+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 3, Issue 39, March 2, 2005. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 39 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: 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. Making Accessible Forms, Part 1 By Trenton Moss "Applying basic accessibility isn't particularly difficult. if you look at your website now, chances are that prompt text is already present, and more often than not it's positioned correctly. Add a few labels to the prompt text and you'll be good to go!" http://www.webdevtips.com/webdevtips/developer/accTM1.shtml Making Accessible Forms, Part 2 By Trenton Moss "As outlined in part 1 of this article, forms are one of the most crucial parts of your website. They're used to complete important tasks such as buying products and contacting you so their accessibility is crucial. This second part of our two-part article outlines some more ways to optimize the accessibility of your forms." http://www.webdevtips.com/webdevtips/developer/accTM2.shtml +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS 3 Backgrounds and Borders Module W3C Working Draft 16 February 2005 http://www.w3.org/TR/2005/WD-css3-background-20050216/ Global White Space Reset By Andrew Krespanis "The simple technique of resetting all margins and padding that I mentioned almost a fortnight ago has recently created far more discussion than any previous journal entry. After reading some differing opinions via the original postÕs comments, email and the WSG list I think it would be appropriate to take a closer look and cover these points in some detail." http://leftjustified.net/journal/2004/10/19/global-ws-reset/ Double Vision - Give the Browsers CSS They Can Digest By Chris Heilmann "Some but not all browsers support CSS2. You can deliberately code your website so that users of either kind of browser will see pages that are appropriate for what their browser can handle. Older browsers won't gag, but you will still be able to take advantage of what you can do with CSS2 in the newer browsers." http://tinyurl.com/3mkou CSS: A Tribute to Selectors By Andy (Malarkey) Clarke "Two things happened on Friday which prompted me to talk about CSS attribute selectors." http://tinyurl.com/4ykll +03: DREAMWEAVER. Designing with CSS - Part 6: Deciding Whether to Float or Position Columns By Adrian Senior "In this, the final part in this series, I will review alternative methods to create a two-column layout. So far, I have used the float method (my preferred option), but I could also position the navigation div to achieve the same results. I will review the positioning method in this tutorial, and I'll explain why I prefer the float method over the positioning method. In this tutorial, you won't use the CSS and page layout you created in earlier parts of this tutorial series; you will be concentrating solely on the structure of the page. I'm sure you have a good grasp on styling your pages now, as I have covered that topic in depth earlier in the series." http://tinyurl.com/6qbf9 +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Unarticulated Needs: Users By Jennifer Square "User feedback (from usability testing, conversations, or surveys) is a great thing, but user feedback also has to be managed strategically throughout the application lifecycle. Even the absence of user feedback is something to be evaluated and studied. Here are some great articles by Eric von Hippel at MIT, Sloan School of Management, one specifically about unarticulated needs from users." http://loudcarrot.com/Blogs/jennifer/archive/2005/02/10/1473.aspx Prioritize Usability Testing and Web Analytics By Bryan Eisenberg "If you've performed usability tests and tried to reconcile those results with your current site metrics, you've probably been left scratching your head. Usability respondents find something wrong on a particular page, yet the same "problem" isn't evident in the site analytics. This leaves you with a rather big question: How do you justify Web analytics and usability, and what role does each play in the conversion equation?" http://www.clickz.com/experts/crm/traffic/print.php/3483671 +05: EVENTS. Internet User Experience 2005 March 14-15, 2005 Ann Arbor, Michigan U.S.A. http://www.iue2005.com/ MERLOT International Conference July 25-28, 2005 Nashville, Tennessee U.S.A. http://conference.merlot.org/conference/2005/ +06: FLASH. Flash Accessibility Part 1 By Bob Regan "Over the last few years, I have delivered innumerable presentations on accessibility. I thought it might be time to capture some of this information and make it available via Breeze. I am planning four parts to the presentation. This presentation represents the first providing an introduction to accessibility and the screen reader for designers. It is short and not meant to be comprehensive. It is intended to provide a brief overview for designers that want to get started with accessible Flash. Before posting this on the accessibility portal, I thought I might post it on this blog for feedback. At the time I am posting this, there is not a transcript available. It is in process now and should be available in the next few days." http://www.markme.com/accessibility/archives/007121.cfm +07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Information Architecture Exercises By Peter Van Dijck "I am preparing some information architecture workshops, and I'm collecting various types of exercises. I've managed to identify some general rules for developing workshop exercises as well." http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/001606.html Architecting Our Profession By Clifton Evans "...there is definitely not enough reliance on the information architect as a professional who can cope with the details and design challenges of creating a complex system, both for the process and for the interface..." http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/architecting_our_profession.php +08: JAVASCRIPT. JavaScript and Accessibility, Part 1 By Jonathan Fenocchi "Welcome to the year 2005! If you've been wondering if you'll see less JavaScript with the increased awareness of web standards and W3C compliance, think again. The year 2005 will bring with it practical and standards-compliant use of JavaScript - functionality and usability will be its primary concerns. Over time, this author feels that the flashy animation effects will fade away into history. In the past, JavaScript has been used for drop-down menu navigation, changing the title of your document, generating dynamic content, and controlling