
By Niels Matthijs.
"With time comes experience, and with experience comes a sense of
caution. You slowly lose that gullible edge and you learn to see hypes
and promises from a different perspective. And sometimes you hit an
obvious truth that has been laying there all along. A few weeks ago I
joined a small freelance project, a real eye-opener for someone like
me, who still believed that browser legacy and vast differences in
platforms/vendors were the main challenges of css development..."
http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/the-design-axiom-css-will-never-catch-up

CSS Lint
By Jonathan Christopher.
"...CSS Lint doesn't have to be the rule by which you style your
documents from this day forth, but like anything, we should be taking
these opportunities to both learn as well as validate our reasons for
disagreement on any particular rule or two. Already some bugs have
been filed and changes are imminent."
http://mondaybynoon.com/2011/06/16/css-lint/

5 Features of CSS3 You Can Use Today
By Nick Pettit.
"While CSS 2.1 now enjoys extremely broad interoperability, the same
is not currently true for CSS 3. While the W3C and browser vendors
work furiously to build our tomorrow, here are five CSS 3 features
that you can start using in your sites today."
http://thinkvitamin.com/code/css3/5-features-of-css3-you-can-use-today/

+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Getting to Know Your CSS Selectors - Part 1
By David Powers.
"Using cascading style sheets (CSS) is now widely accepted as the
correct way to lay out and style web pages. One of the secrets of
success with CSS is knowing which selectors to use. There's more than
just classes and IDs. In fact, CSS3 defines nearly 40 selectors,
allowing you to target styles accurately without the need to clog up
your HTML markup with unnecessary classes. The latest versions of
browsers, including Internet Explorer (IE) 9, support all CSS3
selectors. Older browsers, including IE 7 and IE 8, support a handful
of extremely useful CSS3 selectors, plus most-if not all-CSS2.1
selectors..."
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/css-selectors-pt1.html

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Identifying Top Tasks
By Gerry McGovern.
"How do you measure the value of your website? You identify your
customers' top tasks. Then you measure whether they are able to
complete these tasks quickly..."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2011/nt-2011-06-13-Introduction-Identify-Top-Tasks.htm

+05: EVENTS.

Highland Fling
July 8, 2011.
Edinburgh, Scotland
http://thehighlandfling.com/

Edge of the Web
July 28-29, 2011.
Perth, Australia
http://eotw.com.au/

Fronteers 2011
October 6-7, 2011.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
http://fronteers.nl/congres/2011

Paris Web
October 13-15, 2011.
Paris, France
http://www.paris-web.fr/

EDUCAUSE Annual Conference
October 18-21, 2011.
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
http://www.educause.edu/E2011

An Event Apart Washington, DC
October 24-26, 2011.
Washington, DC, U.S.A.
http://aneventapart.com/2011/dc/

W3C Technical Plenary / Advisory Committee Meetings (TPAC 2011)
October 31 - 4 November 4, 2011.
Santa Clara, California, U.S.A.
http://www.w3.org/2011/11/TPAC/

+06: JAVASCRIPT.

The 11 JavaScript Mistakes You're Making
By Andrew Burgess.
"JavaScript is relatively easy to learn. However, gotchas abound in
this tricky language. Are you sure that you're not following any bad
practices? Today, I'll point out ten big mistakes you could be
making..."
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/javascript-ajax/the-10-javascript-mistakes-youre-making/

+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

People of HTML5 - Seb Lee Delisle
By Chris Heilmann.
"HTML5 needs spokespeople to work. There are a lot of people out there
who took on this role, and here at Mozilla we thought it is a good
idea to introduce some of them to you with a series of interviews and
short videos. The format is simple - we send the experts 10 questions
to answer and then do a quick video interview to let them introduce
themselves and ask for more detail on some of their answers..."
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2011/06/people-of-html5-seb-lee-delisle/

Design Principles
By Jeremy Keith.
Collection of Principles.
http://principles.adactio.com/

+08: NAVIGATION.

