+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 3, Issue 07, August 3, 2004. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 07 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: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: NAVIGATION. 10: PHP. 11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 12: TOOLS. 13: USABILITY. 14: XML. SECTION TWO: 15: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Pixels as Relative Units of Measure By Derek Featherstone "Pixels are a relative unit, but are not pragmatic to use for text-sizing as they are relative to the monitor resolution and not browser settings." http://www.wats.ca/articles/pixelsarerelative/65 Title Attribute -- Your Take By D. Keith Robinson Some good comments from Keith's readers. http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/archives/title_attribute_your_take.php +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Throwing Tables Out the Window By Douglas Bowman In this article Doug suggests doing all initial web design testing using a standards compliant web browser because it is easier to tweak a standards compliant website to work in IE than the other way around. http://www.stopdesign.com/articles/throwing_tables/ A Programmer's Perspective of CSS By Eitan Suez "This site is not about making a page look as nice as it can be. It's about making a web application's user interface as usable as it can be. Here you will find a programmer's perspective on CSS." http://www.uptodata.com/css/ CSS 1.0 Once-A-Day By Adam Howell "I'm going to post an entire section of the revised CSS 1.0 Specification, or in the case of the longer sections just part of one, every weekday (unless I'm away on vacation or something). And after each section I will then do my best to write, in my own words, a short, concise summary of what it really had to say."" http://www.weeklystandards.com/cssproject/ Getting equal-height columns in a three-column layout Michael Meadhra "Using a wrapper div to create a background color for the shorter column...is an effective solution when you can predict which column will be the longest; but creating a three-column layout that can accommodate different combinations of column lengths requires a different approach..." http://builder.com.com/5100-6371_14-5268973.html +03: DREAMWEAVER. Integrating Dreamweaver MX 2004 with Contribute 3 By Mark Fletcher "In this article I explore the powerful integration between Contribute 3 and Dreamweaver MX 2004 that gives web designers, developers, and content contributors a powerful, cost-effective way of develop and maintain websites." http://tinyurl.com/6zcyr +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Improving your intranet, task by task By Tina Calabria "One method that is certain to provide immediate business benefit is to improve the way the intranet supports key tasks. In fact, by selecting only one task at a time, improvements can be made in a manageable and cost-effective manner." http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_taskbytask/index.html +05: EVENTS. TOevolt 2004 September 17-19, 2004 Toronto, Canada http://www.TOevolt.org +06: FLASH. Flash, DHTML Menus and Accessibility By Stephanie Sullivan "It's not uncommon to hear developers complaining that their DHTML menus, when triggered, have dropped behind the Flash movie below them. It's also not uncommon to hear, 'that's just how they work.' Before Flash Player 6, that was true in many browsers. But nowadays, it's become urban legend. With Flash Player 6, Macromedia introduced windowless mode for Netscape and Mac OS X (previously it was supported only for Windows). In the process, this also gave developers a way to completely hide Flash from older screen readers and the issues they can have with it. In fact, when Flash is purely used as eye candy, it's wise to remove it from the flow of the screen reader's page so that they don't have to listen to Flash without a purpose." http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=E5141 +07: JAVASCRIPT. Javascript alert, prompt, confirm guide By webdevtips.com "Javascript alert, prompt and confirm boxes can be a useful tool if used wisely. Only ever use them if the need arises. Don't just use them because you can..." http://www.webdevtips.com/webdevtips/js/alert/index.shtml +08: MISCELLANEOUS. How to run a brainstorming meeting By Scott Berkun "The most important thing about a brainstorming session is what happens after it ends. No matter how poorly you run a brainstorming meeting, some decent ideas will surface. But depending on what happens after the session, those ideas may or may not impact anything." http://www.uiweb.com/issues/issue34.htm +09: NAVIGATION. Skip Navigation Links By Jim Thatcher "This is an analysis/study of techniques for "skip navigation" links (also "skip to main content" links) which resulted from an assignment I had in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines