+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 1, Issue 52, June 15, 2003. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 52 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: DREAMWEAVER. 05: EVALUATION & TESTING. 06: EVENTS. 07: FLASH. 08: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 09: JAVASCRIPT. 10: MISCELLANEOUS. 11: PHP. 12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 13: TYPOGRAPHY 14: TOOLS. 15: USABILITY. 16: XML. SECTION TWO: 17: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Accessible Interdependent Select Boxes By Chris Heilmann "An example of how to redesign interdependent select boxes to make them accessible without losing too much usability benefit or interactivity" http://tinyurl.com/dn4q Accessible web design is not about creating boring sites By Jim Byrne "Accessible websites can look fabulous...However, what is required when using these technologies is a bit of clear thinking about what their purpose is on your site, and how, if the content is important, their functionality or message can be provided in alternative ways..." http://www.mcu.org.uk/show.php?contentid=10 +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Cascade and Inheritance By John Allsopp "You are probably wondering what exactly cascades about cascading style sheets. In this section we look at the idea of cascading, and a related idea, that of inheritance. Both are important underlying concepts that you will need to grasp, and understand the difference between, in order to work properly with style sheets." http://tinyurl.com/dp2u INDEX Dot Css By Brian Wilson Brian Wilson has updated his excellent CSS site for the newest browsers. http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/index.html Also related is his updated HTML site. http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/html/index.html These are great references. Cascading Style Sheet Tutorials By webdesignhelper http://tinyurl.com/dxiv It's All About Boxes By Simon Jessey "An understanding of the box model is vital if you want to get the most out of Cascading Style Sheets." http://jessey.net/simon/articles/003.html +03: COLOR. Design Matters: Color By Sherif Tariq This article covers the basic principles of color theory. http://www.sheriftariq.org/design/color/ CSS colors By Simon Jessey "There are 216 colors in the so-called browser-safe palette. Here, I list all these colors and also talk about the color keywords listed in the CSS specification." http://jessey.net/simon/articles/006.html +04: DREAMWEAVER. Dreamweaver MX abbreviation and acronym extension By Harold Bakker This free Dreamweaver MX extension provides an abbreviation object that will place an tag around any selection, prompting you for the full description. http://www.haroldbakker.com/extensions/abbrandacronym.php DreamWeaver MX Template Tutorial By Etc. Web "Templates are used to create a number of pages with common elements. Some regions of a template are locked to prevent changes. Other regions are editable to allow different content to be added to each page that uses the template." http://www.etcgroup.info/mytemplatelesson/concepts.html +05: EVALUATION & TESTING. Remote Online Usability Testing: Why, How, and When to Use It By Dabney Gough and Holly Phillips "Traditional, one-on-one usability testing is a great technique for uncovering usability issues on a website. Unfortunately, in-person usability testing isn't always feasible due to tight schedules, tight budgets, and elusive target users. So what is a usability crusader to do when in-person usability testing is impossible?" http://tinyurl.com/dxr2 +06: EVENTS. United Kingdom Web Accessibility Congress August 29-31, 2003 University of Central England in Birmingham Birmingham, United Kingdom http://www.cie.uce.ac.uk/ukwac/ CADUI 2004 5th International Conference Computer-Aided Design of User Interfaces Call for Papers January 14-16, 2004 Funchal, Madeira Island, Portugal http://www.iuiconf.org/ +07: FLASH. Labeling Controls By Bob Regan Here is "some specifics on labeling controls within Flash. In many cases, this is a very simple thing to accomplish. In fact, auto-labeling can make it automatic. However, we found a few cases where it is not so clear." http://www.markme.com/accessibility/archives/002657.cfm Sounds on Load and screen readers By Bob Regan "...As a second option, I suggested they simply place another button at the top of the page that turns the music in the main movie off. This simply makes it easy for the screen reader user to turn off the music..." http://www.markme.com/accessibility/archives/002696.cfm +08: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Information Architecture: Theory & Practice By Kelly Goto In this presentation by Kelly Goto she says "setting up proper structure for the site from the beginning, is an important part of developing site architecture. Structure and navigation are not the same although they cannot exist without each other. Determine your current and future needs carefully when creating directory and linking schemas...Site