* WEB DESIGN UPDATE. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. NOTE: As a navigation aid for screen readers, all headings begin with an asterisk and end with a full stop. All items are also numbered in the contents and throughout the issue, with numbers appearing immediately after the asterisks. Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier. [Issue starts.] * February 14, 2003. * Volume 1, Issue 34. * What's new at the Web Design Reference site? New Links In These Categories: 1: ACCESSIBILITY. 2: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 3: EVALUATION & TESTING. 4: FLASH. 5: EVENTS. 6: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 7: JAVASCRIPT. 8: MISCELLANEOUS. 9: NAVIGATION. 10: PHP. 11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 12: TOOLS. 13: USABILITY. 14: XML. SECTION ONE: New references. * 1: ACCESSIBILITY. Building Accessible Websites: What is Media Access? By Joe Clark Chapter four of Joe's book is now on line. Making Websites Accessible By Jim Byrne How Accessible is Safari? By Ian Lloyd * 2: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Netscape DevEdge Redesign: CSS By Eric A. Meyer Eric and crew has created a new swanky CSS design for DevEdge. Table-based layouts are gone. The site has also been given an accessibility make-over. TablesVsDivs Why we shouldn't use tables By css-discuss WIKI AllTheWeb's restyling competition Winners CSS Center Layers & Elements By Eddie Traversa Learning to Design Web Pages with Style By Russell J.T. Dyer There's an interesting review of the Eric Meyer's latest book at Linux Journal. Instead of just reviewing the book, Russell Dyer also asks Eric some interview questions and wove the responses into the review. * 3: EVALUATION & TESTING. In Search of the Holy Grail: Alternatives to Nielsen's Heuristics By Todd Zazelenchuk What Metrics Can Do for You By Rick Craig XHTML and CSS: Testing Multiple Versions of Internet Explorer By Timothy J. Luoma * 4: FLASH I don't hate Flash; I just hate what it does to designers By Jay Small "Rich-media eye-candy becomes a crutch when interface workflows fail ... not that you'll win any water-cooler points with that sentiment around the office." * 5: EVENTS. International PHP Meetup * 6: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Building an Information Architecture the Adaptive Path Way: An Interview with Indi Young" the creator of the mental model diagram and gap analysis process." By Josh Porter * 7: JAVASCRIPT. Netscape DevEdge Redesign: JavaScript By Bob Clary Optimizing JavaScript for Download Speed By Andrew B. King Chapter 9 of "Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization" Optimizing JavaScript for Execution Speed By Andrew B. King Chapter 10 of "Speed Up Your Site: Web Site Optimization" * 8: MISCELLANEOUS. Web Site Optimization An Interview with Andy King By John S. Rhodes * 9: NAVIGATION. Don't use 'Click here' By Iris Jarmin * 10: PHP. Working with Permissions in PHP, Part 1 By John Coggeshall Formulating Formatted Fractions with PHP By Hal Eckhart Develop rock-solid code in PHP: Part one By Amol Hatwar Custom Error Pages with PHP and Apache By David Sklar * 11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Netscape DevEdge Redesigns As Standards Showcase By Eric A. Meyer & Susie Wyshak * 12: TOOLS. The WAVE 3.0 beta Web Accessibility Tool Color Blender By Eric A. Meyer and Steven Champeon This nifty little tool, although hacked together and may not look like much, can be useful to calculate the midpoint between two colors. Eric has made this disclaimer: "The JavaScript is no doubt inefficient and clumsy, the tool may not work in your browser, and for all I know it will lock up your computer. It was just a quick hack. Well, not quick, actually; I'm not very skilled at JavaScript. Enjoy it, or don't, as you like. Just don't expect me to fix or add anything unless you mail me the code needed to do whatever you want the tool to do." :-) moreCrayons By Kirk Franklin "Most Internet users have monitors that can display more colors than the 216 that are used in the traditional Òbrowser-safeÓ palette. moreCrayons is a bigger box of crayons; 4,096 colors for the web." * 13: USABILITY. Homepage Real Estate Allocation By Jakob Nielsen The New R&D: Relevant & Desirable By George Olsen "Somewhere in the process of evangelizing user-centered design, user experience professionals seem to have forgotten the value of vision-driven design." What's Your Idea of a Mental Model? By Scott McDaniel "As usability and design professionals, we often use the term 'mental model' loosely." All Those Opposed Making the case for user experience in a budget-conscious climate By Jesse James Garrett * 14: XML. Happy Birthday, XML! (XML Turns Five on Monday 10 February 2003) By Dave Hollander and C. M. Sperberg-McQueen Doing More with XML Schemas (part 4) By Harish Kamath. [Section one ends.] * SECTION TWO: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? Accessibility Information. Association Information. Book Listings. Cascading Style Sheets Information. Color Information. Dreamweaver Information. Evaluation & Testing Information. Event Information. Flash Information. Information Architecture Information. JavaScript Information. Miscellaneous Web Information. Navigation Information. PHP Information. Sites & Blogs Listing. Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information. Tool Information. Typography Information. Usability Information. XML Information. [Section two ends.] * SUBSCRIPTION INFO. WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription only. For information on how to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit: * SIGNATURE. Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN 55812-3009 mailto:lcarlson@d.umn.edu [Issue ends.]