+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 49, May 29, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 49 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: FLASH.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: NAVIGATION.
08: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Web Accessibility - The Power of Five
By E-Access Bulletin Live.
A study completed by the Society of IT Management (Socitm) cites the five most common web accessibility errors, which reportedly make up 76 percent of all website accessibility failures. 1.) no alternative text for images; 2.) inappropriate use of JavaScript; 3.) errors in simple data tables; 4.) errors in complex data tables; 5). use of features with a lack of accessible alternatives.
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=183


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

How to Create Alternating Background Colors in Table Rows with CSS
By Virginia DeBolt.
"In larger tables it is often an aid to reading to have alternating background colors for every other row in the table. It can help readers follow lines across the table. It is easy to implement with CSS. Here is how."
http://www.ehow.com/how_2281410_colors-table-rows-with-css.html

How to Create a Run-in Heading with CSS
By Virginia DeBolt.
"If you want to create an appearance where the heading at the beginning of a paragraph appears to run into the paragraph--it is possible with CSS."
http://www.ehow.com/how_2280932_runin-heading-using-css.html

How to Reduce Classitis in HTML with CSS Descendant Selectors
By Virginia DeBolt.
"Have you heard of classitis? Beginning CSS designers quickly master the ability to create dozens of classes in a CSS stylesheet and to apply them liberally to their HTML documents. Most of these classes are unnecessary and merely clutter up the code and add to the document size. A bigger document size translates to a slower download and increased bandwidth expenses. Cluttered code afflicted with classitis is not good for business; it's not the best practice and it doesn't help achieve the accessibility goal of separating content from presentation. Here is how to reduce classitis using CSS."
http://tinyurl.com/3v5j3r

How to Left, Right, and Center Align with CSS
By Virginia DeBolt.
"Instead of using HTML alignment attributes with the HTML tags that markup text, the best practice for web designers is to move the presentation (alignment options) information to the stylesheet. This article will explain how to align text and how to center larger page elements such as divs."
http://www.ehow.com/how_2284643_left-right-center-align-css.html


+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Introducing Dreamweaver CS4 Beta
By Scott Fegette.
"Find out what's in store for the next version of Dreamweaver..."
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/sfegette_dwcs4_beta.html

Dreamweaver CS4 Public Beta: What's New?
By Sheri German.
"It's here - the public beta of Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 is available for immediate download at Adobe Labs. This week Community MX will help you sort out the major new features of the upcoming version of the best web authoring tool on the planet. Today you'll get a sneak peek at some of the new CSS tools and features."
http://www.communitymx.com/abstract.cfm?cid=6D4C1


+04: EVENTS.

Voices That Matter
June 11, 2008.
Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A.
http://www.voicesthatmatter.com/webdesign2008/index.aspx

Hot and Spicy Style with CSS with Molly Holzschlag
August 16-17, 2008.
Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.
http://www.outreach.hawaii.edu/pnm/programs/2008/EVENT-L09669.asp


+05: FLASH.

Accessibility.active Put to Good Use
By Andrew Kirkpatrick.
"Steve Faulkner wrote a good post at The Paciello Group's blog on screen reader detection. His points are all quite fair and it is worth noting that what the Flash Player does is detect the presence of a running MSAA client, which is broader than screen readers. This technique shouldn't be entirely discounted, however, for certain kinds of use that take advantage of the facts, which are that all Flash-reading screen readers will cause the player to set the Accessibility.active property to true, and that there are few MSAA clients that are likely to be running, although some are likely to be non-screen reader assistive technologies..."
http://tinyurl.com/3mzexv


+06: JAVASCRIPT.

Updated WAI-ARIA Editors' Drafts Now Publicly Available
By Shawn Henry.
"Previously WAI's Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) documents were periodically published as a Public Working Drafts, and the in-progress "Editors' Drafts" were available only to W3C members. As of today, the Editors' Drafts are available publicly, so that anyone can follow how issues are being addressed in the developing WAI-ARIA documents."
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2008AprJun/0087.html

Durable Objects
By Douglas Crockford.
"Cooperating applications, such as mashups, must be able to exchange objects with robust interfaces. An object must be able to encapsulate its state such that the state can be modified only as permitted by its own methods. JavaScript's objects are soft and currently the language does not include any means to harden them, so an attacker can easily access the fields directly and replace the methods with his own. Fortunately, JavaScript provides the means to construct durable objects that can perfectly guard their state by using a variation of the Module Pattern.
http://yuiblog.com/blog/2008/05/24/durable-objects/

Ajax Accessibility
By John Resig.
"A common concern of most Ajax applications has been around their resulting accessibility. While, arguably, it's possible to design some form of a usable web page without the use of JavaScript it should be possible - with the additional scripting information - to provide a better experience to users. It's at this point that the ARIA specification comes into play. A large set of interaction is defined within it which is able to help web applications communicate directly to a screen reader in an effective manner. To get a feel for what this interaction looks like, take the example of ARIA Live Regions (more info). With this functionality it would be possible to keep a live-updated list of users and allow the screen reader to keep up-to-date."
http://ejohn.org/blog/ajax-accessibility/


+07: NAVIGATION.

How to Evaluate Your Website's Keyword Density
By Virginia DeBolt.
"Using keywords on a web page helps the search engines understand what your pages are about and helps people who are searching for your information find you with a search. Using good keywords is one of the cardinal principles of search engine optimization. This article explains an online tool that will help you analyze keyword density."
http://www.ehow.com/how_2279660_evaluate-sites-keyword-density.html

Web Semantics and Search
By Mike Cherim.
"Semantics, schemantics, right? If that's your view, you might want to start questioning it now. The importance of web semantics may be on the rise. Semantics is meaning. On the web semantic HTML conveys this meaning to the user and his or her user agent. It lends itself to web accessibility, and the clear content organization is extraordinarily helpful to being properly indexed by search engines. Someday this fact may be more important than ever thanks to an interesting new approach to search..."
http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=226


+08: USABILITY.

OK-Cancel or Cancel-OK?
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Should the OK button come before or after the Cancel button? Following platform conventions is more important than suboptimizing an individual dialog box."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ok-cancel.html

Interactive is a Meaningless Word
By Gerry McGovern.
"Making your websites more interactive is a meaningless strategy. Make your website more useful instead."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-05-26-interactive.htm


[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.]