[webdev] Web Design Update: August 2, 2012

Thu Aug 2 06:49:47 CDT 2012

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 10, Issue 06, August 2, 2012.

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

++ISSUE 06 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
05: JAVASCRIPT.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: PHP.
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.

Selling Accessibility - Negative Factors
By Karl Groves.
"This is the second post in a series of posts on Selling
Accessibility. If you haven't already, head on over to Selling
Accessibility - An Introduction to get caught up..."
http://www.karlgroves.com/2012/07/26/selling-accessibility-negative-factors/

7 Web Accessibility Myths
By Gosia Mlynarczyk.
"Web accessibility is not a new concept. The Web Accessibility
Initiative was launched back in 1997, and yet 15 years later it is
still a widely ignored and neglected aspect of web development. There
are many deep-rooted misconceptions about accessibility which prevent
people from making a conscious effort to incorporate it into their
websites. Let's take a closer look at the top 7 web accessibility
myths..."
http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2012/7-web-accessibility-myths-2/

A Case for Some Accessibility in Our CSS
By Stuart Robson.
"...As I pointed out, if developers are lazy enough to not include all
the relevant prefixes, they'd probably not include this either (which
is quite sad, really). There was discussion that CSS is for
presentation only, but i think with the onset of CSS3 animation
whizz-bangs etc. we can adapt..."
http://alwaystwisted.com/post.php?s=2012-07-21-a-case-for-some-accessibility-in-our-css

Thoughts on Accessible CSS
By Jamie Knight.
"...after mulling it over lunch i think i would come down on the 'lets
not' side of the dicussion. I have two reasons, document semantics and
code clarity..."
http://jkg3.com/Journal/thoughts-on-accessible-css

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

W3C Looks to Improve Responsive Design With New Media Queries
By Scott Gilbertson.
"The W3C, the group charged with overseeing the creation of web
standards like HTML and CSS, recently gave its official blessing to
one of the cornerstones of responsive web design - CSS Media
Queries..."
http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/07/w3c-looking-to-improve-responsive-design-with-new-media-queries/

Creeps and Weirdos in the CSS Spec
By Louis Lazaris.
"...in this post, I'll run through a bunch of things from the CSS
specifications that you might not have heard of yet. None of this is
even close to ready to use (unless it degrades really gracefully), but
it will serve to get you familiar with some of the rounded corners and
drop shadows of the future..."
http://www.impressivewebs.com/creeps-weirdos-css-spec/

+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Beyond Usability Testing
By Devan Goldstein.
"To be sure we're designing the right experience for the right
audience, there's no substitute for research conducted with actual
users. Like any research method, though, usability testing has its
drawbacks. Most importantly, it isn't cheap. Fortunately, there are
other usability research methods at our disposal. The standouts,
expert review and heuristic evaluation, are easy to add to a design
and development process almost regardless of budget or resource
concerns. Explore these techniques, learn their advantages and
disadvantages, and get the low-down on how to include them in your
projects."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/beyond-usability-testing/

Modifying Your Usability Testing Methods to Get Early-Stage Design Feedback
By Michael Hawley.
"When you're designing something new, it's desirable to seek feedback
on your design direction from potential users early in the design
lifecycle. To elicit this feedback, you may set up sessions that look
a lot like qualitative usability tests..."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/07/modifying-your-usability-testing-methods-to-get-early-stage-design-feedback.php

+04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Paper Prototyping As A Usability Testing Technique
By Justin Mifsud.
"Paper Prototyping is a technique that consists of creating hand
drawings of user interfaces in order to enable them to be rapidly
designed, simulated and tested. As simple as this technique may look
like, it has been effectively used since the 1980s and is likely to
continue to be used with a guaranteed degree of success for many more
years to come. The objective of this article is to define paper
prototyping and explain how this technique can be used for usability
testing. I opted to write the article mostly in bullet form so that it
can act as a quick reference..."
http://usabilitygeek.com/paper-prototyping-as-a-usability-testing-technique/

+05: JAVASCRIPT.

Managing JavaScript on Responsive Websites
By Jeremy Fields.
"...On a recent responsive project, I quickly ran into a new
challenge: how to manage JavaScript on a site where the interface and
functionality changes at different breakpoints. For example, an image
carousel might need to be animated at one breakpoint but turn into a
simple image grid at the next; you don't want that JavaScript to still
be functioning if someone crosses between them..."
http://viget.com/inspire/managing-javascript-on-responsive-websites

+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Product Management for the Web
By Kristofer Layon.
"Whether we prototype, write, design, develop, or test as part of
building the web, we're creating something hundreds, thousands, or
maybe even millions of people will use. But how do we know that we're
creating the right enhancements for the web, at the right time, and
for the right customers? Because our client or boss asked us to? And
how do they know? Enter product management for the web-bridging the
gap between leadership and customers on one side, and the user
experience, content strategy, design, and development team on the
other. Learn to set priorities that gradually but steadily make your
product (and the web) better."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/product-management-for-the-web/

