[webdev] Web Design Update: January 26, 2012

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Thu Jan 26 06:57:05 CST 2012 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 10, Issue 31, January 26, 2012.

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

++ISSUE 31 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: EVALUATION & TESTING.
04: EVENTS.
05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: NAVIGATION.
08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
09: TOOLS.
10: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

HTML5 Accessibility Chops - title Attribute Use and Abuse
By Steve Faulkner.
"For the past 7 years myself and others have banged on about the
trouble with the title attribute in regards to accessibility and
usability. Bottom line is that it is not well supported in browsers
and its usefulness is severely compromised as a consequence..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2012/01/html5-accessibility-chops-title-attribute-use-and-abuse/

Pronunciation - Accessibility for Web Writers, Part 16
By Dey Alexander.
"In some languages, words or characters may have different meanings
depending on their pronunciation. In English, heteronyms are an
example. For instance, 'content' could be a reference to the way
someone is feeling, or to the words on this page..."
http://www.4syllables.com.au/2012/01/accessibility-web-writers-part-16/

5 Infographics on Web Accessibility for Designers
By Amy Taylor.
"When you are designing a site you have a hundred little details to
keep in mind. But it isn't all about concept design and launch. It is
also about making sure whatever you create has the maximum web
accessibility possible for your users. Which is a whole other set of
guidelines you have to follow, apart from the design process itself.
Don't get caught making common pitfalls. Check out these five
excellent infographics on web accessibility from top designers in the
game..."
http://designbeep.com/2012/01/24/5-infographics-on-web-accessibility-for-designers/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

CSS1K
"A demonstration of what can be accomplished with only 1 K (Kibibyte) of CSS."
http://css1k.com/


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Comparison of Usability Testing Methods
By Jeff Sauro.
"There was a time when we spoke of usability testing it meant
expensive labs and one-way mirrors. Not anymore. There are three core
ways of running usability tests. Each has their advantages and
disadvantages..."
http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/method-comparison.php


+04: EVENTS.

Official RNIB Accessibility Hackathon
February 11, 2012.
London, England, United Kingdom
http://www.meetup.com/android/events/44307862/

Design it. Build it. (DIBI) Conference
April 16-17, 2012.
Newcastle, England, United Kingdom
http://www.dibiconference.com/

W4A 2012
9th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility
April 16-17, 2012.
Lyon, France
http://www.w4a.info/2012/

Future Insights Live
April 30 - May 4, 2012.
Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.
http://futureinsightslive.com/


+05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

8 Tips for a Sane IA
By Alastair Campbell.
"For World Usability Day (10th November 2011) I provided 8 tips
(tweets) on Information Architecture (IA) 'truisms' I'd want everyone
on a team to know before starting a typical website project. Twitter
is a little restrictive, so I thought it would be worth fleshing them
out."
http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2012/8-tips-for-a-sane-ia/


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Viewports All the Way Down...
By Stephanie Rieger.
"...Diversity isn't going away. It's about to get worse. Ignore it at
your peril..."
http://stephanierieger.com/viewports-all-the-way-down/

Web Designers Should Just Become Designers - an Interview With Don Norman
By Anneke Schapelhouman.
"Donald Norman is one of the world's most influential designers and
writers about design. We are big fans, and really proud that Anneke
could talk to him about his books, the future of designing for the
web, emotional design, the balance between design as an art-form and
as a form of marketing, and much more."
http://blog.usabilla.com/web-designers-should-just-become-designers-an-interview-with-don-norman/


+07: NAVIGATION.

Tips for Writing Great Links
By Gerry McGovern.
"Start with the link, not the sentence. Often, all you need is a nice
clear link. No summary text. The link should be the first thing you
think about. You should only add surrounding text if absolutely
necessary."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2012/nt-2012-01-23-Tips-links.htm

Fine-Tuning Link-Text: If the Headline Ain't Broke, Don't Fix It
By Rachel McAlpine.
use the page headline (or title) as the words in your link if you
possibly can. And be consistent across the web site.
http://contented.com/contented/2012/fine-tuning-link-text-if-it-aint-broke-dont-fix-it/

Does Your Labelling Cause Confusion?
By Paul Boag.
"...When faced with an unfamiliar term users feel a sense of doubt.
This creates one of two reactions...In either case their experience is
damaged..."
http://boagworld.com/tumblog/does-your-labelling-cause-confusion/


+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

HTML5 Please
by Divya Manian, Paul Irish, Connor Montgomery, Addy Osmani et al.
"Look up HTML5 features, know if they are ready for use, and if so
find out you should use them - with polyfills, fallbacks or as they
are..."
http://html5please.us/

Video for Everybody!
By Kroc Camen.
"Video for Everybody is simply a chunk of HTML code that embeds a
video into a website using the HTML5 <video> element, falling back to
Flash automatically without the use of JavaScript or browser-sniffing.
It therefore works in RSS readers (no JavaScript), on the iPhone /
iPad (don't support Flash) and on many browsers and platforms. "
http://camendesign.com/code/video_for_everybody

WebM-Enabled Browser Usage Share Exceeds H.264-Enabled Browser Usage
Share on Desktop (in StatCounter Numbers)
By Henri Sivonen.
"Looking at StatCounter stats, it occurred to me that they might not
match the common narrative about H.264 market share. I decide to run
some numbers using StatCounter stats. It turns out that during the
first two weeks of 2012, on desktop, the usage-share of browsers that
support WebM in HTML5 video exceeded the usage share of browsers that
support H.264 in HTML5 video-except in North America and Oceania..."
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/webm-share/

HTML5 Video Specifications
By Silvia Pfeiffer.
Silvia's Drupal Conference talk.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1hWHQBm4cE
Slides:
http://html5videoguide.net/presentations/DrupalDU2012/

No DHTML, Please
By Adrian Roselli.
"The trend continues where I speak to clients, vendors, young
developers fresh out of college, and even the teachers/professors who
instruct them and they don't understand that HTML5 and CSS3 aren't the
same specification. I have repeatedly shown an HTML 4.01 site with
CSS3 to explain that they are each distinct specifications which can
be applied in different combinations of different versions. This is
further complicated when JavaScript is folded into the mix - some
folks even think jQuery is part of the HTML5 specification..."
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2012/01/no-dhtml-please.html

The Separation of Structure, Presentation and Behavior is Dead
By Kevin Dees.
"...We are standing in a new age. We need to stop saying one thing,
separation, and doing another, divergence. In the end we can pretend
that the principle of separation is still relevant but it doesn't
support the current movement of the web. It doesn't help standards,
browser makers don't care...
http://thinkvitamin.com/design/the-separation-of-structure-presentation-and-behavior-is-dead/


+09: TOOLS.

Miro Video Converter
"A super simple way to convert almost any video to MP4, WebM (vp8),
Ogg Theora, or for Android, iPhone, and more..."
http://www.mirovideoconverter.com/


+10: USABILITY.

How To Design In An Unknowable Canvas
By Steven Bradley.
"Online things are different. There is no fixed canvas within which we
work. For years web designers have tried to impose a fixed canvas
through the use of fixed width layouts, but with the myriad of devices
and device characteristics this is no longer feasible. We can no
longer design for a single optimal set of conditions and assume it
will work well enough under all other conditions. We need a new canon
as we can't rely on the canvas. What we can rely on is the content. We
can reverse things and instead of starting at the page edges and
working in, we can start inside with content and design out."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/new-canon/


[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.

WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription. For information on how
to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit:
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/webdev_listserv.html
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.]

More information about the Webdev mailing list