+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 6, Issue 10, August 30, 2007. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 10 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: EVENTS. 05: JAVASCRIPT. 06: MISCELLANEOUS. 07: TYPOGRAPHY. 08: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 09: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Why the Alt Attribute May Be Omitted - A HTML5 Proposal By Lachlan Hunt. "The problem being addressed is what should be done in those cases where no alt text has been provided and is virtually impossible to acquire. With the current requirement for including the alt attribute in HTML4, it has been observed that many systems will attempt to fulfil the requirement by generating alternate text from the images metadata. Flickr, for example, repeats the images title..." http://blog.whatwg.org/omit-alt The HTML 5 Image Element By Gez Lemon. "The img element in the current HTML 5 draft doesn't include the longdesc attribute, and the alt attribute will no longer be a required attribute...This is the crux of the issue - if something is not used correctly that aids accessibility, the answer isn't to drop the feature. The answer is to encourage tool vendors to make it easier for those features to be used, and educate users to want to use those features. It is difficult to describe complex images with flat text in an alt attribute. The longdesc attribute provides a way that enables screen reader users who are totally blind to have equivalent access to content. That is why it is better to keep the longdesc attribute." http://juicystudio.com/article/html5-image-element-no-alt.php Investigating the Proposed alt Attribute Recommendations in HTML 5 By Steven Faulkner. "The current draft HTML 5 specification has removed the requirement for an img element to have an alt attribute...The effects upon accessibility of allowing the omission of the alt attribute are not well understood, it is not evident from arguments produced so far that omitting it under certain circumstances will not have an adverse effect upon the accessibility of images. From the results provided here, it is strongly suggested that encouraging omission will reduce the accessibility of images even under conditions where the quality of the alt text is poor. Before changing the status of the alt attribute from required to optional and before including recommendations about where and when it is to be omitted, more research must be completed into how user agents deal with the absence of the alt attribute and how this affects the end user. In particular it appears that no AT or user testing was done prior to the change being committed to the specification draft, so it must be carried out now to ensure that damaging changes are not agreed to in a state of ignorance." http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/articles/altinhtml5.html Email Discussion Thread on 'Investigating the proposed alt attribute recommendations in HTML 5' at WebAim. http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=3406 Putting the User at the Heart of the W3C Process By Jonathan Chetwynd. A transcript with mp3 file from talk given at the CETIS Accessibility SIG Meeting 24th July 2007. http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Putting_the_User_at_the_Heart_of_the_W3C_Process 5 Steps To Reworking A Legacy Site By Mel Pedley. "Many articles and tutorials on developing an accessible site do tend to assume that you have the luxury of starting with a blank sheet. However, in practice, many developers are faced with large legacy sites that are in dire need of an accessibility makeover. They may not even be able to develop a replacement site behind the scenes but, instead, have to deal with improving accessibility levels on the existing site that is being actively used." http://accessites.org/site/2007/08/5-steps-to-reworking-a-legacy-site/ Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act By Marucco, Stoddard, Ferenbach, and Walsh. "The Illinois Information Technology Accessibility Act (IITAA) became law on August 20, 2007, requiring Illinois agencies and universities to ensure that their web sites, systems, and other information technologies are accessible to people with disabilities..." http://www.msfw.com/accessibility/highlights/iitaa.aspx Accessibility, Availability and Affordability By Christopher Phillips. "Of these three, which is the largest obstacle to the free and open flow of online information? Consider the following: A 12-year old boy in Western Africa has learned how to read Braille. He has also recently received an inexpensive laptop as part of a corporate initiative to save the world..." http://tinyurl.com/2jue5g +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS at Ten: The Next Big Thing By Hakon Wium Lie. "Ten years ago, Hakon Wium Lie and Bert Bos gave us typographic control over web pages via CSS. But Verdana and Georgia take us only so far. Now Hakon shows us how to take web design out of the typographic ghetto, by harnessing the power of real TrueType fonts..." