[webdev] Web Design Update: January 12, 2012

Thu Jan 12 06:37:48 CST 2012

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 10, Issue 29, January 12, 2012.

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

++ISSUE 29 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: BOOKS.
03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: NAVIGATION.
08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Accessible HTML5 Forms - Required Inputs
By John Foliot.
"HTML5 has added a number of new element attributes, including 12
attributes used when creating forms. These Common input element
attributes include 2 new Boolean attributes, the required attribute
and the readonly attribute. Recently a number of current browsers have
implemented native support for the 'required' attribute, and so I
thought it would be useful to examine this attribute in more
detail..."
http://john.foliot.ca/required-inputs/

The Hidden Nuggets of WCAG2: The Wonderful World of ALT Attributes, Part
By Gian Wild.
"Recently I judged the accessibility component of the Australian Web
Awards. Time and time again I saw the same errors when it came to ALT
attributes. Success Criterion 1.1.1 - the ALT attribute requirement -
is a complicated success criterion..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/the-hidden-nuggets-of-wcag2-the-wonderful-world-of-alt-attributes-part-i/

How to Structure an Accessibility Review
By Joseph Dolson.
"...I'm putting together this article to talk a little about how to
structure an accessibility review, in all the practical ways - how you
address coming up with a quote or estimate, ways to structure your
research and site inspection process, and dealing with long-term
follow-up..."
http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2012/01/how-to-structure-an-accessibility-review/

Manual and User Accessibility Testing
By Shilpi Kapoor.
"Accessibility is about persons with disabilities. It is not possible
for a tool alone to claim that a web page or a web application is
accessible. Often, accessibility testing is being conducted by using
an automated testing tool. To ensure compliance of websites or even to
maintain websites this is an important strategy, but we must not
ignore the fine print of most accessibility testing tools. Most of
these tools will mention that human intervention or checks are
required. For example, a testing tool can tell you whether an image
has been given an alternate text but it cannot tell you whether the
alternate text is accurate. This check needs to be conducted manually.
One of the key areas that we need to invest in is Manual testing along
with automated testing tools..."
http://www.nasscomfoundation.org/web_accessibility/index.html#manual

Web Accessibility - What and Why
By Dipendra Manocha.
"Websites and web based user interface for applications are becoming
very popular as a means of user interaction and information
dissemination. Thus, the importance of web accessibility has become
extremely important. In this document, use of the word web would mean
websites webpages and web based user interfaces of applications..."
http://www.nasscomfoundation.org/web_accessibility/index.html#web

Institutionalization of Accessibility - A Step Towards Inclusion
By Pooja Nahata.
"...This article puts forward a framework for Institutionalizing
Accessibility in our organizations-hope it helps answer the burning
question of How do we integrate accessibility into our
organizations?..."
http://www.nasscomfoundation.org/web_accessibility/index.html#step

The Business Case for Web Accessibility
By Nirmita Narasimhan.
"The Internet is perhaps one of the most revolutionary things that
happened for persons with disabilities. It has transformed their lives
from one of ignorance and dependence to one of inclusion and
participation. Using assistive technologies, blind persons can now
read newspapers and information on websites, deaf persons can
understand video content through captioning and persons with different
disabilities can access computers in a variety of ways. However,
despite these exciting developments in assistive technologies, the
relative inaccessi-bility of websites remains a severe impediment to
disability access to the internet..."
http://www.nasscomfoundation.org/web_accessibility/index.html#businesscase

+02: BOOKS.

Layon, Kristofer. Mobilizing Web Sites: Strategies for Mobile Web
Implementation, Peachpit Press, 2011.

+03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Seven Things Still Missing From CSS
By Molly Holzschlag.
"CSS has come a long way but it's not perfect (yet). Molly Holzschlag,
passionate standardista and open web evangelist, quizzed her peers to
find out what they see as the most frustrating aspects of CSS "
http://www.netmagazine.com/features/seven-things-still-missing-css

Introducing the New Cursor Styles in CSS3
By Craig Buckler.
"In this article, we're going to examine the CSS cursor property
which, as you'd expect, allows you to change the cursor style as the
mouse moves over an element. It's become increasingly important for
interactive web applications..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/css3-cursor-styles/

CSS Specificity
By Estelle Weyl.
"Some people are confused by CSS Specificity, especially with all of
the (not-so) new CSS3 Selectors. The image below may help make sense
of CSS Specificity..."
http://www.standardista.com/css3/css-specificity/

(Better) Tabs with Round Out Borders
By Chris Coyier.
The following is a guest post by Menno van Slooten. You might notice
we've been down this road before, but I quite like Menno's approach
here. The end result proves you can get a little fancier with the
design than I originally did, with borders, gradients, and shadows and
while actually using less elements..."
http://css-tricks.com/better-tabs-with-round-out-borders/

