* 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.] * April 10, 2003. * Volume 1, Issue 42. * What's new at the Web Design Reference site? New Links In These Categories: 1: ACCESSIBILITY. 2: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 3: DREAMWEAVER. 4: EVALUATION & TESTING. 5: EVENTS. 6: FLASH. 7: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 8: JAVASCRIPT. 9: MISCELLANEOUS. 10: NAVIGATION. 11: PHP. 12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 13: USABILITY. 14: XML. SECTION ONE: New references. * 1: ACCESSIBILITY. The image problem By Joe Clark Chapter five of Joe's book is now on line. This is "The fullest explanation of how to make online images accessible yet written, with dozens of special cases explained." What is the alternative? Making web graphics accessible. By Tim Roberts "Does accessibility come at the expense of good design? Do highly graphical sites require text-only versions? Tim Roberts says definitely not." Alternative Interfaces for Accessibility By Jakob Nielsen "The key difference between user interfaces for sighted users and blind users is not that between graphics and text; it's the difference between 2-D and 1-D. Optimal usability for users with disabilities requires new approaches and new user interfaces." Design for machines first, people second! By Jim Byrne Visually Impaired Users - How To Help Them By Carmen Mardiros * 2: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. W3C buttons without images By Marek Prokop "W3C buttons on this page are made without images using pure XHTML and cascading style sheets..." CSS Layouts Vs. Table Layouts - Alternate Browsers and Accessibility Issues By Carmen Mardiros * 3: DREAMWEAVER. Dreamweaver MX: Getting used to the changes By John Wilker This article discusses the Dreamweaver MX environment from a ColdFusion programmer's perspective. * 4: EVALUATION & TESTING. Finding the Right Users By Peter Merholz "If you're using the eenie meenie method to select users for your research, perhaps it's time you tried something a little more scientific. There is no such thing as sound user research without an airtight user-selection process behind it." Eight is Not Enough By Christine Perfetti and Lori Landesman "With more users testing your site, you'll get more feedback, find more problems, and have more data, but there may be some less obvious advantages as well." * 5: EVENTS. University of Maryland Human-Computer Interaction Lab 20th Anniversary Symposium and Open House May 29-30, 2003 College Park, Maryland, U.S.A. CSCL 2003 Computer Support for Collaborative Learning June 14-18, 2003 Bergen, Norway WWW/Internet 2003 ADIS International Conference November 5-8, 2003 Algarve, Portugal WWW2003 The Twelfth International World Wide Web Conference May 20-24, 2003 Budapest, Hungary * 6: FLASH. Flash MX and Accessibility By Jeffrey Veen Flash - New Technology That Slows Down Users By Carmen Mardiros * 7: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Information Architecture: You Do It, You Just Don't Know It By Mir G. Haynes "Technical communicators stand to gain a great deal from understanding the work of the information architect. Even if you don't build Web sites, by thinking like an information architect, you'll greatly enhance the products you do develop. Whether you build online help systems, develop Web-based training, create or maintain knowledge bases, conduct usability testing, or help maintain your corporate intranet, you'll find it worth your while to get in touch with your inner information architect. Doing so will make your products easier for users to use and for owners/developers to maintain." Writing Smart Annotations By Dan Saffer "One of the most tedious, yet necessary, tasks of an information architect or interaction designer is annotating wireframes..." Card-Based Classification Evaluation By Donna Maurer "We hear and talk a lot about card sorting in various forms, and how it can be used as input on a hierarchy or classification system (or a taxonomy, if you like more technical words). We hear that we should test our hierarchies, but we don't talk about how." * 8: JAVASCRIPT. JavaScript and accessibility By Peter-Paul Koch JavaScript Optimization By Jeff Greenberg Take advantage of advanced JavaScript functions By Edmond Woychowsky "You can find oodles of documentation on the Internet about using basic functions, but just try to find some info on advanced features of JavaScript functions." * 9: MISCELLANEOUS. A Conversation With Steve Champeon By Brian Alvey "In this conversation, Steve discusses his popular WebDesign-L mailing list, the new Web Standards Project, his career on the Web and the tools of his trade." Joe Clark Interview By Tim Roberts "Joe Clark is a Toronto based accessibility consultant and journalist renowned for not pulling punches. He is also the author of the book 'Building Accessible Websites'." * 10: NAVIGATION. Creating a Controlled Vocabulary By Karl Fast, Fred Leise and Mike Steckel * 11: PHP. PHP Web Databases By Keith Brown "A series of workshops developed for the novice PHP user. Starts with an introduction to PHP leading to the development of web-based databases using MySQL." Using PHP With LDAP (part 1) - Plugging In By Harish Kamath "Among its many other capabilities, PHP also comes with a full-featured API to connect to, and communicate with, LDAP directory servers. This article explores how PHP and LDAP can be used together, beginning with a crash course in LDAP basics and proceeding to a series of simple examples that demonstrate how PHP can be used to search an LDAP directory and format the results for the Web." Using PHP With LDAP (part 2) - Plugging In By Harish Kamath "In this second, and concluding, article, dig deeper into PHP's LDAP API by writing complex search queries and building a Web-based administration module to retrieve and modify entries from the LDAP directory tree." * 12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Forward compatibility and web standards By Peter-Paul Koch Web standards improve 2theadvocate.com navigation By Adrian Holovaty "Adrian Holovaty demonstrates how standards compliant code and effectively written JavaScript can decimate the size of a clunky navigation interface, and make it more usable and accessible." Standards: Optional Features or Law? By Dimitris Dimitriadis * 13: USABILITY. Archive of the Workshop on Usability and the Web By National Institute of Standards and Technology in collaboration with the World Wide Web Consortium "On November 4-5, 2002 in collaboration with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) hosted a workshop to develop a plan for Web usability efforts. The major outcome of this workshop was a draft charter for submission to the W3C for the formation of a Usability Interest Group." Usability is good management By Gerry McGovern Usability return on investment (ROI) in the research literature By Louise Ferguson * 14: XML. Tips archive By Simon St. Laurent Simon St. Laurent's XHTML tactics, strategy, workarounds and more. XML and JavaScript in the Browser By John E. Simpson "In this month's Q&A column, John Simpson describes some JavaScript libraries for parsing XML in popular web browsers, and he offers a high-level explanation of XSL-FO." An XML Hero Reconsiders? By Kendall Grant Clark "Kendall Grant Clark assesses reaction to an essay by Tim Bray that claimed XML was too difficult to work with. Was Bray right, or is he out of touch?" [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.]