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/cssatten Please Do Not Use CSS Frameworks By Jonathan Christopher. "...At their surface, frameworks seem like a great thing; unfortunately, that's not the case. A big problem with frameworks is when up and coming developers attach themselves to a framework as opposed to the underlying code itself. The knowledge gained in this case surrounds a specific framework, which severely limits the developer. Beyond that, much of the code in frameworks can be considered bloat. Whether it be in a server side language framework or JavaScript library, there is often a large percentage of code that will never be executed. While not a major issue server side, this can greatly degrade the performance of a client side framework such as a JavaScript library. There are other issues attached to the use of frameworks, but I'd like to be clear in my support of the idea..." http://mondaybynoon.com/2007/08/27/please-do-not-use-css-frameworks/ Adding Embedded Images to a Web Page By Mike Cherim. "...You probably haven't considered some of what I've offered herein prior to now. The rules I've outlined are pretty simple and hopefully make sense. It's not hard to apply these rules, and some of them I feel really enhance the accessibility and usability of the site. It's not hard to embed images on a web page. And applying these simple tricks does not make it hard. Yet, it does make it better in my opinion so if you've gotten anything new from this article, hopefully you'll apply it on your next project." http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=203 +03: DREAMWEAVER. Defining a Site in Dreamweaver CS3, Basic Tab By Paul Davis. A step by step guide to setting up a site in Dreamweaver CS3 using the Basic tab." http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=02EB4 Defining a Site in Dreamweaver CS3, Advanced Tab By Paul Davis. "A step by step guide to setting up a site in Dreamweaver CS3 using the advanced tab." http://www.communitymx.com/abstract.cfm?cid=FB83A +04: EVENTS. IDEA Conference October 4-5, 2007. New York, New York, U.S.A. http://ideaconference.org/ Techshare 2007: Access to Information October 4-5, 2007. London, United Kingdom http://www.rnib.org.uk/techshare Barrycon - The Creative Suite Conference October 15-20, 2007. Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. http://www.barrycon.com/ Adaptive Path - UX Intensive November 12-15, 2007. Vancouver, Canada http://www.adaptivepath.com/events/2007/nov/ Web Design World Boston 2007 December 10-11, 2007. Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. http://www.ftponline.com/conferences/webdesignworld/2007/boston/ +05: JAVASCRIPT. Introduction to HIJAX By Ivan Pepelnjak. "Deploy an interactive AJAX application while still supporting visitors with older browsers." http://www.informit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=789762 Private JavaScript Variables By Jesse Skinner. "I find myself needing to generate unique IDs in JavaScript a lot lately. Mostly this happens when I'm creating a lot of elements dynamically and I need to assign some unique ID to them so that I can find them later. And I need to do this because I've realized that storing pointers to elements in JavaScript uses a LOT more memory than just storing the ID of an element and finding it later with getElementById(). So anyway, what's a good way of generating unique IDs?..." http://www.thefutureoftheweb.com/blog/private-javascript-variables +06: MISCELLANEOUS. Andy Clarke Interview "Andy Clarke, also known as 'Malarkey', has been working on the web for almost ten years. Andy is the founder of the North Wales-based web design agency Stuff and Nonsense that is famous for designing highly effective web sites, e-commerce stores and web applications. Andy is a hardcore web accessibility advocate ? he regularly writes about creating beautiful, accessible web sites on his personal site And All That Malarkey, and speaks at conference and workshop events worldwide. Andy is the author of the best selling Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design book, a member of the Web Standards Project and is also an Invited Expert to the W3C's CSS Working Group. Jeffrey Zeldman called him 'a triple talent for' for Andy's creativity and sharp skills and knowledge of coding and design techniques..." http://www.designinterviews.com/?p=216 Feature Frenzy - 10 tips to getting feature creep under control By Frank Spillers. "Why the (feature) frenzy? Historically, marketing says "software sells with more features" (or perceived features). There is a psychology (especially true in the United States) that the more you get when you buy something, the better the purchase decision. Unfortunately, added 'bells and whistles' might feel like a better deal, but can turn into a nightmare when you (or your user) sit down with the software and use it. A few words about features Features..." http://tinyurl.com/2tsu6h Japan Working to Replace the Internet By newlaunches.com "Japanese communications minister Yoshihide Suga said Friday that Japan will start research and development on technology for a new generation of network that would replace the Internet, eyeing bringing the technology into commercial use in 2020..." http://tinyurl.com/yw67fp +07: TYPOGRAPHY. Who Shot the Serif? Typography Terms By John Boardley. "One of the reasons for starting I Love Typography was that I felt there just wasn't enough being said about the topic. Secondly, and more significantly, I always found it difficult to quickly locate typographic resources. The long-term aim of this blog is to be such a resource, a one-stop-shop for everything about typography, from terminology to new typefaces, from inspirational examples of type to choosing the best font for the job, whether that be on- or off-line..." http://tinyurl.com/2ybkum +08: USABILITY. Getting A Form's Structure Right: Designing Usable Online Applications (Part 1) By Afshan Kirmani. "Although I have focused solely on financial applications, this does not mean that you can't use these strategies to improve the usability of the forms outside of the banking domain. As usability practitioners, we need to first and foremost understand the user's intentions and expectations, in order to provide an online experience that accommodates them.'" http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/getting-a-forms [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +09: 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.]