working group, Techniques task group." http://jimthatcher.com/skipnav.htm +10: PHP. Installing PHP 5 on OS X if you're using Server Logistics', 'Complete Apache 2', and 'Complete MySQL' By the Farm http://farm.tucows.com/blog/_archives/2004/7/20/108833.html +11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Eight Things I Wish I'd Known When I Started By Cameron Moll "Ever wish you could rewind time and start over? I sure do. Sadly, the luxury of such is never afforded. However, they say prevention is better than cure, so perhaps the following eight points will provide a strong start for budding designers Ñ and a strong refining point for those of us more experienced." http://www.cameronmoll.com/archives/000036.html These web sites are identical-or are they? 75% of web design is normative, the rest is merely color and pictures. By Francois Briatte "This survey compares 10 web sites through elements of their layout: styles, page construction and elementsÉ The survey seeks similarities and differences between those well known web sites, built by famous, talented designers...What can be observed is that those web sites agree on implicit, internalized layout and design norms (Consensus rate), and that deviance from these rules (Dissidence rate) is uncommon." http://phnk.com/design/survey/ The Big Web Design Details List By D. Keith Robinson Here is what Keith considers "to be the details that go into a good Web design". http://tinyurl.com/7yez8 +12: TOOLS. Usability Test Data Logger By Todd Zazelenchuk "Most people use Microsoft Excel to analyze the results of usability tests, but did you know you can use it to collect the data too? This spreadsheet allows you to measure task completion rates, analyze questionnaire data, and summarize participant comments. It even includes a timer so you can measure time-on-task...Data Logger is freeware, distributed under a Creative Commons License." http://www.userfocus.co.uk/resources/datalogger.html +13: USABILITY. Deceivingly Strong Information Scent Costs Sales By Jakob Nielsen "Users will often overlook the actual location of information or products if another website area seems like the perfect place to look. Cross-references and clear labels alleviate this problem." http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20040802.html Andrew's Usability in the Real World: Hard Nose in a Soft World By Andrew Swartz "We don't need to argue for the cost-justification of usability in general, but for specific projects. When you do this, the arguments diminish greatly, and a space for commonsense opens up." http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article1800.asp Not everyone is worth supporting By Gerry McGovern "Because there is a lack of professional management, websites end up being a mishmash of compromises. Such websites invariably over-promise and under-deliver as they try and reach too many people with too much content that is either out-of-date or poor quality...Because there is a lack of professional management, websites end up being a mishmash of compromises. Such websites invariably over-promise and under-deliver as they try and reach too many people with too much content that is either out-of-date or poor quality." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2004/nt_2004_08_02_support.htm +14: XML. MIME types matter; DOCTYPEs don't By Anne Van Kesteren "My point of today, as well as from the last few days and this will probably remain the same in the future is that the distinction between HTML and XHTML is not made in their DOCTYPE, but in their MIME types...Whether you use a HTML or an XHTML DOCTYPE, it just doesn't matter as long as you are sending your document as text/html. The browser will treat it as HTML either way, seriously. There is no advantage in using an XHTML DOCTYPE just to keep up with Zeldman ;-) The W3C says to browser makers (Mozilla of course) that they should (ok, not a must but nearly as strong) treat XHTML as (invalid) HTML. You read that correct (again), you are just using tag soup. The only way to really, really use XHTML is by starting to use the right MIME type for it. The most appropriate MIME is application/xhtml+xml. You can also use application/xml and you'd better avoid using text/xml (for everything), since it has character encoding problems. Only if you are using XHTML in the real way, you can take advantage of it." http://annevankesteren.nl/archives/2004/07/mime [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. For information on how to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit: http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/webdevlist The Web Design Reference Site also has a RSS 2.0 feed for site updates. + 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 + SIGN OFF. Until next time, Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN 55812-3009 mailto:lcarlson@d.umn.edu [Issue ends.]