Architecture is looking at the whole picture -- from a technical overview to the details of navigation. Before you build...think, plan, and test." http://www.gotomedia.com/iceland/architecture/ Information design using card sorting By James Robertson "At the beginning of any information design exercise, it is normal to be confronted by a very long list of potential subjects to include. The challenge is to organize this information in a way that is useful and meaningful for the users of the system. While careful investigation and analysis of the information may reveal some clues, it can be virtually impossible to determine which topics should be grouped together. The difficulty in organizing the content stems from a lack of knowledge about how real users make use of this information. Without this, any exercise in information design is a purely theoretical one. A card sorting session can go a long way towards resolving this problem." http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cardsorting/index.html The structure of content and metadata By Peter van Dijck "...I've been thinking about structured content a lot lately. Here are some thoughts (some extremely basic)..." http://poorbuthappy.com/ease/001158.html Metadata Glossary By Victor Lombardi http://tinyurl.com/d8qq Deliverables and Methods: Special Deliverable #8 By Dan Brown "To date this column has focused on how to make deliverables more effective, either through their content or through the tools to create them. For this issue, I would like to explore the relationship between deliverables and methodology. Unfortunately, this calls for a definition of IA methodology, which may challenge the definition of IA as the hardest question in our field." http://tinyurl.com/dxr9 +09: JAVASCRIPT. Cooking with JavaScript & DHTML, Part 4 By Danny Goodman This is a recipe excerpt from "JavaScript & DHTML Cookbook". http://tinyurl.com/dp2w Cooking with JavaScript & DHTML, Part 5 By Danny Goodman http://tinyurl.com/ea2w +10: MISCELLANEOUS. An interview with Jeffrey Zeldman: art, love, web standards and George Clooney By Bruce Lawson "...Standards are a continuum of interlocking, empowering technologies. The more you know, the more you can do. But you can do a lot even if you don't know all that much, yet. If you'd never used JavaScript and were suddenly asked to build a full-fledged DOM-based web application, you'd have a tough time. What happens with, for instance, CSS, is that people who've never used it, or who've barely used it, or who've only used a little of it without understanding it, sometimes try to do a full-blown CSS layout, and those CSS newbies naturally become frustrated. Well, the trick to learning anything is to approach the problem in stages. If you've always done table layouts and you've never used CSS, stick with table layouts for now, but replace your font tags with style sheets. As you learn more, you'll do more. It's a continuum, not a set of inflexible rules..." http://www.dmxzone.com/ShowDetail.asp?NewsId=5100 +11: PHP. Introduction to PHP By Gez Lemon "A complete introduction to the basics of PHP, including operator, control flow to forms, server variables, cookies and HTTP headers." http://www.developerfusion.com/show/3703/ +12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Designing with Web Standards: Structural Healing By Jeffery Zeldman "Developing in XHTML goes beyond converting uppercase to lowercase and adding slashes to the end of
tags. If changing 'tag fashions' were all there was to it, nobody would bother. To benefit from XHTML, you need to think about your markup in structural rather than visual terms." http://tinyurl.com/ea3i +13: TYPOGRAPHY Fun With Fonts By Simon Jessey "The first of two articles that talks about how CSS can be used to manipulate fonts. This particular article focuses on how you can use positioning rules to move text around." http://jessey.net/simon/articles/004.html Fun With Fonts 2 By Simon Jessey "This is the second of two articles that discusses how to manipulate fonts with CSS." http://jessey.net/simon/articles/005.html +14: TOOLS. Hivelogic URL Cleaner By Dan P. Benjamin This online tool will "clean your dirty URL's" It will fix non-valid web addresses, by "replacing naked ampersands with their symbolic notation". http://www.hivelogic.com/urlcleaner.php +15: USABILITY. Metadata is essential web writing skill, Part 2 By Gerry McGovern "Creating great metadata for your content begins with understanding who your reader is. What is the metadata they look for when they read a page of your content? What are the type of words they use when they search for your content? When scanning your classification, what are the 'trigger words' that will make them want to go deeper into your website?" http://tinyurl.com/du1j +16: XML. Learning XHTML By Simon Jessey Here is an XHTML tutorial that deals with "the basics of the XHTML 1.0 Strict markup language". http://jessey.net/simon/xhtml_tutorial/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +17: 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.]