+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 4, Issue 30, January 16, 2006.

An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. 

++ISSUE 30 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: NAVIGATION.
11: PHP.
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.

Accessibility in the User-Centered Design Process
By Shawn Lawton Henry and Mary Grossnickle Martinson.
"Accessibility in the User-Centered Design Process is an online book developed to assist usability professionals in incorporating accessible design practices into the user-centered design process..."
http://www.uiaccess.com/accessucd/overview.html

Usability and Accessibility in 2006
By Peter Abrahams.
"Having recently set up the new Accessibility Practice at Bloor it seems only right that I should stick my neck out and make some predictions for 2006..."
http://www.it-analysis.com/business/compliance/content.php?cid=8260

Visually Impaired User Weighs In on Assistive Technology Debate
By Scott Sede.
"...If someone were to ask my opinion of what the best solution for this situation is, I would say that states should invest in open source AT, including technologies that use OpenDocument. If the states gave as much fiscal and developmental attention to production of AT applications as they had paid for JAWS and MAGIC, we would now have a viable and productive open source system affordable to all visually impaired and blind users..."
http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/opinions/6127/1/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

The Many Uses of the Malleable em
By Zoe Gillenwater.
"Most people first encounter the em unit as a way to size text using CSS. This article will show you how to do just that. But, there's more to the em unit than just font sizing. It can be used as a length unit on any property that takes a length. You'll learn how to use the em unit as length for margin and padding to create pages that scale more gracefully.
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=C0410

Two Column Page Layouts With CSS
By Russ Weakley.
"In this lesson, you will learn how to position a two-column page layout with a header and a footer. This method involves floating them both because it is the most reliable method across most modern browsers."
http://www.webreference.com/programming/css_10/

Introduction to the CSS Box Model - part one
By Hurricane.
"All elements on a web page are contained within rectangular boxes with properties that we're able to manipulate directly via the use of CSS. This gives us precise control over their dimensions and, therefore, their impact upon their surroundings. We can set the size of the area used to contain the contents, via the width setting, the width of the borders around the box, the amount of space between the contents and the border, and the amount of space between the borders of one box and those of its neighbors. The precision that's possible to achieve with these settings gives designers a fine degree of control over the layout of the web pages they create. So what are the settings, and how do we use them?..."
http://tinyurl.com/7b6ah

Introduction to the CSS Box Model - part two
By Hurricane.
"In part one we looked at the CSS box model, how it works, and how we can manipulate it to achieve our design aims. In this article we need to look at what can go wrong when, despite its simplicity, a browser doesn't know how to use the model correctly, and how we can compensate for it."
http://tinyurl.com/b36zd


+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Databases and Dreamweaver MX 2004
By Jen and Peter de Haan et al.
"This article the first of two parts looks at the different database applications available for use with ColdFusion. It is excerpted from chapter two of the book em ColdFusion Web Development with Dreamweaver MX 2004, written by Jen and Peter de Haan et al."
http://tinyurl.com/8tsld

Backing Up Site Definitions in Adobe Dreamweaver
By Jolantha Belik.
"Have you ever looked for missing remote server names, user names, and passwords?"
http://it.sys-con.com/read/166081.htm


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Myths and Measurements: Evaluating the ROI of Design
By Steve Calde.
"Few people disagree with the notion that products are better when they are designed before being built. Yet why do so many companies remove design from the project schedule? Steve Calde debunks the misperceptions that lead business-decision makers to think that design adds costs to product development, when in fact they can't afford not to spend money on research and design."
http://tinyurl.com/cx76a


+05: EVENTS.

notacon 3
Communication and Hacker Culture
April 7-9, 2006.
Cleveland, Ohio U.S.A.
http://notacon.org/

MySQL Users Conference
April 24-27, 2006.
Santa Clara, California U.S.A.
http://www.mysqluc.com/

The Third International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A 2006)
'Building the Mobile Web: Rediscovering Accessibility?'
May 22, 2006.
Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom
http://www.w4a.info


+06: FLASH.

