+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 44, April 25, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 44 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: EVENTS.
04: JAVASCRIPT.
05: MISCELLANEOUS.
06: NAVIGATION.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
08: TOOLS.
09: TYPOGRAPHY.
10: USABILITY.
11: XML.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

"Off left" Banned by Google?
By Bob Easton.
"Hidden text can be a spammer's haven...Yes, Google was right. Spam was stuffed into hidden text on my site. They were not complaining about my accessibility technique."
http://www.access-matters.com/2008/04/19/off-left-banned-by-google/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Crafting Ourselves
By Eric A. Meyer.
"My referrers lit up recently due to Jonathan Snook's article about CSS resets and how he doesn't use them. To Jonathan and all the doubters and nay-sayers out there, I have only one thing to say: Good for you..."
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2008/04/17/crafting-ourselves/

Why Reset Style Sheets Are Bad
By Jens Meiert.
"Okay, Jonathan set the pace, Eric countered, a few people carried on, and me, officially having announced comprehensive reset and undo style sheet criticism in January, feels finally obliged to politely point out that reset style sheets are bad: A novice should not use them, an expert would not use them..."
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20080419/reset-style-sheets-are-bad/


+03: EVENTS.

Universal Design Workshop
May 21-22, 2008.
Urbana/Champaign, Illinois, U.S.A.
http://courses.cita.uiuc.edu/2day/


+04: JAVASCRIPT.

Where to Include JavaScript Files in a Document
By Robert Nyman.
"Today I thought we'd talk about how, or rather were in the document, to include JavaScript files..."
http://tinyurl.com/6gztnk


+05: MISCELLANEOUS.

All Web Directions North Slides and Podcasts Now Online
By Maxine Sherrin.
"There was a whole host of genuinely excellent presentations at Web Directions North back in January. The good news for people who weren't there is that so many of the presenters were incredibly generous with their knowledge and expertise and have allowed us to publish their slides and podcasts..."
http://tinyurl.com/4yce3u


+06: NAVIGATION.

Extend the Searchbar with OpenSearch
By Martin Kliehm.
"OpenSearch is known as an open source format to syndicate and aggregate search results. It was developed by Amazon / A9 and quickly gained support from the big search engines. Their involvement is somewhat intimidating - your site's not Google, so who wants to syndicate your search results anyway?..."
http://learningtheworld.eu/2008/opensearch/

Managing Taxonomies
By James Kelway.
"Taxonomy creep inevitably occurs to all sites and there is a need to be able to monitor and adjust the taxonomies without impacting on the user experience or the workflow of the content producers. Here I propose to set out a process that businesses can employ that will ensure their taxonomies are accurate. That they reflect the industry, user groups and business objectives of the site and will utilize their web technologies and people available."
http://userpathways.com/2008/04/03/managing-taxonomies/

Benefits of Plain English URLs
By Gadgetopia.
"The plain-english URLs are more memorable to the customer, and they impart some meaning. When picking URLs, we envision someone at the client's firm reading the URL to someone over the phone. How easy is it going to be?..."
http://gadgetopia.com/post/6346


+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Will The Road to HTML 5 Be Rough?
By Mike Cherim.
"...I'm not sweating this transition, I have confidence it'll work itself in time. It's just the period in between that I question. I suspect conditionally-served style sheets and hacks for IE will probably be with us for a while - as long as old models exist. One concern I do have, if I can properly read the writing on the wall: Will people be saying how antiquated HTML 5 is once it's fully adopted by all sites and all user agents, and mostly being properly implemented, at around the time some of the web movers and shakers are working diligently on HTML 6?"
http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=264

Reverse Ordered Lists
By Lachlan Hunt
"One of the newly introduced features in HTML 5 is the ability to mark up reverse ordered lists. These are the same as ordered lists, but instead of counting up from 1, they instead count down towards 1. This can be used, for example, to count down the top 10 movies, music, or LOLCats, or anything else you want to present as a countdown list..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/reverse-ordered-lists

New Image Report Feature in Validator.nu
By Henri Sivonen.
"There have been lots and lots of e-mail on the public-html mailing list about making the alt attribute syntactically required in HTML5..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/image-report


+08: TOOLS.

WebAnywhere
By WebInSight.
"A web-based screen reader to provide blind web users equal access to the web from any computer without requiring the installation of special, expensive software."
http://webinsight.cs.washington.edu/projects/webanywhere/


+09: TYPOGRAPHY.

Simple CSS: Creating More Readable Text
By David Rodriguez.
"Typography is an important part of Web design. Just like in the print world, your content needs to be readable to your viewers for it to be of any use. As a general rule, you want to make sure your Web site provides as little resistance as possible to the user, and the easier your site is to read, the better. CSS provides three very useful properties to enhance the readability of your site: font, line-height, and letter-spacing."
http://www.wpdfd.com/issues/86/simple_css_creating_more_readable_text/


+10: USABILITY.

Expectations and Usability: Habits
By Peter J. Meyers.
This is part two of my series on expectations and usability. I have to apologize for originally saying this entry would be about standards. By "standards", I meant standard practices, not web standards (W3C, etc.), so, to avoid confusion, I've decided to use a broader word: habits. When we browse the web, many habits come into play, and just about all of them influence our expectations.
http://www.usereffect.com/topic/expectations-and-usability-habits

Press Releases: Spin and Propaganda
By  Gerry McGovern.
"Press releases are a form of propaganda. Publishing them on your website shows your customers how you are attempting to spin the media..."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-04-21-press-releases.htm


+11: XML.

Do You Know XML?
By Ric Johnson.
"Test you knowledge of XML..."
http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2008/04/do_you_know_xml_1.html

XML Design: Data or Documents?
By Michael C. Daconta.
"The iTunes XML format is an example of dumping a data structure to XML. In this post, I examine two examples of this and discuss its ramifications to XML design."
http://tinyurl.com/45fcln


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+12: 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.

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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.]