[webdev] Web Design Update: November 1, 2012

Thu Nov 1 06:39:48 CDT 2012

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 10, Issue 19, November 1, 2012.

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

++ISSUE 19 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: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: NAVIGATION.
09: SITES.
10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
11: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Why Is Accessibility So Hard?
By Vinton G. Cerf.
"...this column is an attempt to begin a dialogue about improving the
state of accessibility in our field. This is not only important from
the purely ethical perspective, but it is also pragmatic given the
demographics of our society and the increasing incidence of need for
accessible applications..."
http://cacm.acm.org/magazines/2012/11/156585-why-is-accessibility-so-hard/fulltext

Making Your Website Accessible Part 1: Understanding WCAG
By Cynthia Ng.
"With more and more services and resources becoming digital, web
accessibility has become an ever increasingly important topic. As a
result, I thought a summary of my findings would be useful to others
that are involved with web services..."
http://acrl.ala.org/techconnect/?p=2020

Why Mobile Web Accessibility Matters - Best Practices to Make Your
Mobile Site Accessible
By soederquist.
"'The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone
regardless of disability is an essential aspect.' - Tim Berners-Lee,
W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web. This mantra is as
true for the mobile Web as it is for the desktop Web..."
http://mobiforge.com/developing/story/why-mobile-web-accessibility-matters-best-practices-make-your-mobile-site-accessibl

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

How to Line Wrap Text in Legend Elements, Even in IE
By Roger Johansson.
"Back in 2009 I wrote about a way of Line wrapping text in legend
elements. It involved using CSS hacks or conditional comments to
target Internet Explorer, which was the most problematic browser in
this regard..."
http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201210/how_to_line_wrap_text_in_legend_elements_even_in_ie/

Using Unprefixed CSS3 Gradients in Modern Browsers
By Jennifer Yu.
"Web standards like HTML5 and CSS3 continue to change.  One of the
most significant changes has been the W3C Candidate Recommendation for
CSS Gradients which allows developers to code for modern browsers like
Internet Explorer 10 without using vendor prefixes.  In this article,
I'll take you through some differences between the old and new syntax
and behavior and provides some insight into the change.  Hopefully it
will save you some time as you support many browsers..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/using-unprefixed-css3-gradients-in-modern-browsers/

Learn More About the CSS3 NOT Selector
By Claire Sawyers.
"...The interesting thing about the 'not' selector is that it's the
opposite of almost every other selector you've used. In most cases,
you're aiming to style something very specific: 'I want to style that
element' or 'that subset of elements'. With the not selector, you're
doing the opposite..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/css3notselector/

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. "
http://developer.yahoo.com/blogs/ydn/posts/2012/10/clip-your-hidden-content-for-better-accessibility/

+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

How to Measure Findability
By Jeff Sauro.
"In order to improve findability, you first need to know how findable
items on a website are. To do so we use the same core usability
metrics to assess how well users can find items..."
http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/measure-findability.php

+04: EVENTS.

International Semantic Web Conference
November 11-15, 2012.
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
http://iswc2012.semanticweb.org/

LeWeb'12 Paris
December 4-6, 2012.
Paris, France
http://paris.leweb.co/

New Adventures In Web Design Conference
January 23-25, 2013.
Nottingham, England, United Kingdom
http://2013.newadventuresconf.com/

Mobile + Web DevCon
January 29-31, 2013.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://www.mobilewebdevconference.com/

Webstock 2013
February 11-15, 2013.
Wellington, New Zealand
http://www.webstock.org.nz/

Snow*Mobile - A Mobile Development Conference
February 15-16, 2013.
Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A.
http://snow-mobile.org/

+05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Responsive IA: IA in the Touchscreen Era
By Martin Belam.
"...The discipline of imagining how every project could be configured
for the small screen is in some ways incredibly liberating. It helps
you focus on your core proposition. It allows you to concentrate on
the key tasks the user needs to achieve quickly, rather than get
distracted by supporting 'tiny tasks' and edge use cases. It makes you
consider how your pages and services will appear in the hands of
someone with a touchscreen device. It helps you make good stuff."
http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2012/10/responsive-ia-touchscreen-euroia-belam.php

Ditch Traditional Wireframes
By Sergio Nouvel.
"Some still think they have value. "Wireframes have played an
increasingly leading role in the modern Web development process. They
provide a simple way of validating user interface and layout and are
cheaper and faster to produce than a final visual comp. However, most
of the methods and techniques used to create them are far from being
efficient, contradicting the principles and values that made
wireframing useful in first place. While this article is not about
getting rid of the wireframing process itself, now is a good time for
questioning and improving some of the materials and deliverables that
have become de facto standards in the UX field. To make this point
clear, let's do a quick review of the types of wireframes commonly
used."
http://uxmag.com/articles/ditch-traditional-wireframes

+06: JAVASCRIPT.

Client-side Scripting Techniques for WCAG 2.0
By W3C.
"This Web page lists Client-side Scripting Techniques from Techniques
for WCAG 2.0: Techniques and Failures for Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines 2.0."
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20-TECHS/client-side-script.html

+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

Two Months of Device Diversity
By Luke Wroblewski.
"...At this point it should be painfully obvious that any company
working on the Web today needs a multi-device design strategy to
survive. This list represents the past two months, consider what the
future holds in store..."
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1646

5 iPad Mini Web Design and Development Early Best Practices
By James Sherrett.
"The most popular thing to do on an iPad is surf the web. Yet existing
desktop and mobile websites won't gracefully adapt or perform well on
Apple's new iPad Mini because it is a new device type with a screen
size between mobile and tablet - too large for mobile experiences, too
small for desktop experiences...."
http://www.mobify.com/blog/5-ipad-mini-design-development-best-practices/

+08: NAVIGATION.

The Return of the Scroll
By Dmitry Fadeyev.
"The latest release of Apple's eBook reading app called iBooks
introduced a new navigation mode: the scroll..."
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2012/10/29/the-return-of-the-scroll/

09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Best Practices for Web Quality
By opquast.
https://checklists.opquast.com/en/

+10: SITES.

Responsive Images Community Group
By responsiveimages.
"We're a group of developers working towards a markup-based means of
delivering alternate image sources based on device capabilities."
http://responsiveimages.org/

+11: USABILITY.

The End for Keyboards and Mice?
By By Paul Rubens.
"Apple's iPhone and its rivals may have introduced touchscreens to the
masses, but now a raft of technologies promise to change the way we
interact with computers forever."
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121023-the-end-for-keyboard-and-mice

Should Mobile Design Principles Be Applied to the Desktop?
By Raluca Budiu and Jakob Nielsen.
"...Don't put all your eggs in the tablet basket just yet. Tablets and
mobile devices may be the best thing since the invention of the Web;
they enable us to be connected at all times and in many ways make our
lives easier by simplifying many of our everyday tasks. But PCs will
still be around for complex tasks and can coexist peacefully with
mobile. And in complex tasks, minimizing interaction cost is of the
essence-and is much harder to do on a mobile device or with a
mobile-based design."
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1966263

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+16: 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.]