+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 2, Issue 15, October 4, 2003. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 15 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: PHP. 09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 10: TOOLS. 11: USABILITY. 12: XML. SECTION TWO: 13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Accessibility of State and Local Government Websites to People with Disabilities By U.S. Department of Justice "The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and, if the government entities receive Federal funding, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, generally require that State and local governments provide qualified individuals with disabilities equal access to their programs, services, or activities unless doing so would fundamentally alter the nature of their programs, services, or activities or would impose an undue burden. One way to help meet these requirements is to ensure that government websites have accessible features for people with disabilities, using the simple steps described in this document." http://www.ada.gov/websites2.htm Access all sights By Cliff Joseph "The requirement for companies to have accessible websites has been enshrined in UK law since 1995, as part of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA). But the law has received little attention - until now, as a number of individuals prepare to launch legal action against websites that they claim flout the law." http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/story/0,3605,1034801,00.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS 101 By Makiko Itoh This is a basic Cascading Style Sheet tutorial. http://www.createwebmagic.com/css101/ CSS Based Design By Jeremy Keith Another nice introductory CSS tutorial http://adactio.com/articles/display.php/CSS_based_design/2 max-width in Internet Explorer By Svend Tofte "...this article is concerned mainly about using max-width, to limit line-lengths, and maintain a readable page. Therefore, the hack described on this page deals alot in em's..." http://www.svendtofte.com/code/max_width_in_ie/ +03: DREAMWEAVER. Dreamweaver's New Features: A Dream Come True By Troy Dreier "The release of Dreamweaver MX 2004 (this version is so cutting edge that it's apparently three months ahead of the calendar) will not disappoint. It takes powerful but certainly under-used cascading style sheets (CSS) and makes them central. Creating rich CSS sites with Dreamweaver is now as simple as creating HTML." http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200309/ij_09_29_03a.html +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Four Words to Improve User Research By Mark Hurst "...Don't define tasks beforehand..." http://www.goodexperience.com/columns/03/1001.fourwords.html +05: EVENTS. First Annual Education Web Professionals Summit October 19, 2003 Milwaukee, Wisconsin U.S.A. http://www.joinwow.org/league/course2.asp WWW 2004 The Thirteenth International World Wide Web Conference May 17-22, 2004 New York, New York U.S.A. http://www2004.org/ HCI Research in MIS, Second annual workshop December 12-13, 2004 Seattle, Washington U.S.A. http://melody.syr.edu/hci/pre_icis03_wksp/index.cgi +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Enterprise IA Roadmap By Louis Rosenfeld "My goal is to show that there are certain aspects of a site's architecture that are worth tackling right away for quick wins, others that you'll get around to later, and others that you might never reach in a distributed, highly politicized enterprise environment..." http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000206.html +07: JAVASCRIPT. Learning the JavaScript Debugger Venkman By Svend Tofte This is a tutorial on how to use the JavaScript debugger, Venkman, for Mozilla. Venkman "is a powerful JavaScript debugger, available through the Mozilla browser. It works like most other debuggers, and allows one to get really into ones code, to nail hard to find bugs, or just test certain conditions. It has been written to the JavaScript programmer who isn't familiar with other such tools, so it should be easy for most people to follow." http://www.svendtofte.com/code/learning_venkman/ +09: PHP. PHP and Design Patterns By Leon Atkinson and Zeev Suraski "Popular among fans of Java and C++, design patterns are not a topic often discussed among PHP programmers. Yet, they can be an important part of PHP programming. The authors of Core PHP Programming discuss patterns and give examples of some popular patterns you can use in PHP programming." http://tinyurl.com/p1l6 +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Using Structural Markup By The University of Durham http://tinyurl.com/osvo +10: TOOLS. CSS Layout-o-Matic By Kevin Tatro, Mike Slone and Justin Souter This is a free online tool that automatically generates a variety of cross-browser CSS layouts. Quite amazing. Select a layout (no columns, left column, right column, two columns), input a width and padding settings, click the button, and bam! A columned (or no-columned) layout that is cross-browser compatible and ready to be styled. It could be a good way to learn how CSS layouts work or it could speed the development of your own CSS layouts. http://www.inknoise.com/experimental/layoutomatic.php List-o-Rama Dreamweaver Extension By George Petrov Here is a free CSS List-o-Rama Dreamweaver Extension. It works in Dreamweaver 4 and up. http://www.dmxzone.com/ShowDetail.asp?NewsId=5618 Listamatic2 This online CSS List tool includes nested lists. http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/listamatic2/ Color Scheme Picker By Petr Stanicek This like all good web tools, is free. It lets you chose base colors and complements, split complements, double contrast, monochromatic, and analogic. After that you can refine the scheme by clicking on the hex color to the right. Additionally it allows you to select regular vision as well as the various types of color blindness. http://www.pixy.cz/apps/barvy/index-en.html Color Metric Converter By colorpro.com http://colorpro.com/info/tools/convert.htm +11: USABILITY. Websites require flexible not fixed design By Gerry McGovern "A website needs to be flexible. It needs to be able to change as the organization changes. The more change within the organization the more flexible the website needs to be. Too many websites are still being designed from a print perspective; as if they were some once-off brochure." http://tinyurl.com/oxwa +12: XML. My First XML Document By Gayathri Gokul "We have dealt with some basic XML concepts already, so now we are prepared to leap forward and take a closer look at this powerful language. The X in XML stands for eXtensible- in other words, the language can be extended to meet the requirements of a specific situation." http://www.devshed.com/Server_Side/XML/First_XML/page1.html [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +13: 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.]