Responsive Design's Dirty Little Secret
By John Albin Wilkins.
"The truth is that fluid grids are broken. Well… perhaps just cracked
a bit. Responsive Web design, as Ethan Marcotte defines it, is simply
a fluid grid, fluid images and media queries. But fluid grids have a
dirty little secret: rounding errors. As we lay out our columns in
percentages, browsers have to translate that into actual device pixels
to fit in the viewport. And Chrome, Safari, other WebKit browsers,
Opera, and the usual suspects (IE 6 and 7) all produce 'errors'..."
http://palantir.net/blog/responsive-design-s-dirty-little-secret

Adaptive Images - Solving the Responsive Image Problem
By Dain Miller.
"...Responsive images have been a tough topic for years now, as there
have typically been more than one 'hack-around' way to make your
images responsive. Let's go through this topic from the ground up,
starting with how we used to do it..."
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2012/07/adaptive-images-solving-the-responsive-image-problem/

+07: PHP.

PHP Error Checking
By Gerald Hanks.
"... When the user takes an unanticipated course of action and
'breaks' the application, the software needs to catch them before they
fall..."
http://www.developerdrive.com/2012/07/php-error-checking/

+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

HTML5 and HTML.next
By Jeff Jaffe.
"HTML5 is the cornerstone of the Open Web Platform that the web
community is building. This week saw two significant events in W3C
that bolster our efforts. I wanted to share these with the broader web
community, and in the process give an update on HTML..."
http://www.w3.org/QA/2012/07/html5_and_htmlnext.html

W3C's Ian Jacobs on the Future of HTML5
By Craig Grannell.
"We recently reported on the split between the WHATWG HTML 'living
standard' and the W3C HTML5 snapshot-oriented specification, while
WHATWG spec editor Ian Hickson gave us his thoughts regarding the
technology's future. In this interview, W3C head of communications Ian
Jacobs (IJ) talks to .net about the split, forking issues, processes,
and what sponsorship from Adobe, Microsoft and Google will mean for
the W3C."
http://www.netmagazine.com/interviews/w3cs-ian-jacobs-future-html5

OAuth 2.0 and the Road to Hell
By Eran Hammer.
"...Our standards making process is broken beyond repair. This outcome
is the direct result of the nature of the IETF, and the particular
personalities overseeing this work. To be clear, these are not bad or
incompetent individuals. On the contrary - they are all very capable,
bright, and otherwise pleasant. But most of them show up to serve
their corporate overlords, and it's practically impossible for the
rest of us to compete..."
http://hueniverse.com/2012/07/oauth-2-0-and-the-road-to-hell/

What's New in HTML5: The Track Element
By Pablo Schklowsky.
"One of the more exciting developments in HTML5 video is the inclusion
of the track element in the newest versions of the desktop browsers.
In addition to bringing captioning and subtitle support to HTML5
video, the invisible track element allows publishers to attach a rich
array of textual metadata to their videos. In this blog post, we'll
look at ..."
http://www.longtailvideo.com/blog/27621/whats-new-in-html5-the-track-element

+09: TOOLS.

Convert Word Documents to Clean HTML
By Olly Cope.
"Word2cleanhtml cleans up HTML pasted from Word documents. It applies
filters to fix various things that Microsoft Office puts in its HTML
and gives you a well formatted result that you can paste directly into
a web page or content editing system..."
http://word2cleanhtml.com/

+10: USABILITY.

Failing Gracefully - Handling User Errors
By Ted O'Meara.
"...When users do encounter errors (which they inevitably will), make
sure the error handling isn't as painfully delivered as an ill-placed
sharp note from a novice piano player..."
http://uxmag.com/articles/failing-gracefully

Writing for the Web Versus Writing For Print
By Dey Alexander.
"In my web writing workshops, I'm often asked about the differences
between writing for the web and writing for print. Writers are aware
that they need to take a different approach, and most understand
they're writing for an audience that may be scan-reading and
task-focused. They know they need to be more concise, and take care
with content layout.  But they have a sense that there's more they
need to know..."
http://www.4syllables.com.au/2012/07/web-writing-versus-print/

Plain Language - A Paradox for Technical Communicators
By Rachel McAlpine.
"...When users do encounter errors (which they inevitably will), make
sure the error handling isn't as painfully delivered as an ill-placed
sharp note from a novice piano player..."
http://contented.com/contented/2012/plain-language-a-paradox-for-technical-communicators/

Multiple Device Users
By Luke Wroblewski.
"As the diversity and quantity of networked consumer products
continues to grow, more people are becoming multi-device users. That
is, they switch between or simultaneously use more than one device
through their daily lives..."
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1596

[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.

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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.]