[webdev] Web Design Update: February 23, 2012

Thu Feb 23 06:17:11 CST 2012

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 10, Issue 35, February 23, 2012.

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

++ISSUE 35 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: JAVASCRIPT.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: PHP.
08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
09: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Mozilla Leads in HTML5 Accessibility Support
By Craig Grannell.
"According to the HTML5 accessibility website, Firefox for Windows has
zoomed ahead of its rivals regarding support for HTML5 accessibility.
In the site's tests, the browser scores an impressive 92/100. All
other browsers score 24/100 or less, bar Safari for Mac, with a
credible 74/100..."
http://www.netmagazine.com/news/mozilla-leads-html5-accessibility-support-121765

Is PDF Accessible in Australia?
By Roger Hudson.
"More than two years ago I wrote about WCAG 2.0 and Accessibility
Supported, and my fear that, 'the concept of 'accessibility supported'
is not fully understood'. I believe that this 'could put at risk the
whole move to improve the accessibility of the web.' I am concerned
that mixed-messages relating to the status of PDF as a 'web content
technology' is still causing problems within Australia at least..."
http://www.dingoaccess.com/accessibility/is-pdf-accessible-in-australia/

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

A Simple Image Gallery Using Only CSS and the :target Selector
By Chris Heilmann.
"Back in the old days of web development and when CSS2 got support I
always cringed at 'CSS only' demos as a lot of them were hacky to say
the least. With CSS growing up and having real interaction features it
seems to me though that it is time to reconsider as - when you think
about it - visual effects and interactivity should be maintained in
the CSS rather than in JavaScript and CSS..."
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2012/02/a-simple-image-gallery-using-only-css-and-the-target-selector/

Responsive Design: Why You're Doing It Wrong
By Joshua Johnson.
"...media queries and responsive design provide us with an incredibly
powerful tool to account for the fact that websites are being viewed
by all manner of screens and viewport sizes. However, once we start
pegging our designs to a handful of devices, we're right back where we
started. Your goal instead should be to build a layout that's so
versatile that it can handle almost any viewport size thrown at it.
This is all nice in theory, but where's the example?..."
http://designshack.net/articles/css/responsive-design-why-youre-doing-it-wrong/

Understanding CSS Shorthand
By Louis Lazaris.
"...Let's look at how shorthand works with some common examples, and
I'll try to explain some of the quirks associated with CSS
shorthand..."
http://www.impressivewebs.com/understanding-css-shorthand/

Thoughts on the CSS Prefix Situation
By Robert Nyman.
"The last week I've been contemplating whether to write anything or
not about the situation with web browser vendor prefixes in CSS. I
decided to share my thoughts on the problem and possible solutions..."
http://robertnyman.com/2012/02/16/thoughts-on-the-css-prefix-situation/

7 Solutions to the CSS3 Vendor Prefix Crisis
By Craig Buckler.
"...While this is largely a marketing decision, it's a real problem.
The solution appalls many web developers but we deserve our share of
the blame. In this article we'll discuss the options, pros and
cons..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/css3-vendor-prefix-crisis-solutions/

+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Using jQuery Mobile in Dreamweaver CS 5.5
By Virginia DeBolt.
"Dreamweaver CS 5.5 has some built-in jQuery mobile functions that can
help you design a mobile site. Going this route means one of two
things..."
http://www.webteacher.ws/2012/02/21/using-jquery-mobile-in-dreamweaver-cs-5-5/

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Why Personas are Critical for Content Strategy
By Kristina Mausser.
"The most popular content strategy tools borrow from the discipline of
information architecture, but there is one invaluable tool that is
imperative to the process of strategy and implementation of tactics
that we can thank our user experience cousins for: personas."
http://johnnyholland.org/2012/02/why-personas-are-critical-for-content-strategy/

+05: JAVASCRIPT.

Essential JavaScript Design Patterns for Beginners
By Addy Osmani.
Addy Osmani has released an updated version of this resource.
http://addyosmani.com/resources/essentialjsdesignpatterns/book/

Debugging JavaScript
By Panagiotis Astithas.
"Debugging is always hard, especially when debugging other people's
code. Adding a bunch of console.log() statements, becomes tedious
after a while and that's assuming that you are familiar enough with
the code in question to know where to place them. Tools like Firebug
are a tremendous help in this case. Having the ability to pause the
execution at any point or inspect variables and stack frames, provides
valuable insights into the runtime behavior of a program..."
http://blog.astithas.com/2012/02/debugging-javascript.html

HTML5 Accessibility: aria-hidden and role="presentation"
By John Foliot.
"It's a common design pattern, seen multiple times a day: a thumbnail
image and Headline, both linked to the same URL. We've seen this
pattern for so long now that most sighted users know, instinctively,
that clicking on either the thumbnail or the Headline takes them to
the same location..."
http://john.foliot.ca/aria-hidden/