Accessibility and HTML5 Block Links
By Derek Featherstone.
"HTML5 has many new elements and features. One of these is block
links—we have the ability to wrap a link around block level elements.
Here we take a look at the impact that this can have on
accessibility."
http://simplyaccessible.com/article/html5-block-links/

Perfectly Worded Hyperlinks Equals Better Usability and Conversion
By Sabina Idler.
"...This case study was set up to gain insight into the influence of
different hyperlink wording. Results show that generic and informative
wording increased the chance of finding information, while the
intriguing wording was more catchy and appealing..."
http://blog.usabilla.com/the-perfect-hyperlink-results-of-a-case-study/

Search Engine Optimization SEO Made Easier with Schema.org
By Steven Seiller.
"One of the greatest challenges to Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
comes from the fact that each search engine has its own proprietary
method for crawling and characterizing your web pages. Not only does
this require you to learn the techniques for each engine, but further
challenge comes from trying to appeal to each on the same page. With
the June 2, 2011 announcement of schema.org, identifying your page
content to search engines just became significantly easier. A
partnership between Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo, schema.org is a
collection of microdata vocabularies that allow you to specifically
add markup to your content so that it can be better understood by
these major search engines. This article will introduce you to the use
of schema.org vocabularies and provide some examples of how you can
use them..."
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=BBEF7

+09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

HTML5 Accessibility Chops: Conflicting Advice and Requirements
By Steve Faulkner.
"HTML is currently defined in multiple documents, each purporting to
be THE definition of HTML/HTML5. The documents are developed,
published and maintained by 2 separate organisations. The 2
organisations have differing development models, one (W3C) employs a
consensus process for resolving conflicts about the normative and
informative content of the HTML specification, in the other (WHATWG)
all decisions about what is in the specification are made by one
person (the editor, Ian Hickson)..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2011/06/html5-accessibility-chops-conflicting-advice-and-requirements/

HTML5 and Web Accessibility: Is There Hope for Inclusion?
By Sandi Wassmer.
"...I have to heave a rather ginormous sigh and it is not one of
relief, but one of exasperation. It would appear that, for some
quasi-political-commercial-etc reasons, ingraining accessibility into
the HTML5 specification is not a done deal. In fact, although it is
utterly mind boggling to me, there are some folk involved in the
development of HTML5 who not only don't care about accessibility, but
are actually against its inclusion in the specification. This has
caused all sorts of upheaval in the web geek community, but we are
fortunate to have advocates like Bruce Lawson, Steve Faulkner, John
Foliot and many more actively fighting our corner..."
http://www.actionforblindpeople.org.uk/your-community/blogs/sandi-wassmer/html5-and-web-accessibility-is-there-hope-for-inclusion

How Screen Readers Speak a Page with HTML5 and ARIA
By Lucica Ibanescu.
"After seeing how AT reads a content generated with CSS
pseudo-elements I was thinking to move on to HTML5. And since there
are a lot of people saying we should mix HTML5 with ARIA in order to
increase the accessibility of a website, then why not test and see
what happens?"
http://cssgallery.info/how-screen-readers-speak-a-page-with-html5-and-aria

Modal Dialogues in HTML5
By Bruce Lawson.
"A major cause of accessibility problems in Web Apps is authors faking
modal dialogue boxes and not providing keyboard access to close or
respond to those. Thanks largely to the agitation of The Mighty Steve
Faulkner, Ian Hickson will be looking at at how to build this into the
language..."
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2011/modal-dialogues-in-html5/

Schema.org and the Responsibility of Monopoly
By Jeni Tennison.
"In this post about schema.org I'm going to speculate about the
economic drivers that affect how search engines use structured
metadata on the web. I discuss how the technical features and choices
within schema.org may cause wider long-term harm, and the role of open
standards as a method for responsible companies to avoid the pitfalls
of monopoly..."
http://www.jenitennison.com/blog/node/157

HTML5 - i, b, em, strong - What's the Scoop?
By John Eric Brandt.
"...So there you have it - clear as mud."
http://jebswebs.net/blog/2011/06/html5-i-b-em-strong-whats-the-scoop/

+10: USABILITY.

Take Responsive Design Beyond the (Fluid) Grid
By Scott Gilbertson.
"...In the end responsive design is not just about the size of the
screen, it's about how your arrange you information to give people
what they want. Every site is different and you if simply jump on the
flexible grid bandwagon without giving proper thought to your unique
content, you're not going to have an effective website."
http://www.webmonkey.com/2011/06/good-responsive-design-goes-beyond-fluid-grids

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+11: 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.

+ SUBSCRIPTION INFO.

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As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to
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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.]