+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 37, March 7, 2008.

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: EVALUATION & TESTING.
04: EVENTS.
05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: NAVIGATION.
09: PHP.
10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
11: TYPOGRAPHY.
12: USABILITY.

SECTION TWO:
13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Screen Readers Lack Emphasis
By Steve Faulkner.
"Using the semantic elements strong and em does not convey any useful information to users of JAWS or Window Eyes under typical browsing conditions. While it is good to know this, it is not a reason to not use these elements to convey meaning.  Accessibility is not just about people with vision impairment, it's about all user's with disabilities, and web standards is not just about accessibility. This is merely another example where screen reader vendors are not serving their customers well. As these tests only cover 2 of the screen readers available, it would be interesting to know if other products exhibit the same lack of support. so please test with your favorite screen reader and leave a comment with the results."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=41

The Four Principles of Web Accessibility
By Mike Cherim.
"...These principles are the foundation of web accessibility and the beginning of the WCAG 2.0. Without any one of these principles access will be denied to someone. It is from these four principles that the twelve guidelines and their success criteria are derived and defined. Here is my interpreted overview..."
http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=261

Comparing Tagged PDFs from Office and Acrobat
By Alistair Campbell.
"After my initial disappointment with the Office 2007 plug-in for creating PDFs, I've had some discussion with the Microsoft team, and a chance to do a bit more testing. This post compares the conversion of a simple Word 2007 document with the Office plug-in, Acrobat 8.1, and OpenOffice..."
http://tinyurl.com/295wnv


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Specify a Maximum Width for em-based Layouts
By Roger Johansson.
"As someone who likes to bump up text size a notch or even two on many sites, I often notice that this behavior is not something that web designers in general anticipate. However, layouts do tend to be a little bit more robust now than a few years ago, at least at a moderate increase in text size. That's good, though I think in many cases it is just a matter of luck that nothing gets obscured as text size is increased. One technique that can easily make reading a site a lot more uncomfortable is using an elastic, or em-based, layout such as the one I use here..."
http://tinyurl.com/2dqe5b

CSS: Pushbutton Links
By Mike Cherim.
"With this Pushbutton Links experiment I made real, working pushbuttons out of ordinary links. This can be done with any link. Is this retro? Yeah, maybe it is, but it's still cool..."
http://mikecherim.com/gbcms_xml/news_page.php?id=31#n31

Planning Your Stylesheet - The Definitive Guide
By Brigitte Simard.
"Don't let your stylesheet files get out of control - follow these guidelines right from the start and you'll easily be able to manage and update your CSS files."
http://tinyurl.com/28lrdw

Simple CSS: Removing the Underline from Links
By David Rodriguez.
We frequently get responses and e-mails from viewers, and I see it requested all the time in user forums and elsewhere around the web: how do you remove the underline from links in your Web page?
http://tinyurl.com/2buk2m

reForm: CSS Form Design Template for Any Layout
By Joe Lippeatt.
"This post describes a form element layout technique that will shrink and grow with the available space. This allows designers to create 2 and 4 column form layouts without breaking the design. It also allows the user to resize their browser window and change font size without rendering the form unusable."
http://css.dzone.com/news/scriptless-self-adjusting-form


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Measuring Satisfaction: Beyond the Usability Questionnaire
By David Travis.
"Most usability tests culminate with a short questionnaire that asks the participant to rate, usually on a 5- or 7-point scale, various characteristics of the system. Experience shows that participants are reluctant to be critical of a system, no matter how difficult they found the tasks. This article describes a guided interview technique that overcomes this problem based on a word list of over 100 adjectives. We also include a spreadsheet to generate and randomize the word list..."
http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/satisfaction.html


+04: EVENTS.

Web Design World Chicago
May 5-7, 2008.
Chicago, Illinois U.S.A.
http://webdesignworld.com/2008/chicago/

Access U
May 6-7, 2008.
Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
http://www.knowbility.org/conference/

HOW Design Conference
May 18-21, 2008.
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
http://www.howconference.com/

TODCon (The other Dreamweaver Conference)
June 6-8, 2008.
Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
http://www.todcon.org/

webDU 2008
June 12-13, 2008.
Sydney, Australia
http://www.webdu.com.au


+05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Paper Prototyping Video
By Joe Arnold.
http://www.joearnold.com/2008/03/paper_prototyping.html


+06: JAVASCRIPT.

AJAX Accessibility for Websites
By Brigitte Simard.
"AJAX or Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, is an innovative way of using existing technologies to create highly interactive web applications. AJAX allows portions of the page to be updated without having to refresh and reload the entire page. It can increase site performance significantly and provide cutting edge user interfaces. Unfortunately it can also be a source of concern for delivering fully accessible web sites..."
http://tinyurl.com/2ol28e


+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

On Creativity
By Andy Rutledge.
"As designers, we're wrongly perceived as custodians and exponents of creativity. This matters because business currently overvalues creativity. To avoid the inevitable backlash, we must lead our clients' perceptions."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/oncreativity

Design is in the Details
By Naz Hamid.
"Stop worrying about how good a designer you are, and start worrying about the myriad tiny details that can elevate your work from passable to near-perfect."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/designisinthedetails

Things Every Web Designer Should Know
By David Rodriguez.
"If you're a new designer or you're already building pages and need to up your game, read on. These are the things that every Web designer should know..."
http://www.wpdfd.com/issues/85/things_every_designer_should_know/

Shawn Henry Interview
By Bryan Crump.
"Shawn Henry talked with Bryan Crump for Radio New Zealand National while in New Zealand for Webstock 08. They talked about the potential for the Internet to enable people with disabilities to participate more actively in everyday life and business; the work of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI); and including accessibility from the begriming when developing technology."
http://www.w3.org/WAI/highlights/200802radioNZ


+08: NAVIGATION.

