+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 1, Issue 48, May 21, 2003. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 48 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: DREAMWEAVER. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: FLASH. 07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 08: JAVASCRIPT. 09: MISCELLANEOUS. 10: PHP. 11: TOOLS. 12: USABILITY. 13: XML. SECTION TWO: 14: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Using Accesskeys - Is it worth it? By John Foliot "...So while it seems that Accesskeys is a great idea in principle, implementation brings with it the possibility that it either will not be available to all users, or that the keystroke combination encoded within the web page may conflict with a reserved keystroke combination in an adaptive technology or future user agent." http://wats.ca/resources/accesskeys/19 Make forms easier to use by creating a logical tab order By Jim Byrne "The one time I use a keyboard rather than a mouse on the web, is when I am filling in a form. And in common with many other keyboard users (e.g. web surfers who are blind) - I use the tab key to move from one field to the next." http://www.mcu.org.uk/show.php?contentid=2 Blind group pushes changes to Web sites By Michael Liedtke The National Federation of the Blind now has an online seal of approval for Web sites to stamp them as being accessible by people with visual impairments. http://tinyurl.com/bx3t +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS Table Design: Overview By Al Sparber "CSS positioning is not exclusive to 'table-less' layouts..." http://www.projectseven.com/tutorials/css_t/index.htm HTML Utopia Designing Without Tables Using CSS By Dan Shafer Sitepoint is offering a free download of the first four chapters of Dan Shafer's new book. http://www.sitepoint.com/books/css1/signoff.php CSS3 Generated and Replaced Content Module By W3C The first draft of the CSS3 Generated and Replaced Content Module has been published on the W3C Technical Reports page as a Working Draft. It covers things like "how to insert and move content around a document, in order to create footnotes, endnotes, section notes." http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-content/ CSS3 Speech Module By W3C This is another working draft which is very interesting in terms of what it can offer in improved accessibility. http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-speech/ CSS3 Color Module By W3C This color module is a recently published candidate recommendation. There is a new opacity property. Also the color properties of previous CSS Recommendations are merged with features found in SVG 1.0. http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-color/ CSS3 Text Module By W3C This text module is also a recently published candidate recommendation. The new features here are all about supporting different written languages. http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-text/ +03: DREAMWEAVER. PHP and MySQL in Dreamweaver MX By Allan Kent "This tutorial will walk you through the following: Installing MySQL, set up of phpMyAdmin, creating your database, and connecting to database" http://www.dmxzone.com/ShowDetail.asp?NewsId=4390 +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Convincing Clients to Pay for Usability By Jakob Nielsen "Professionally run design agencies user test their designs to increase the value they deliver to their clients. The challenge is getting clients to understand the benefits of a solid development methodology." http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030519.html +05: EVENTS. Higher Education Web Professionals of New York State Fourth Annual Conference June 23-24, 2003 Registration deadline June 2, 2003 Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester, New York, U.S.A. http://www.highedweb.com/conference03general.html Salisbury University Fourth Annual Web Conference July 13-16, 2003 Salisbury, MD, U.S.A. http://www.esac.org/webinstitute03/ +06: FLASH. Requirements for Text Equivalents By Bob Regan "These last few days, I have been thinking about the rules for providing accessibility properties to individual instances within a Flash movie. In HTML, every img element requires an alt attribute, no exceptions. Images that convey no content use the null value for the alt attribute. This makes validation simple. In Flash, this is not the case. There needs to be a set of rules to account for this that makes it easier to verify if a name has been forgotten or inappropriately excluded..." http://www.markme.com/accessibility/archives/002485.cfm +07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Views and Forms: Principles of Task Flow for Web Applications Part 1 By Bob Baxley "One of the defining elements of web applications is their support for the editing and manipulation of stored data. Unlike the typical conversation that goes on between a user and a content-centric website however, this additional capability requires a more robust dialog between user and application." http://tinyurl.com/bo0e The Information Design approach to Web development By Dirk Knemeyer "Information Design is dedicated to making information as effective as possible. Effective is a carefully chosen word here. In order to be as effective as possible, information must carefully balance a variety of factors, including, but not limited to clarity, relevance, timeliness, amplitude, volume, and differentiation." http://tinyurl.com/cdv3 +08: JAVASCRIPT. Cooking with JavaScript & DHTML By Danny Goodman Here is an excerpt from Chapter 8 of Danny Goodman's "JavaScript & DHTML". It is on dynamic forms. http://tinyurl.com/bzf1 +09: MISCELLANEOUS. An interview with Andrew B. King By Craig Saila "Slow Web sites are perceived to be of lower quality, less trustworthy, and less credible." http://tinyurl.com/bx0e Information Architecture Meets Usability By Bruce Stewart this is an O'Reilly interview with Lou Rosenfeld and Steve Krug. http://tinyurl.com/bx0d +10: PHP. Introduction to PHP5 By Luis Argerich "PHP5 is not yet official but the development versions are already usable (and unstable!) so we can start to learn and practice the new features of the upcoming version of PHP. In this article I will focus in three major new features of PHP5: the new object model, Exceptions, Namespaces." http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/argerich20030411.php3 Arrays 101 By Josh Petrovich "If you've ever created large scripts that require many variables (sometimes nearly 100), you know what it's like trying to keep track of what each variable contains and what it's used for. Trust me, I've been there. If we can store those variables inside other variables then the list of hundreds shrinks to less than 10. That's where arrays come in." http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/petrovich20030424.php3 +11: TOOLS. Auditing software tools for SENDA compliance By TechDis Web Accessibility Research Projects at Plymouth University in the United Kingdom did a review of 19 or so products. SENDA is the UK version of U.S. Section 508. http://tinyurl.com/bx4u Using Automated Tools to Improve Web Site Usage by Users with Diverse Abilities By Melody Y. Ivory, Jennifer Mankoff and Audrey Le Here is a study that compares various validation and accessibility tools. http://tinyurl.com/bx0l Please note that it is an acrobat PDF file. If you do not have acrobat you can download the acrobat viewer from: http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/main.html This download is for people who do not have Acrobat installed on their computers. It allows you to open and view a PDF file. Additional Adobe free tools are available to assist visually impaired users at: http://access.adobe.com/ +12: USABILITY. Instructional Design for Flow in Online Learning By Sandra C. Ceraulo "This tutorial describes how the instructional design of an online course can facilitate an optimal learning experience for the student..." http://tinyurl.com/bx0x +13: XML. Daniel Veillard looks at XML from an Open Source perspective By Simon St.Laurent "While XML has benefited from free and open source tools since its beginning, the open source and free software community has taken a measured approach to XML. Daniel Veillard gave the XML-centric crowd at XML Europe 2003 a look at XML from a different perspective." http://www.xmlhack.com/read.php?item=1968 [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +14: 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.]