+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 5, Issue 17, October 20, 2006. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 17 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: PHP. 10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 11: TOOLS. 12: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Designing for Dyslexics: Part 1 of 3 By Mel Pedley. "This is the first in a series of three articles examining the specific learning difficulty known as dyslexia and how web design can impact the ability of those afflicted to access information on web pages..." http://accessites.org/gbcms_xml/news_page.php?id=25#n25 More Americans Than Ever Face the Threat of Blindness from Aging Eye Diseases By The Eye Digest. "The leading causes of vision impairment and blindness in the US are primarily age related eye diseases. Cataract affects nearly 20.5 million Americans age 65 and older. About 2.2 million Americans have been diagnosed with glaucoma, and another two million do not know they have it. More than 1.6 million Americans over age 60 have advanced macular degeneration. Diabetic retinopathy affects more than 5.3 million Americans age 18 and older. The number of Americans with age-related eye disease is expected to double within the next three decades." http://www.agingeye.net/mainnews/usaging.php Accessibility or Help Links? By Alastair Campbell. "You see a lot of links on sites which are for 'Accessibility', to provide both help for those with accessibility issues, and state what levels of accessibility the site is aiming for. However, I believe that this content should be split up between two different pages." http://alastairc.ac/2006/10/accessibility-help-links/ Access Keys, Limited Practical Value By Alastair Campbell. "...Access keys are keyboard shortcuts that are intended to help users who have difficulty in using pointing devices such as a mouse. They are intended to simplify navigation for people using special devices such as screen readers by delivering quick access to important links. Users that can view a full web page already have this quick access because important links can be made to stand out on the page using numerous visual methods. In terms of accessibility, the idea of the access keys does not deliver..." http://tinyurl.com/spva2 OpenOffice.org and Accessibility Part 1: Writer By WebAIM. "OpenOffice.org is a free, open source office suite, often compared to Microsoft (MS) Office. Writer is OpenOffice.org's word processor application. While there may be some concern over the accessibility of Writer as an application, in terms of document accessibility, it seems that OOo Writer and Microsoft Word have almost the same abilities and limitations." http://www.webaim.org/techniques/ooo/ Beware the Kalends of November By Carroll Tech. "...IE 7 is going to come out via Automatic Updates. So why is that a problem? It's not, as long as you are running the latest version of your screen access software. And that is the kicker: Given the high cost of assistive technology - screen readers in particular - there are tons of users who aren't. They cannot afford to. How many of these users are going to go ahead and install IE7 when prompted to do so, only to discover that web browsing no longer seems to work correctly? While I hope I am mistaken, I suspect quite a few..." http://blog.carrolltech.org/archives/68 Dyslexia, Disability and Teaching Accessibility By Jack Pickard. "...Schools, colleges and universities should be emphasizing to all of their students that accessibility is not an optional bolt-on. It's an integral part of web design...To this end, I'll re-iterate that while I don't want you copying information from this site without permission, depending on who you are and what you want to use it for, I may be happy to grant permission - go ahead and ask!..." http://tinyurl.com/y2298a +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Image Replacement and Voiceover By Alastair Campbell. "There was a question on the Voiceover list recently about links just being read out as 'link' on a particular site: freeverse. It turned out to be due to an image replacement technique...If you are going to hide text that you intend to be read out for screen readers, then it is best to move it rather than set it not to display (or not be visible, another CSS property)..." http://alastairc.ac/2006/10/image-replacement-and-voiceover/ Pure CSS Dropdown Menus, Take 2 Thierry Koblentz. "...Keyboard users can go from one top level item to the next without having to go through the nested links (the enter key toggles the sub-menus). Regarding pointing devices; I went with vertical sub-menus rather than horizontal ones (avoiding diagonal paths) and I added a 10px cushion all around the sub-menus...." http://www.tjkdesign.com/articles/Pure_CSS_Dropdown_Menus.asp 03: DREAMWEAVER. Converting the Santorini JumpStart to Use Two Columns Instead of Three By Heidi Bautista. "The Santorini JumpStart - 18th in our ongoing series - provides you with a simple 3-column fluid layout. But what if you wanted just two