The Externalities of Search 2.0
By Michael Zimmer.
"Web search engines have emerged as ubiquitous and vital tools for the successful navigation of the growing online informational sphere. As Google puts it, the goal is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful" and to create the "perfect search engine" that provides only intuitive, personalized, and relevant results. Meanwhile, the so-called Web 2.0 phenomenon has blossomed based, largely, on the faith in the power of the networked masses to capture, process, and mashup one's personal information flows in order to make them more useful, social, and meaningful. The (inevitable) combining of Google's suite of information-seeking products with Web 2.0 infrastructures - what I call Search 2.0 - intends to capture the best of both technical systems for the touted benefit of users. By capturing the information flowing across Web 2.0, search engines can better predict users' needs and wants, and deliver more relevant and meaningful results. While intended to enhance mobility in the online sphere, this paper argues that the drive for Search 2.0 necessarily requires the widespread monitoring and aggregation of a users' online personal and intellectual activities, bringing with it particular externalities, such as threats to informational privacy while online."
http://tinyurl.com/2bqng9


+09: PHP.

Getting Rid of the Headers Already Sent Error
By scross99.
"The 'Headers Already Sent' error is incredibly common, and I receive many many questions from all over about what it is and what caused it. So let's clear all of this up once and for all."
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/anonymousjoe20080225.php3

Turn Text Files into Pull Down Menus
By Tiffany B. Brown.
"I developed this PHP function for a project I'm working on. I'm posting it here in case I need it again, or in case you find it handy..."
http://tinyurl.com/39cvuz


+10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Acid3: Putting Browser Makers on Notice, Again.
By Drew McLellan.
"It's been three years since we told browser makes that we want to see them smile, but now we wanna hold their hand..."
http://tinyurl.com/37w42n

Microsoft's Interoperability Principles and IE8
By Dean Hachamovitch.
"We've decided that IE8 will, by default, interpret web content in the most standards compliant way it can. This decision is a change from what we've posted previously..."
http://tinyurl.com/2th4jw

Microsoft Expands Support for Web Standards
By Ray Ozzie.
"Company outlines new approach to make standards-based rendering the default mode in Internet Explorer 8, will work with Web designers and content developers to help with standards behavior transition..."
http://tinyurl.com/2obelv

Reactions to Microsoft's Reversal on Version Targeting:

Celebrate, C'mon! IE8 Standards Mode To Be Default
By Molly E. Holzschlag.
http://www.molly.com/2008/03/03/ie8-standards-mode-to-be-default/

IE8: Standards Mode by Default
By Shelley Powers.
http://realtech.burningbird.net/standards/ie8-standards-mode-by-default/

IE 8 Will Use Standards Mode as the Default Rendering
By Robert Nyman.
http://tinyurl.com/ys3f35

IE Team Changes Its Mind on IE8 Default Behavior
By Peter-Paul Koch.
http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2008/03/ie_team_changes.html

Internet Explorer 8 Standards-Compliant by Default
By Stuart Langridge.
http://tinyurl.com/2cf2k4

Meta-Change
By Eric A. Meyer.
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2008/03/03/meta-change/

Microsoft Backflips on Browser Version Targeting
By Matthew Magain.
http://tinyurl.com/22nh29

Microsoft Rethinks IE8's Default Behavior
By Aaron Gustafson.
http://tinyurl.com/23blcm

Microsoft Reverse Versioning Decision in IE8
By Mel Pedley.
http://tinyurl.com/yo2l6y

Surprise of the Year: IE8 will use Standards Mode by Default
By Roger Johansson.
http://tinyurl.com/36uodb

Unbreaking the Web
By John Resig.
http://ejohn.org/blog/unbreaking-the-web/

Principles and Legality
By Eric A. Meyer.
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2008/03/04/principles-and-legality/


+11: TYPOGRAPHY.

A Guide to Web Typography
By John Boardley.
"...First, it's worth noting that Typography is not just about choosing a font, or even distinguishing one typeface from another. In recent experiments, trained Monkeys were able to correctly identify Helvetica 90% of the time..."
http://ilovetypography.com/2008/02/28/a-guide-to-web-typography/


+12: USABILITY.

Twelve Things Most Sites Need - Part I
By Mike Cherim.
"There are a plethora of Websites out there, each one unique in its design, its content, markup, features, functionality, and in myriad other ways. Yet, despite these differences, there are specific needs that should be met with near consistency, Internet-wide, regardless of the site. Let's take a look at twelve of these common denominators. Below are the first six. They appear in the order in which I thunk 'em up. They're just numbered so you can refer to them more easily..."
http://www.wpdfd.com/issues/85/twelve_things_most_sites_need_1/

Culture, Internationalization and Usability
By Joanna Bawa.
"Although usability engineering as a profession has been developed in the western countries for over twenty years, its development in other parts of the world like China remains relatively unknown. The study reported in this paper seeks to compare the practice of usability professionals in the United Kingdom, Germany and China. It focuses on the development of interactive products for local markets and for the other markets. The major objective of this research is to have an initial understanding of usability practice for each country..."
http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article4562.asp

Company Name First in Microcontent?
By Jakob Nielsen.
Typically, you should deemphasize your company's name in links, but a new guideline recommends front loading the name for search engine links under certain conditions."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/microcontent-brand-names.html

3 Important Usability Challenges for Designing Web Apps
By Jared Spool.
"Web-based applications are different from content-based web sites because the users are involved in a transaction. In our work researching the usability of a content-based site, we focus on how users will find and react to the information. However, with web-based applications, there are many other considerations we account for..."
http://tinyurl.com/3bv6u6

[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.]