+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 5, Issue 37, March 2, 2007. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 37 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: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Accessible Electronic and Information Technology: Legal Obligations of Higher Education and Section 508 By Cynthia D. Waddell. "Both the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504), as amended, set forth regulations under a civil rights mandate that prohibit discrimination on the basis of disability in higher education. These regulations require the provision of auxiliary aids and services to qualified students with disabilities attending colleges, universities, postsecondary vocational education and adult education programs..." http://athenpro.org/node/54 Cultivating and Maintaining Web Accessibility Expertise and Institutional Support in Higher Education By Paul Bohman. "...The vast majority of the accessibility obstacles on the web are not the result of technological failings. Usually they are the result of human error, negligence, ignorance, or, less frequently, discriminatory bias against people with disabilities. None of these excuses is acceptable within higher education environments, where discriminatory practices are both unethical and illegal. Colleges and universities must cultivate and maintain the expertise and institutional support necessary to ensure the accessibility of their web content..." http://athenpro.org/node/55 Case Studies in Training and Professional Development for Web Accessibility By Cyndi Rowland. "Institutions of higher education who take Web accessibility seriously must create systems of training and professional development for their staffs and faculties. Case studies were gathered from 8 authors who are tasked to assist their institutions with Web accessibility. These case studies should assist higher education in understanding a range of personnel development practices currently used in accessibility efforts." http://athenpro.org/node/59 BarCamp London 2: Accessibility Panel Thoughts By Mike Davies. "...The crux is the definition of web accessibility. The only formal definition we have about web accessibility is found within the web content accessibility guidelines. Each guideline is written with that definition as a fundamental basis. Fundamental as in, if the definition changes, the interpretation of each guideline is different - either drastically or subtly. Instead of solving a problem that prevents or hinders a person with a disability, the guideline is warped as a solution to a user agent problem, which is certainly not in the spirit of the web accessibility initiative..." http://tinyurl.com/23nujr Failed? Fundamentally Flawed? By Mike Cherim. "...Narrowing the meaning (of accessibility) will undoubtedly narrow adoption, and that's something none of us wants to happen. If anything we want more and more people to adopt best practices, web standards, markup/style/behavior separation, and web accessibility to the benefit of the mentally, physically (or otherwise) disabled..." http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=170 Failed and Flawed Accessibility Organizations By Ian Lloyd. "...But the reason for posting this here is to widen the question a bit more and ask a very open question. If you believe that the various accessibility sites named in Mike's post are failures or flawed, what would work for you?" http://tinyurl.com/2b7v2j Accessibility vs Universality - Implications By Alastair Campbell. "...For me, accessibility is a constant, things must be made in an accessible fashion whatever technology you are using. On the other hand, the importance of universality depends on the context..." http://alastairc.ac/2007/02/accessibility-vs-universality-implications/ Another Black Eye for Google By Joe Clark. "...Never send an intern to do what an entire department should already be doing." http://blog.fawny.org/2007/02/23/interns/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Creating a Blog Entry Date Calendar Icon Look with CSS, Mostly By Shirley Kaiser. "I've received numerous inquiries about how I created the entry post calendar icon look for Brainstorms and Raves, so today's post shares the basics of the CSS and the two tiny background images I created to achieve the calendar icon look..." http://brainstormsandraves.com/archives/2007/02/22/csscalendar/ 12 Lessons for Those Afraid of CSS and Standards By Ben Henick. "...The cries of frustration I hear from other developers about CSS are only an echo of the ones I made for years. As a result I like to think that I can relate, and I'm writing to convey the most important lessons I've learned so far..." http://www.mikelevicius.info/?p=11 Create Better Web Sites with CSS and the Font Control Property By Melonfire. "...Putting font information into a CSS file has a number of important advantages: it's easy to do, doesn't require any special software, and works uniformly on most major browsers. More importantly, because information is centralized in a single location, altering the visual appearance of your pages is a snap: simply alter the font or color in your primary style sheet and the change will 'cascade' across your site instantly..." http://builder.com.com/5100-6371_14-6162295.html Control Table Appearance with CSS By Tony Patton. "...This week, I conclude this three-part series with an examination of spacing issues and overall table layout..." http://builder.com.com/5100-6371_14-6161858.html Improving Your Process: CSS Techniques Part 1 By Jonathan Christopher. "This article is the first of an upcoming series that will...attempt to provide some tips and tricks as far as design and development is concerned. The contents are purely my opinion, and take into account what helps me do my job." http://tinyurl.com/272jax +03: DREAMWEAVER. Marking Up Your Site for Easier Redesign