+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

The 2012 State of the Mobile Web in Higher Ed Survey Report
By Karine Joly.
"A few weeks ago I conducted the second survey about the State of
Mobile Web in Higher Ed to provide the community with some insights on
the mobile web in our industry. The first survey was run last year at
about the same time. This year again, this online survey was a big
success as a total of 281 professionals working mainly in the
marketing, communication and web offices of 267 institutions of higher
education completed it from January 9, 2012 to February 13, 2012.
You'll find details about the following survey findings..."
http://collegewebeditor.com/blog/index.php/archives/2012/02/21/the-2012-state-of-the-mobile-web-in-highered-survey-report/

Why Mobile Matters
By Luke Wroblewski.
"When I initially proposed the idea of Mobile First over three years
ago, there were a lot of skeptics. The situation today has a lot more
people convinced that taking mobile seriously matters. But just in
case some people remain unconvinced, here's a really vivid way of
explaining the situation..."
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1506

Graphic Designers are Ruining the Web
By John Naughton.
"What happens when you click on a weblink? Here's one answer: a
request goes from your computer to a server identified by the URL of
the desired link. The server then locates the webpage in its files and
sends it back to your browser, which then displays it on your screen.
Simple. Well, the process was indeed like that once - a very long time
ago..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/feb/19/john-naughton-webpage-obesity

+07: PHP.

Device-Aware Mobile Sites Using PHP, JavaScript, and WURFL, Part 1:
Get Sarted Using the WURFL PHP API
By Chad Russell.
"With a rapidly growing mobile Web, if you haven't already started
working on a PHP-driven mobile site or application, you soon will be.
Detecting the capability of one mobile device among the thousands of
offerings is nearly impossible with PHP alone. But with the Wireless
Universal Resource FiLe (WURFL), this once daunting task becomes as
simple as a few API calls to retrieve the device data you need and can
use with your PHP site or application."
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/mo-wurfl-1/

+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

The HTML5 Time Element Is Back and Better Than Ever
By Scott Gilbertson.
"The HTML5 time element pulled a disappearing act last year. HTML5
editor Ian Hickson deleted it from the specification, but then the
W3C, the group that oversees HTML5, stepped in to override Hickson's
decision, adding time back to HTML5. Now you see it, now you don't,
now you do again. The W3C didn't just add time back though; they've
improved it considerably..."
http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/02/the-html5-time-element-is-back-and-better-than-ever/

Marking up a Bibliography with HTML5
By Ian Devlin.
"After reading this recent post on the new and improved time element,
it got me thinking about a rather specific issue and how the <time>
element might be used when marking up a bibliography..."
http://www.iandevlin.com/blog/2012/02/html5/marking-up-a-bibliography-with-html5

The ol Element and Related Attributes: type, start, value, and reversed
By Oli Studholme.
"The <ol> element has a new attribute reversed in HTML5. In addition,
a couple of related attributes purged in HTML 4 have made a return,
namely start and type for <ol>, and value for <li>. Making things more
interesting, the returning attributes were removed from HTML 4 for
being presentational. So why are they back? Let's investigate…"
http://html5doctor.com/ol-element-attributes

HTML5 Adds New Translate Attribute
By Richard Ishida.
"A translate attribute was recently added to HTML5. At the three
MultilingualWeb workshops we have run over the past two years, the
idea of this kind of 'translate flag' has constantly excited strong
interest from localizers, content creators, and from folks working
with language technology..."
http://rishida.net/blog/?p=831

+09: USABILITY.

The High Cost of Task Failure on Websites
By Jeff Sauro.
"Task completion is the fundamental usability metric. If users can't
accomplish what they're trying to do, not much else matters. Not
surprisingly then, task failure has a negative effect on our
impressions of website usability..."
http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/cost-task-failure.php

Are You Annoying Your Repeat Users?
By Paul Boag.
"What are you doing to make existing users feel special? For that
matter what are you doing just to make their lives a little bit
easier?"
http://boagworld.com/usability/are-you-annoying-your-repeat-users/

Cargo-Cult User Experience? There's an App for That
By Peter Hornsby.
"...In user experience, as in other fields, accepting received wisdom
may seem to be the safe path. If a client is saying they want
everything above the fold or a maximum of three clicks away, pushing
back in a way that the client can understand can be hard. It's harder
still to push back if the received wisdom happens to be accepted by
your peers in user experience. However, by spending the time to
reflect on when and why something works and what its limitations are,
you'll become a better UX designer-without succumbing to the delusions
of the cargo cult."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/02/cargo-cult-user-experience-theres-an-app-for-that.php

[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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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.]