columns? No problem. This article shows you exactly what you need to change. And it's only three things! Isn't it nice when things are simple for a change? That's the whole idea behind our JumpStarts. If Santorini doesn't meet your needs, be sure to check out our other designs." http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=0BCAA Favorite Extensions: Part 1 - Tom Muck's Sniplets By Adrian Senior. "We all have our favorite extensions and I'm no exception. Some people collect them and have extensions for everything whether they use them or not, and some folks have just a few. I fall into the latter category. In this vocational series I thought I would catalogue some of the extensions that I use on a regular basis. Extensions that speed up my productivity are a particular favorite of mine and Tom Muck's Sniplets extension is one such tool that I use a great deal. It isn't a commercial extension, it is absolutely free, costs nothing but your time to download and install it. http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=2BA91 +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Eyetracking a Navigation Bar -- how many elements are read? Well, it depends... By Greg Edwards. "...making a change to a web page can have a huge effect on how people look at unchanged areas of the page (and, we can track that)... don't go reading all sorts of stuff into this blog entry beyond that... http://blog.eyetools.net/eyetools_research/2005/02/eyetracking_a_n.html +05: EVENTS. Web Captioning and Its Uses in Education Webcast October 25, 2006. 2:00 PM Central Time. http://ncdae.org/webcasts/webcaptioning.cfm Boycott Bad-Design Contest '06 Entry Deadline November 3, 2006. Usability Matters "is holding this competition for identifying Bad-Designs as part of our activities towards the World Usability Day - 2006..." http://www.usabilitymatters.org/blog/console/entry.php?id=291 SXSW (South by Southwest) Web Awards: Uncovering the Best New Sites Entry Deadline December 15, 2006. "Welcome to the SXSW Web Awards, the competition that uncovers the best new internet sites..." http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/web_awards/form/ +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Metrics for Heuristics: Quantifying User Experience, Part 2 By Andrea Wiggins. "An information architect's evaluation of user experience is often highly subjective and gains value with an evidence-based understanding produced by web analytics. User testing and web analytic data are currently the only ways to verify the heuristic assumptions upon which a website is redesigned." http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/metrics_for_heu7 +07: JAVASCRIPT. Douglas Crockford Does the DOM on Video By Christian Heilmann. "I was lucky enough to get some good JavaScript training in the last months, one of which being Douglas Crockford explaining the DOM as an inconvenient API to work with. While his slides have a splendid 'Silent Movie' style to it (white text on black background), they tend to be a bit overwhelming when you don't get his explanations alongside them. Well, Good News, everyone!: his sessions have now been made available as small half hour videos on the web..." http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=351 Douglas Crockford's Wrrrld Wide Web By Douglas Crockford. Series of articles on JavaScript from the inventor of the JSON data format and lead JavaScript architect at Yahoo. http://www.crockford.com/javascript/ Access to BlogLines Restored to Blind Users By Darrell Shandrow. "...the programmers at BlogLines have pushed out changes that have once again restored accessibility of the service to blind and visually impaired Internet users. In fact, these changes serve to make a portion of the service even more accessible than it had been in the past. The following modifications have been made..." http://tinyurl.com/y3hxwb Bloglines Listening to its Users? By Ian Lloyd. "...The good news is that the people at Bloglines (or Ask.com, depending on how you view it) do listen to its audience, and the navigation tree in the left pain - I mean 'pane', sorry, Freudian slip! - is now working properly for screen reader users..." http://accessify.com/news/2006/10/bloglines-accessibility-fixed/ +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Deconstructing Web Applications: An Interview with Hagan Rivers By Christine Perfetti. "Hagan Rivers is a recognized pioneer in the area of Web Application Design. Hagan worked on some of the very first web based interfaces and she continues to push the envelope of web application design in her current role as a partner at Two Rivers Consulting. UIE's Christine Perfetti recently had the opportunity to talk with Hagan about some of the biggest challenges in the web application space..." http://www.uie.com/articles/deconstructing_web_applications/ +09: PHP. 10 of the More Useful PHP Network Information Functions Explained By Melonfire. "...This listing of 10 of PHP's more interesting and useful network-related functions (Table A) provides a starting point for