in Five Steps By Frederick Townes. "Understand the techniques to separate presentation from markup to facilitate easier execution of user interface changes." http://tinyurl.com/2eca2x +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Usability Testing is an Excellent Training Tool By Jared Spool. "I've seen a lot written about usability testing over the years, but I can't recall seeing anyone talk specifically about it's value as a training tool, to bring the entire team on the same page about who the users are and what they are trying to accomplish. Stretch your thinking of usability testing as a design validation tool or an idea generator into a team education technique. You won't regret it." http://tinyurl.com/3cu34k Usability Testing. Oh, The Things You Can Learn By Jared Spool. "Jared Spool sheds light on the aspects of usability testing nobody ever talks about, and catalogues some of the things a team learns when they put together their own usability tests, starting with recruiting and ending with analysis." http://tinyurl.com/22ufh6 Browser Testing CSS and JavaScript By Roger Johansson. "...here is my personal browser testing order..." http://tinyurl.com/23hspt +05: EVENTS. e-Access '07: Technology for All May 2, 2007. London, United Kingdom http://www.headstar-events.com/eaccess07/ +06: FLASH. Semantic Flash: Slippery When Wet By Dan Mall. "Love it or hate it, Flash has become a fixture of modern web design. Author Dan Mall cuts through the misconceptions to show us how Flash can be used to enhance our standards-based web designs." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/semanticflash +07: JAVASCRIPT. A Guide to Unobtrusive Javascript Validation By Chris Campbell. "...it turns out that the world of unobtrusive Javascript is a giant Pandora's box of trouble..." http://tinyurl.com/32o6cp Handling JavaScript-Disabled Browsers By Kevin Yank. "Previously, I mentioned that you should consider three main groups of people when adding JavaScript to your site-users without JavaScript capabilities, users without a mouse, and users of screen readers-and that supporting each of these three groups becomes progressively more difficult. In this post, we'll focus on the first group, and discover how very easy it is to accommodate them with the right approach..." http://tinyurl.com/26v2kb +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Interview with Jeremy Keith By Carolyn Wood. "This week, Digital Web Magazine is proud to feature an interview with Jeremy Keith, the codemonger behind the new book Bulletproof Ajax as well as his previous book, DOM Scripting, his web agency Clearleft and his long-running blog Adactio. Carolyn Wood and Mr. Keith talk about the new book, how he approaches AJAX with a mind to bulletproofing, and the pitfalls of over-AJAXing user experiences." http://www.digital-web.com/articles/jeremy_keith_2/ Gender Diversity at Web Conferences By Jason Kottke. "I'm reasonably sure that the organizers of these conferences were aware of at least one of the above recent complaints about gender diversity at conferences (they were both linked widely in the blogosphere), so it will be interesting to see if those complaints were taken seriously by them..." http://www.kottke.org/07/02/gender-diversity-at-web-conferences Jason Kottke's post sparked much reaction... Diverse It Gets By Eric A. Meyer. "...as a conference organizer, I don't care about diversity. All right. Take a minute to reduce the boil in your blood to a bare simmer, and bear with me. I'm going to explain what I mean, and illustrate as best I can. I hope that by the end, you'll better understand my point of view, even if you don't agree with it..." http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/02/23/diverse-it-gets/ Diverse Reactions By Eric A. Meyer. "I am deeply sorry today, but not for what I was trying to say. I might be sorry for how I said it, or for a number of other things..." http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2007/02/24/diverse-reactions/ Diversity Isn't Important and Neither are Standards or Accessibility By Shelley Powers. "...You know, Eric has a point: why should we worry about diversity in conferences? Or within technology, as a matter of fact?..." http://tinyurl.com/yuslny Gender Diversity at Web Conferences By Dori Smith. "...If you're starting up a conference and you'd like more women attendees/speakers, go where the women already congregate and tell them about your event. It could be that they'd like to attend, if they could just find out about it in advance..." http://www.backupbrain.com/2007_02_18_archive.html#a005015 Gender and Ethnic Imbalance in Web Design By Jeffery Zeldman. "...The problem is visible at the top because it exists at the bottom. There are barriers to entering the field and barriers to doing well in it. Some of these barriers are economic: not everyone has access to needed tools and training. We are interested in systematic and permanent change in the field, not merely the appearance of change as represented in a conference speaker lineup. Soon we will announce real steps to put these concerns into action." http://tinyurl.com/2hsqs3 Notable Web Experts Who are [x]: Women and Non-Caucasians By Ben Henick. "...This is a standards issue, too. For reasons of culture and temperament, people who aren't white men bring something to the theory and practice of Recommendation track technologies that would otherwise be totally absent from the evolution of those technologies..." http://tinyurl.com/2zbpe2 I Decided to Quit Complaining and Take Action By Virginia DeBolt. "...Here's what I commit to do...Send proposals for presentations to at least two conferences where I've never presented...Send proposals for articles to at least two publications where I've never published..." http://tinyurl.com/2byafy Make Me A Speaker (Wiki) By Meri Williams. "This wiki is intended to be a place where