Open Flash?
By Dave Shea.
"Total speculation alert. I don't want anyone to read further into this than what I say, since I have no insider knowledge. But I was just re-reading a post of my own from December, Macromedia No More, and one paragraph particularly jumped out at me this time Ôround."
http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2006/01/02/open_flash/

Lynda Weinman on What's Next for Flash in 2006
By Lynda Weinman.
"With Macromedia and Adobe united as one, what's to become of Flash? Lynda Weinman, founder of lynda.com and the Flashforward Conference & Film Festival, takes a peek at her crystal ball and shares some of her predictions for 2006."
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=420078&rl=1


+07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Paper Prototypes
By Jensen Harris.
"Often people ask us 'how did you come up with the ideas for the Office 12 user interface?'..."
http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2006/01/06/510069.aspx


+08: JAVASCRIPT.

For Many AJAX is Not Degrading, But it Must
By Thomas Vander Wal.
"...Degrading is a Good Thing: Part of my problem with much of the push towards AJAX (it is a good, no great thing that XMLHTTPRequest is finally catching on). But, it must degrade well. It must still be accessible. It must be usable. If not, it is a cool useless piece of rubbish for some or many people..."
http://www.vanderwal.net/random/entrysel.php?blog=1770

Hijax
By Jeremy Keith.
"...Both viewpoints are valid. The value of Ajax lies in-between. It lies in the ability to appreciate the power that comes with being able to make asynchronous requests to the server without a page refresh, while at the same time always bearing in mind that you are still dealing with documents. If that's your mindset, then building Ajax applications that degrade gracefully becomes a no-brainer..."
http://domscripting.com/blog/display/41

Fixing the Back Button that AJAX Broke
By Mike Davies.
"One of the common disadvantages of AJAX is that it typically breaks the expected back button functionality. AJAX breaks one of the fundamental rules of the World Wide Web: one URL refers to one resource/document..."
http://tinyurl.com/8w4sr

Getting Back to Web Basics
By Jeff Atwood.
"...Clever JavaScript on your web page does not exempt you from good web design. Instead of spending all this time exerting maximum cleverness to transcend the weaknesses of the web medium, It might be a better idea to play to the web's strengths - such as speeding up how fast your pages load, or avoiding recent ill-advised design trends. And whatever you do, don't break the freaking back button."
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000480.html


+09: MISCELLANEOUS.

Effective Websites - The Responsibility of the Whole Organizations
By Sarah Burton-Taylor.
"Building an effective website is often seen exclusively as the job of the web team, and viewed as a design or technical issue. However, having worked with many different organizations, we would argue that often what stops them improving their website is the organization itself. Developing an effective website often requires organizational change: it requires a culture where people at all levels in the organization adopt behaviour that make a Ôgood user experience' an important goal. If the organizations is not focused on providing a good user experience, then the web team will be unable to build an effective website."
http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article2901.asp


+10: NAVIGATION.

Search Engines as Leeches on the Web
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Search engines extract too much of the Web's value, leaving too little for the websites that actually create the content. Liberation from search dependency is a strategic imperative for both websites and software vendors."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/search_engines.html 

Evolutionary Information Seeking: A Case Study of Personal Development and Internet Searching
By Jarkko Kari.
"This article explores one question: what does Internet searching have to do with personal development? Personal development means that individuals improve their own abilities, skills, knowledge or other qualities by working on them. The paper reports on a qualitative case study, in which a single participant was interviewed and her Web searches observed. Information search strategies seemed to form a spectrum of developmental sophistication. Four major types of relationship were found: a) the Internet in the context of development; b) development in the context of the Internet; c) development affecting Internet use; and, d) Internet use affecting development. There were some informational phenomena which exhibited regression, the converse of development."
http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue11_1/kari/index.html


+11: PHP.