your journey through PHP's network programming capabilities and gives you insight into an area most Web developers don't usually enter. Explanations and usage examples are used to indicate when and how each function may be used..." http://builder.com.com/5100-6371_14-6126249.html Assist Future Developers by Writing Comments and Clean Code By Tony Patton. "I have preached about documenting code countless times with fellow developers, but I recently unearthed a strange fact: Many developers don't consider JavaScript or HTML coding, so they rarely document such code. Thoroughly documenting your JavaScript code either through written documents or code comments not only helps you, but it also provides future guidance for developers working with the code..." http://builder.com.com/5100-6371_14-6126258.html Overloading and Object-Oriented Programming with PHP 5 By George Schlossnagle. "Last week, we discussed design patterns and polymorphism. This week, we examine overloading and more. This article, the last of four parts, is excerpted from chapter two of the book Advanced PHP Programming, written by George Schlossnagle." http://tinyurl.com/yensbj Inserting and Displaying Information From a Database By phpfreaks. "This is a very simple example of inserting an entry in a mysql database, using PHP. This script will also show a simple example of listing the entries in your field..." http://www.phpfreaks.com/tutorials/142/0.php +10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. The Business Benefits of Web Standards By Paul Boag. "This presentation introduces you to a web design approach called 'Web Standards'. It aims to explain exactly what web standards are and why they provide huge business benefits that will increase the exposure of your site, attract new audiences and make the running of your website considerably more efficient. In short we will explain how web standards will improve your return on investment." http://boagworld.com/standards/ Being Professionals By Eric A Meyer. "...I still hold that certification is much too premature for our field. Even if we could wave a wand and create a good set of certification criteria in the next week, it would be out of date within a year. Anything that wouldn't go out of date that quickly would be so basic as to make a mockery of the whole idea of certifying someone as competent in the field...The deeper problem is in deciding what constitutes professional competence...In all this, though, the people who are interested in creating a professionals' organization will have to answer a fairly tough question. Given that both the World Organization of Webmasters and HTML Writers Guild already exist and offer certification, why aren't they more widely known or highly regarded, and how will any proposed organization do better? What will make it better or more influential?" http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2006/10/18/being-professionals/ +11: TOOLS. Media-Convert "...Online file conversion no installation, no virus and spywares..." http://media-convert.com/ +12: USABILITY. The Web is Not Print By Colin Lieberman. "Does a degree from a top school mean that a person can design good websites? Maybe. Good designers can create compelling layouts that are visually effective, but there are key differences between the web and print media that I don't think schools are communicating. This article is an attempt to fill in the gaps-to clarify how the web is different from print media; to help designers make decisions that work online." http://public.cactusflower.org/the_web_is_not_print/ Why Award-Winning Websites Are So Awful By Gerry McGovern. "...The Web is a functional, practical place. A great website drives the customer to act. It uses clear, substantial language, rather than clever, meaningless words...The shiny surface wins awards. Real substance wins customers." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2006/nt-2006-10-16-awards.htm What Makes a Good Web Site? By Chris Heilmann. "It is about content...It is about sharing...It is about access...It is about communication...It is about availability...It is about patience...It is about knowing your audience...It is about playing to your strengths...It is about offering instead of pushing...It is about keeping it simple...It is about advertising without annoying...It is about freshness..." http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=349 The Paradox of Choice By Luke Wroblewski. "...When people have no choice, life is miserable. As you start adding options, you increase well being. However, you reach a point where the curve flattens out and there are diminishing marginal effects. At a point in the curve, satisfaction drops and you are worse off than when you were neutral. The goal is to find the sweet spot on the curve." http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?419 Security vs. Usability: No One's Winning By Rodney Gedda. "Experts say wretched usability is scaring crypto newbies away..." http://tinyurl.com/ygybs7 [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.]