+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 1, Issue 45, May 3, 2003. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 45 CONTENTS. SECTION ONE: New references. What's new at the Web Design Reference site? http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdesign/ New Links In These Categories: 01: ACCESSIBILITY. 02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 03: COLOR. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: NAVIGATION. 10: PHP. 11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 12: TOOLS. 13: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 15: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 Working Draft http://www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-WCAG20-20030429/ IMS Learner Information Package Accessibility for LIP IMS has released a draft specification to improve accessibility of Online Learning and is seeking public commentary. http://www.imsglobal.org/accessibility/ How to make non-text elements accessible - some notes By Jim Byrne http://www.mcu.org.uk/articles/alttext.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS Inheritance By Dan Cederholm http://www.simplebits.com/200304#1050463091 Styling the Amazing Netscape Fish Cam Page By Eric Meyer "A classic reborn! The Amazing Netscape Fish Cam Page has been restructured and restyled for the new millennium, ditching tables for strong and accessible markup. Take a cruise through one aspect of the redesign with master styler Eric Meyer." http://tinyurl.com/aon3 50 CSS Headings By Christopher Schmitt http://www.cssbook.com/resources/css/headings/ +03: COLOR. Colour Picker and Tester By tesspub.com On this page you can check color combos for 3 types at one time, and the difference between a display using thousands of colors versus a display only capable of 256 colors. It gives a Brightness Value percentage, contrast value percentage and a difference in total RGB value by percentage. http://www.tesspub.com/colours.html +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. A Proposal for Evaluating Usability Testing Methods: The Practical Review System (PRS) By John S. Rhodes "The purpose of this article is to explain the Practical Review System (PRS). The PRS is an outline of 28 characteristics that can be used to understand any usability method, thereby allowing any individual to decide between methods. This solves many of the problems associated with understanding and explaining usability methods." http://webword.com/moving/prs.html CHI 2003 Feature: Testing... 1 2 3 4 5 ... Testing... By Larry Constantine "Usability can sometimes be more about belief than about evidence or engineering, with usability testing heading the list as a central tenet of the dogma of modern practice... Yet, precisely because of its leading role, it is important for the profession to question the dogma of usability testing and for professionals to keep abreast of new developments and changing perspectives." http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article1058.asp +05: EVENTS. 13th Annual University of Minnesota Communicators Forum Conference May 7, 2003 Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. http://www1.umn.edu/umcf/2003conference/invite.html Greater Boston SIGCHI Professional Development Conference. June 7, 2003 Burlington, Massachusetts, U.S.A. http://www.gbsigchi.org/PDC/index.html Web Design World July 28-30, 2003 Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. http://www.webdesignworld.com/ +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Comments on "fear factors" of paper prototyping Keith Instone started this thread on iaslash http://iaslash.org/node.php?id=7335 +07: JAVASCRIPT. Page Navigation Techniques Chapter 10 of "JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook" By Danny Goodman http://tinyurl.com/aon6 +08: MISCELLANEOUS. The Ideal Web Team (part 1) By Peter-Paul Koch http://tinyurl.com/at7h The Ideal Web Team (part 2) By Peter-Paul Koch http://tinyurl.com/asxa + 09: NAVIGATION. Getting Confidence from Lincoln By Jared M. Spool "...users expect to find 'trigger words' in the links. A trigger word is a word (or phrase) that causes the user to click. When the trigger words match the user's goals, they find those words right away and the links make them more confident that they are going to find their content." http://www.uie.com/Articles/getting_confidence.htm Web Page Layout: A Comparison Between Left- and Right-Justified Site Navigation Menus By James Kalbach and Tim Bosenick "The usability of two Web page layouts was directly compared: one with the main site navigation menu on the left of the page, and one with the main site navigation menu on the right. Sixty-four participants were divided equally into two groups and assigned to either the left- or the right-hand navigation test condition. Using a stopwatch, the time to complete each of five tasks was measured. The hypothesis that the left-hand navigation would perform significantly faster than the right-hand navigation was not supported. Instead, there was no significant difference in completion times between the two test conditions. This research questions the current leading Web design thought that the main navigation menu should be left justified" http://tinyurl.com/aon9 Best practices: The basics of search design By Julie Albertson "Some basic hard and fast rules for search interface design" http://www.juliealbertson.com/search.html +10: PHP. Using Control Structures in PHP By Joel Philip "If you are a beginner to PHP, learning how to use control structures is a must. In this article Joel will assist you guys by providing coherent examples." http://www.devarticles.com/art/1/534 Book Excerpt: PHP Cookbook Chapter 11: Web Automation, Part 2 By David Sklar This is the conclusion of a series of excerpts from Chapter 11 of the, PHP Cookbook. http://tinyurl.com/aona +11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Forward compatibility and web standards By Peter-Paul Koch The current definition of forward compatibility in web design leans far too heavily on web standards. This short article gives arguments against intertwining these two concepts. http://tinyurl.com/at6r +12: TOOLS. Abbreviations and Acronyms form By Scott Gonzalez http://students.juniata.edu/gonzasi0/temp/a.php Checky 1.5 By Sam Marshall This is a new version of Checky, a plugin for Mozilla-based browsers. It can now validate local files. http://checky.mozdev.org/ Simple preview of a CSS editor By Pixy "This is the first try to make an online CSS editor. The source is simply formatted (structured only) and valid (X)HTML document. The style is linked from an external CSS file and you may edit it via this interface." http://www.pixy.cz/webedit/ +13: USABILITY. The Web Content Style Guide Excerpt Writing for the Web: Part 1 By Gerry McGovern http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/guide_write_01.htm The Web Content Style Guide: Excerpt Designing for the Web: Part 1 By Gerry McGovern http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/guide_design_1.htm CHI 2003 Workshop Position papers http://nitro.watson.ibm.com/chi2003Workshop/papers.html Will Plain-Text Ads Continue to Rule? By Jakob Nielsen "Text-only advertisements work far better than banners, but is this only due to their novelty? Search engine text ads will retain their superiority over time, but text ads on other sites will work only if they focus on directly meeting users' needs." http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030428.html Take the Fat Out of Your Writing By Kathy Henning http://tinyurl.com/aone Jakob Nielsen Declares the Letter "C" Unusable By US Press Staff http://news.unclesharky.com/showarticle.php?article=1101 [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +15: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? Accessibility Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/accessibility Association Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/associations Book Listings. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/books Cascading Style Sheets Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/css Color Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/color Dreamweaver Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/dreamweaver Evaluation & Testing Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/testing Event Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/events Flash Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/flash Information Architecture Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/architecture JavaScript Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/javascript Miscellaneous Web Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/misc Navigation Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/navigation PHP Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/php Sites & Blogs Listing. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/sites Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/standards Tool Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/tools Typography Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/type Usability Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/usability XML Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/xml [Section two ends.] ++END NOTES. + SUBSCRIPTION INFO. WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription only. For information on how to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit: http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdevlist + TEXT EMAIL NEWSLETTER (TEN) STANDARD. As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) Standard. Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier. For TEN Standard information please visit: http://www.headstar.com/ten + SIGNATURE. Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN 55812-3009 mailto:lcarlson@d.umn.edu [Issue ends.]