Will the Zend Framework Save PHP?
By Richard Davey.
"As we embrace the changes that 2006 will bring to the PHP community, I can but only wonder about what is to become of PHP 5. Talk and debate over PHP 6 is already a hot topic, and despite being in a stable release for over 2 years PHP 5 has failed to see any significant kind of adoption rates, lingering at an astonishingly low 4.2%. Will PHP 5 be the version that everyone 'skipped', or could the Zend Framework be its savior?"
http://tinyurl.com/c853n

A (Lengthy) Look Back at PHP in 2005
By Derick Rethans.
"Well, here it is, the end of another year and it's times like these that it's always fun to take a look back to where we've come from and how far we've made it on various projects. The PHP community has come so far from those early days of January, and I thought I'd take my own look back via some of the news posts that I've made over on PHPDeveloper.org in the past year (almost 2000 of em) and see which ones stuck out. So, bear with me on this - I know I'll miss a few of the buggies, but I'm going to try to highlight things in each month that really effected the community as a whole."
http://blog.phpdeveloper.org/?p=25


+12: TOOLS.

formArchitect
By Eric Smith.
"Create complex html forms without using tables for layout..."
http://www.formarchitect.com/


+13: USABILITY.

MIT's Homepage: Preposterous or Ingenious?
By Joshua Porter.
"Our friends at MIT have an unusual approach to their homepage. They change it every day, so much so that it looks completely different from the day before...They do what would seem preposterous to the 'consistent look and feel' crowd. (I can almost hear marketing and design teams cringe.) On the other hand, MIT does provide consistent change, showcasing content that folks might not have known about..."
http://tinyurl.com/blcdq

Early and Often: How to Avoid the Design Revision Death Spiral
By Dave Cronin.
"A critical component to the success of an interaction design project is close collaboration with clients or stakeholders. Without careful planning and structure this type of collaboration can turn into a significant barrier to project success. Dave Cronin's article, originally presented at the DUX 2005 design conference, discusses the strategies and methods Cooper has adopted to get maximum benefit as a consultancy from clients' feedback and expertise while maintaining creative momentum and achieving deadlines."
http://tinyurl.com/amesp

Ten Tips For Writing For the Web
By Lea Sadler.
"1. Write for a reason. Get to the point. One of the basic references for Web design is Steve Krug's, Don't Make Me Think. My book for Web writers (not yet available in stores) will be called, Don't Make Me Yawn. The Great Democracy that is the Web has spawned far more spam and yammer than thoughtful prose. Don't fall in love with your own voice. Make sure every word supports the message..."
http://www.writingup.com/leasadler/ten_tips_for_writing_for_the_web

Designing User Experiences for Applications Versus Information Resources on the Web
By Leo Frishberg.
"The relatively recent adoption of user-focused design practices by the Web design and development community-including personas, participatory design, paper prototyping, and the like-highlights important distinctions between the user experiences of desktop applications and those of information spaces. With the growing desire for usable Web applications, these distinctions become more topical and important to understand. Though the process of designing and creating application and information space user experiences for the Web is virtually the same-even if the deliverable design documents may differ-their user experiences are fundamentally and profoundly different. For designers, business analysts, marketing consultants, and others who are sincerely interested in delivering the best user experiences online, understanding these distinctions can reduce the cost of design and improve the likelihood of user acceptance."
http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000063.php


+14: XML.

Is Microsoft's XML Format About Openness or Control?
By tadelste.
"Richard Stallman is right. Proprietary software is ultimately about dividing and controlling users. As if there were no other evidence of this, Microsoft's stance on XML document formats is plain enough. If the light in your head hasn't come on yet, I suggest you go get a new bulb. Think about it. If Microsoft were genuinely interested in interoperability, they would have happily joined the OpenDocument TC at OASIS, and helped to define the format."
http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/50754/


[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:
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+ 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.]