the style and position of elements (known as ÒDHTMLÓ or ÒDynamic Hypertext Markup LanguageÓ). Is this putting the JavaScript technology to good use? Are we being practical? In actual practice, many of the ideas themselves are practical, but the classical methods of designing them are not." http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/jf/column8/ JavaScript and Accessibility, Part 2 By Jonathan Fenocchi "...we (will) look at form validation and rollovers." http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/jf/column9/index.html JavaScript and Accessibility. Pt. 3. By Jonathan Fenocchi "This week completes the series. Topics covered today are Drop-down Navigation Selections, DHTML Menus, Proprietary Alternatives, Document.all, and innerHTML." http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/jf/column10/index.html +09: MISCELLANEOUS. Dave Shea Interview By Meryl K. Evans "Simply put, responsible Web design is saying, 'We're going to try and leave none of our users behind.' ItÕs one simple phrase that encompasses the entire spectrum, from usability and accessibility to interaction and user experience. Follow that maxim for your own work, or find a developer that believes in it too; thereÕs no marketing-driven Web strategy that can compete with it. (Even better, combine the two for best results.)" http://digital-web.com/articles/dave_shea_2005/ Molly E. Holzschlag Interview By Dave Linabury "There are three primary educational challenges when it comes to learning how to use CSS at the professional level. The first is making sure people understand the relationship of CSS to markup. Second, we must learn the languages we use from the ground up. XHTML and (especially) CSS are not really as simple as they might look at first blush. Just knowing how to put some rules together isn't enough. We have to understand the complex stuffÑapplication hierarchies, conflict resolution... In essence, I mean we have to understand the theory as well as the practice. The third challenge is dealing with browsers. We all can use CSS more effectively when we understand the limitations and support issues within our target browser base." http://digital-web.com/articles/molly_holzschlag/ +10: PHP. IBM throws its weight behind PHP By Martin LaMonica "Big Blue is to create a bundle including Cloudscape and Zend's PHP development tools, but insists it is still committed to Java." http://tinyurl.com/6lvnz +11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. The Meaning of Semantics (Take I) By Molly Holzschlag "Nearly every web designer is guilty of forcing line breaks, creating tables that don't hold tabular data, and a host of other egregious HTML sins. Now that CSS is around, Molly E. Holzschlag slaps our hands and explains why we should pay attention to each element's content, not just its looks." http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=369225 +12: TOOLS. List-u-Like CSS Generator By James Edwards "Most web-developers agree that using lists for navigation is a good idea, and styling a simple navbar is pretty easy. Yet as designs get more sophisticated, and browser-quirks multiply like coat hangers, the CSS involved can soon get rather complicated. But what if you had a tool that gave you detailed control over the appearance of a navigation list, and took account of browser variations itself - so that all you had to do was design it, and the exact CSS would be written for you..? Well now you do - the List-u-Like CSS Generator" http://www.listulike.com/generator/ +13: USABILITY. Why Consistency is Critical By Gerry Gaffney "Consistency is the cornerstone of a positive user experience. But consistency means more than simply putting your nav at the top left, your search on the right. Gerry explores consistency, explaining what it is, why it's important, and the areas where consistency counts." http://www.sitepoint.com/article/why-consistency-is-critical Web Users Are Beggars By D. Keith Robinson "When it's boiled down, everything we do should support getting the right people to the right content and enabling to do the right thing with that content. What I'm getting at is as much as I value branding, visual design and all the rest, there still is nothing more important on the Web than simply helping people get where they need to go and enabling them to do what they need to do when they get there. A good customer experience on the Web is valuable, it is desirable. But if you can't find, you can't value. If you can't use, you won't desire." http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/archive/2005/02/web-users-are-beggars How to Write Great Website Content By Hurol Inan "First off, the way your web developer codes and programs your page is very important. At 168 we always try to code our pages so they use CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) standards. To the non-literate web person this means two things. First, CSS allows you to accomplish more with less and reduce the amount of code on your pages. The less code, the smaller the page size. Second, CSS is the accepted standard in web design as compared to visual mark-up HTML tags that will soon be deprecated and eventually will no longer work. Other items to consider are: Use small images that give the user the option to enlarge if they desire, don't use music or sounds that are automatically forced upon a visitor, do not use pop-up windows, never use blinking text, restrain yourself from using fancy features like Java applets, Flash Intros, javascript, excessive animation and other cool but unnecessary features that slow the access to your content. And NEVER use code on your site that is specific to a certain browser..." http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/02/07/155502.php Ten Best Intranets of 2005 By Jakob Nielsen "On average, this year's winning intranets increased site use by 149% with designs that supported bigger screens, multinational users, collaboration, easily updated content, and factory-floor workers." http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050228.html +14: XML. Get Down With Markup By Dan Cederholm "Lists may seem to be mundane items, but many pages on the Web include at least one. The way you choose to mark up these lists can make a big difference. This article explores several the advantages and disadvantages of several common markup methods. It is taken from chapter one of Dan Cederholm's book Web Standards" http://tinyurl.com/62bpn [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). 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.]