+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 3, Issue 31, January 12, 2005. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 31 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: JAVASCRIPT. 07: NAVIGATION. 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. Web Inaccessibility 'Creates Net Underclass' By Lucy Sherriff "Companies and public bodies are still failing to take accessibility into account when designing their websites, despite the risk of legal action under the UK's disability discrimination laws. A SiteMorse test last week of central government websites uncovered errors on the vast majority of sites, and even the Disability and the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) websites failed A and AA compliance." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/20/accessibility_underclass/ LD Web (Learning Disabilities Web) By ld-web.org "LD Web is a website aimed at making the Internet a better place for people with learning disabilities. LD Web develops guidelines and practical 'how to' techniques to help web designers understand this underserviced community. LD Web is also meant to be an open discussion forum for dialogue, questions, and experiences in dealing with learning disabilities on the Web." http://www.ld-web.org/ I'm Still Off Accesskeys By Dave Shea "Discoverability is yet another problem with relying on Accesskeys, but I had hoped that, at the very least, my contradictory position would have prompted a bit of discussion with the odd reader who happened to view source. No such luck. Nothing new here, so if you're going out of your way to implement Accesskeys. Don't bother." http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2005/01/04/im_still_off/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS Tooltips - Part One By John Gallant, Holly Bergevin "Have you ever wanted to replace those ugly webpage tooltips that you see with fancy, styled tooltips of your own? Join us as we explain how to do this without using any JavaScript whatsoever. That's right, these handy little gems are pure CSS!" http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=4E2C0 The Basics of Cascading Style Sheets (Sample Chapter) By Matthew Pizzi and Zak Ruvalcaba "CSS, if used correctly, can greatly extend your ability to create attractive Web designs. Learn how you can use styles to enhance your Dreamweaver MX 2004 web page." http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=355339 +03: DREAMWEAVER. Dreamweaver TechNote Setting up Dreamweaver's FTP connection By Macromedia "This TechNote addresses setting up Dreamweaver's FTP connection. The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is one of the most commonly used methods for transferring files to and from a remote server." http://tinyurl.com/5n8do +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. How Web Site Eyeball Studies Work and What You Can Learn From Them By Marketing Sherpa "We interviewed Greg Edwards CTO Eyetools Inc, a unique tracking service that reveals how your visitors and email viewers actually view your materials on their computer screens." http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2877 +05: EVENTS. SIGDOC 2005 The 23rd International Conference on Design of Communication September 21-23, 2005 Coventry, United Kingdom http://www.sigdoc.org/2005/ Society For Technical Information Annual Conference May 8-11, 2005 Seattle, Washington http://www.stc.org/conference.asp +06: JAVASCRIPT. DHTML and JavaScript Performance Tuning By Garrett Smith "JavaScript is often learned quickly by those without a strong background in object oriented design. Obviously, learning a programming language in a short amount of time usually results in incomplete knowledge and experience. This article shares programming techniques that are practiced by the real experts, including myself. For this reason, new programmers will benefit greatly by learning how to design for both performance and clarity. Experienced JavaScript programmers may pick up a few new techniques and ideas that they may not have seen. Programmers who have experience with other object-oriented languages will benefit by learning performance techniques that are specific to JavaScript. There is something here for everyone." http://dhtmlkitchen.com/learn/js/perf/index.jsp +07: NAVIGATION. Navigation Blindness How to deal with the fact that people tend to ignore navigation By Henrik Olsen "Most web development projects put a lot of effort into the design of navigation tools. But fact is that people tend to ignore these tools. They are fixated on getting what they came for and simply click on links or hit the back button to get there." http://www.guuui.com/issues/01_05.php A-Z Indexes to Enhance Site Searching By Heather Hedden "A-Z indexes are most suitable for intranets or sites with repeat visitors, and for sites of a medium size that are not changing too rapidly. Cheap or free site search engines and Òsite indexÓ generation tools can quickly set up some form of searching for many sites but for a highly effective search and increased user satisfaction, a professionally written A-Z index is still the best option. An A-Z index as an interface for a database is a possible solution for sites with pages added or removed frequently. If human-crafted indexes have been effective in helping readers find information in millions of non-fiction books and manuals, then they ought to be useful for many content-rich Web sites." http://digital-web.com/articles/a_z_indexes_site_searching/ +08: PHP. Build a PHP Multiple Picture Showcase Using PHP and HTML By David Pankhurst "Build a random picture showcase... without it being completely random?! As David explains, it's not as hard as it sounds. His solution calls a PHP script from an HTML page to create an image gallery that, though random, avoids duplicate images." http://www.sitepoint.com/article/1442 +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Internet Explorer Has Now Lost 30% of Browser Market By Robin Good "Robin Good has reported that Internet Explorer has now lost 30% of the browser market and the trend is on a continuing roll. In addition, Robin predicts that by December 2005 that Internet Explorer will no longer be used by the majority of Internet users." http://tinyurl.com/59f8c +10: TOOLS. Header Ordering Checker By University of Durham "This header levels checker linearized each page and checks the order of headers. It will give a warning for each improperly ordered header. It is advisable to make sure that your page validates before using this utility, as improperly matched headers, or headers within headers could cause problems." http://www.dur.ac.uk/its/services/web/accessibility/tools/headerlevels/ +11: USABILITY. Web Content Management: Top 10 Predictions for 2005 By Gerry McGovern "Web content management will continue its shift away from a technology focus towards a content one. 2005 will be the year when the professional editor will be given more responsibility in running the website." http://tinyurl.com/3njuu With Safety and Security, More Can Be Less By Don Norman "If the security or safety requirements get in the way of doing the work, then the most dedicated workers will defeat them. Put in locked doors, and they will prop them open with waste baskets. Require long, lengthy, hard-to-guess passwords, changed frequently, and they will write them down and post them in easy to reach places. After all, security and safety are risks, not realities (and usually low-probability at that... Getting the work done on time is a reality, and these extra steps invariably make it harder to do the work. Hence, the most dedicated workers will remove whatever tends to block getting the work done." http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/with_safety_and_secu.html Putting Context Into Context By Jared M. Spool "Design happens at the intersection of the user, the interface, and their context. It's essential for interface designers to understand the gamut of contexts that can occur, thereby ensuring they create designs that are usable no matter what's happening around the user." http://www.uie.com/articles/putting_context_into_context/ +12: XML. How to Write XHTML By Virginia DeBolt "HTML has been around for a while and there is concern about whether older HTML can age gracefully enough to transition into the new HTML without looking seedy and worn out. Versions of HTML previous to HTML 4 are like the Portrait of Dorian Gray. They may still look pretty decent in a browser, but underneath they are turning decrepit (or deprecated, to use the W3C's term). What we need is HTML that ages gracefully, like Katherine Hepburn or Sean Connery, HTML that just keeps getting better. Luckily, we know what we want our HTML to be when it grows up: XHTML." http://www.vdebolt.com/ht/XHTML.html Programming: XHTML By Wiki Books "XHTML is a subset within the XML-based languages used on the Internet (or intranets) in webpages..." http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Programming:XHTML [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. 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). As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) guidelines. Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier. For TEN guideline 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 U.S.A. 55812-3009 mailto:lcarlson@d.umn.edu [Issue ends.]