those who are interested in becoming speakers (particularly, but not exclusively, in the web world) can come to get advice, mentoring and help. It is also intended to be a meeting place for those who are interested in helping others become speakers..." Many of the A list, including Molly E. Holzschlag, Jeremy Keith, Derek Featherstone, Andy Clarke and Dave Shea have signed up to offer help and mentoring. http://www.makemeaspeaker.com/index.php?title=Main_Page For more info on the diversity of web conferences visit: http://www.d.umn.edu/goto/misc#diversity +09: NAVIGATION. Non Hierarchical Navigation By Paul Boag. "...There are lots of reasons why a normal information architecture might not work for your site. However, probably the most common is that your site has simply outgrown the constraints of a hierarchical tree and that your users are getting lost deep in the information architecture. Often the answer is simply to do some radical pruning to remove much of the deadwood, however occasionally a different approach needs to be found. So what are the alternatives available to you?..." http://tinyurl.com/2ahzz7 Right-Hand Navigation By Free Usability Advice. "Question: Our site uses a right-hand navigation, rather than the traditional left-hand navigation. We've tested this extensively and the results have always been very positive. Experts tell us to move the navigation to the left. Should we listen to experts or our users?" http://freeusabilityadvice.com/archive/36/right-hand-navigation +10: PHP. Going Deep Inside PHP Sessions By Joseph Crawford. Joseph Crawford looks at the way PHP handles session and session information as it relates to the security for both the user and the server admin. He looks at pitfalls and method for creating a custom sessions handler to replace PHP's built-in one. http://tinyurl.com/35zvno Big Arrays in PHP By Brian Moon. Brian Moon looks at using big arrays in PHP - how efficient it is and what can be done to ease things a bit. http://doughboy.wordpress.com/2007/02/28/big-arrays-in-php/ +11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Where Our Standards Went Wrong By Ethan Marcotte. "To validate or not to validate; that is the question. A List Apart's own Ethan Marcotte helps us to re-examine our approach to standards advocacy and how we can better educate our clients on the benefits of web standards." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whereourstandardswentwrong Validation is More than Pretty Fonts and Unencoded Ampersands By Christian Montoya. "...Validation and web standards are actually hugely important, but not to your every day web designer. They are important to researchers and scientists who are trying to solve the greater problems of the web; semantics, device-compatibility, information retrieval, and so on. It was standardization that brought us where we are today, far past the days when many websites worked in Netscape or Internet Explorer? not both. It is standardistas that are trying to ensure that designers can do their jobs with less hassle, but more importantly, that users can really use the web efficiently..." http://tinyurl.com/ysy424 HTML Well-Formedness Requires Validation By Sean Fraser. "...Ill-formed (X)HTML can (and, often does) affect any page. It doesn't matter if pages are generated by hand-coding, HTML editors or Content Management Systems (CMS): ill-formed content may strike at any time. Any where. And, until an HTML Well-Formedness (or, Semantics) Validator or Conformance Checker is invented, the W3C HTML Validation Service remains the best tool but only if it's used. Do not rely on browsers! Validate!" http://tinyurl.com/yqqxxj +12: USABILITY. Do You See What I See? By Kath Straub and Spencer Gerrol. "Exploring cross cultural variation in looking behavior" http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/feb07.asp The Twilight Of Print By Gerry McGovern. "When the tool changes, so too should the skill and the technique. More and more, hypertext is replacing text and the Web is replacing print...Make sure you don't confuse the tool and the technique. Some say: 'But this is simply good writing.' No. It is good print writing. Learn to embrace the new skills of web writing, and to lose the old and increasingly archaic skills of print." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2007/nt-2007-02-26-print.htm Life-Long Computer Skills By Jakob Nielsen. "Schools should teach deep, strategic computer insights that can't be learned from reading a manual." http://www.useit.com/alertbox/computer-skills.html Is Podcasting the New PowerPointing, Or Will We Finally Teach that the Audience Matters? By Christian Long. "...While we're moving quickly into a brave new Web 2.0 (or School 2.0) world with an infinite array of proprietary or open source technologies at our fingertips, I wonder how well we 'teach' our students the underlying presentation strategies inherent to successfully impacting an audience via each of these tools. Are we spending time on the PresentationZen site, reading Cliff Attkinson's anti-bulletpoint strategies, exploring Edward Tufte's visual philosophy? Or are we simply assigning a PowerPoint, a blog, a podcast, or whatever the multi-media tool du jour in hopes that something wonderful may happen serendipitously in spite of what typically takes place? This is not a suggestion that we choose not to use the great ranges of multi-media technologies at our fingertips. Quite to the contrary. Many of them allow for a more exciting 'process' experience that has as much to do with learning as the eventual presentation itself. But that no matter what traditional or School 2.0 tool we use to work through and share our ideas or content or expertise, that we at least consider that without an audience it matters little." http://thinklab.typepad.com/think_lab/2007/01/is_podcasting_t.html [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.]