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Test on Real Mobile Devices Without Breaking the Bank
By Brad Frost.
"Mobile is the future of the web, so it's time to start investing in
some mobile devices. Testing on actual devices is now an absolutely
essential part of web design. Stephanie Rieger explains that there are
crucial aspects of a web experience you simply can't realize by
resizing your browser or using emulators: true site performance,
device capabilities, form factor, pixel density and the impact of the
network..."
http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/mobile/test-on-real-mobile-devices-without-breaking-the-bank/

10 Ways to Measure and Manage the User Experience
By Jeff Sauro.
"Improving the user experience means starting with the right measure
or measures to manage. Here are 10 of the more common ones I've
written about in 2011..."
http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/measure-manage-ux.php

Four Secrets of Getting Great Participants Who Show Up
By Dana Chisnell.
"What if you had a near-perfect participant show rate for all your
studies? The first time it happens, it's surprising. The next few
times, it's refreshing -- a relief. Teams that do great user research
start with the recruiting process, and they come to expect near
perfect attendance..."
http://usabilitytestinghowto.blogspot.com/2012/01/four-secrets-of-getting-great.html

+05: EVENTS.

Web With Molly - Core HTML and CSS for the Open Web
February 10-12, 2012.
Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A.
http://www.molly.com/2012/01/09/web-with-molly-core-html-and-css-for-the-open-web/

In Control 2012
Feb. 20-21, 2012.
Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
http://2012.incontrolconference.com/

JSConf US 2012
April 2-3, 2012
Scottsdale, Arizona, U.S.A.
http://2012.jsconf.us/

Front-Trends Conference
April 26-27, 2012.
Warsaw, Poland
http://2012.front-trends.com/

Interlink Conference
June 6-7, 2012.
Vancouver, Canada
http://interlinkconference.com/

Google I/O
June 27-29, 2012.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://lanyrd.com/2012/google-io-2/

+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Best Viewed in iOS
By Paul Boag.
"One of the things I love about the web is its openness. The web is
accessible to all, no matter your age, location, disability or
technology. Whether you are accessing it via a mobile phone in the
heart of Africa or fibre optic connection in Korea, we all have access
to the same information. At least that is the theory...Let's not
repeat history. Sure, build native apps, but not without putting in
place alternatives for those who do not own the latest smartphone.
Think twice about whether you need a native app. Often a web app that
is accessible across all devices is the better solution."
http://boagworld.com/tumblog/best-viewed-in-ios/

Mobile IT in Higher Education, 2011 Report
By Educause.
"Discussion about mobile IT in higher education is ubiquitous, but
attaining benefits of mobility does not come easily. The ECAR mobile
IT study gathered quantitative and qualitative data from a
representative sample of 209 higher education institutions. Most
respondents to ECAR's 2011 study report little progress in making
institutional services, applications, and websites accessible on
mobile devices. The average respondent institution has enabled only a
few services for mobile access. Institutions that have invested more
money and those that have larger numbers of staff assigned to
mobile-enablement initiatives show greater progress. Mobile enablement
of student-facing services has taken highest priority to date, and we
see considerably more mobile progress in areas that are given higher
priority..."
http://www.educause.edu/Resources/MobileITinHigherEducation2011R/238470

The State of the Mobile Web in Higher Education 2012 Survey
By Karine Joly.
"The goal of this survey is to assess how colleges and universities
respond to the needs of the increasing population of mobile device
owners..."
http://higheredanalytics.com/revolution/index.php?sid=18563

Liz Castro: Outstanding Woman in Technology
By Virginia DeBolt.
"Elizabeth (Liz) Castro is a tech writer who has been influential in
the growth of web design and the Internet since the 1990‚Ä≤s. Her
website is elizabethcastro.com. Her blog is Pigs Gourds and Wikis.
She‚Äôs a mentor of mine, and a source of information for literally
millions of readers who want to know something about topics like HTML.
I‚Äôve used her books both to learn and to teach others for years..."
http://www.webteacher.ws/2012/01/04/liz-castro-outstanding-woman-in-technology/

+07: NAVIGATION.

Looking at Breadcrumbs in a New Way
By Tom Johnson.
"...Breadcrumbs are powerful tools because users can easily modify the
breadcrumb path to browse the information they want to see..."
http://idratherbewriting.com/2012/01/05/breadcrumbs-as-a-tool-for-findability/

+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Overview of HTML5 Multimedia
By Ian Devlin.
"This article gives you a brief overview of some of the differences
between adding multimedia to a web page before and now with HTML5. It
will also briefly introduce some of the more exciting capabilities and
functionality that HTML5 multimedia brings..."
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1804860

Cross Browser HTML5 Progress Bars In Depth
By Zoltan Hawryluk.
"...his article will discuss how this tag is rendered by default in
all operating systems and browsers and how to style the progress tag
with CSS, even in browsers that don't officially support the it. It
will also discuss some interesting limitations of all the browser
implementations amd show some interesting examples using advanced CSS3
techniques..."
http://www.useragentman.com/blog/2012/01/03/cross-browser-html5-progress-bars-in-depth/

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+09: 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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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.]