+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 7, Issue 02, July 10, 2008. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 02 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: COLOR. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 07: TOOLS. 08: USABILITY. 09: XML. SECTION TWO: 10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Review of the WebVisum Firefox Extension By Marco Zehe. "Today, a post announcing the WebVisum Firefox extension was posted to the mozilla.dev.accessibility newsgroup. The things talked about in this post and on the WebVisum homepage almost sound too good to be true..." http://tinyurl.com/5l62yv +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Browser Bugs By westciv. "Browser bugs driving you mad? Then, hopefully, we have the cure. At this browser guide, you can find (and contribute) detailed information about browser bugs in CSS, HTML and the DOM from Internet Explorer, Netscape 4 and up!..." http://westciv.com/browsers/index.php/Main_Page Level 3 Features in the Wild By James Hopkins. "The beauty about working on a site that is specifically targeted for one the most popular mobile devices around (aka the iPhone) is that the vendor with the least CSS support (*cough* IE *cough*) doesn't exist on it (purely because of its inadequate CSS support in this case)..." http://www.css3.info/level-3-features-in-the-wild/ All About Floats By Chris Coyier. "Float is a CSS positioning property. If you are familiar with print design, you can think of it like an image in a layout where the text wraps around it as necessary..." http://css-tricks.com/all-about-floats/ Multiple CSS Classes By Ben Counsel. " Applying multiple CSS classes allows you to create reusable classes that can easily be mixed together on any HTML element without adding additional markup, thus saving you time and making your CSS more efficient and easier for your work colleagues to understand. It's a method I've been using for a while, but one I wish I'd adopted long ago..." http://tinyurl.com/5ow3zg +03: COLOR. Colour Theory By Linda Goin. "In this article, I'll cover colour basics and three simple colour schemes so that you can feel confident about choosing colours for your site. I'll follow up this article with another piece on how to simplify these colour choices. After all, it's more fun to enjoy the compliments on your Web site design than it is to sweat over the colour choices." http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/8-colour-theory/ Colour Schemes and Design Mockups By Linda Goin. "After a web designer presents a site's architecture, or wireframe, to a client for approval, the next step is to determine the look and feel of the site through colour and graphics. In this article, I'll demonstrate how I keep this process as simple as possible..." http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/10-colour-schemes-and-design-mockups/ +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Avoiding Demographics When Recruiting Participants By Jared Spool. "User research is now a critical tool in the toolbox of design teams. However, it only works well if you involve the right participants in the study. Having the participants that match the design's audience will give the team feedback on what works well and where the design needs rethinking. By learning from the participants, the team can make informed design decisions on all aspects of the user's experience..." http://tinyurl.com/4axa37 +05: EVENTS. Type Camp Galiano August 3-8, 2008. Galiano Island, Canada http://www.typecamp.org/galiano.html 10th Annual Conference On World Wide Web Applications September 3-5, 2008. Cape Town, South Africa. http://active.cput.ac.za/ZAW3/public/index.asp?pageid=546 +06: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Circumventing Hegemony in the HTML WG By Steve Faulkner. "Raising Issues: In order to raise an issue or proposal in regards to the HTML5 specification you do not have to be a member of the W3C HTML Working Group (HTML WG). Anyone can simply enter a bug into the HTML Bugzilla. If the proposal or issue is rejected by those that control the specification and the issue is related to accessibility, you can refer the issue to the W3C Protocols and Formats Working Group (PF WG). Probably the best method is to subscribe to and send an email to the WAI-XTECH mailing list..." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=80 Microsoft Credible as Blushing Debutante at the Standards Ball? By Rick Jelliffe. "Effective participation in standards bodies involves quite specific commitment and development of expertise, it is not a generic capability that can be instantly redeployed, Rumsfield-style, to trouble spots..." http://tinyurl.com/5pp6od Introduction to The Web Standards Curriculum By Chris Mills. "...a course designed to give anyone a solid grounding in web design/development, no matter who they are-it is completely free to use, accessible, and assumes no previous knowledge..." http://tinyurl.com/68t9pl Yes, You Can Use HTML 5 Jens Meiert. "For those who weren't aware of that so far, you can already use HTML 5: Just use as your HTML documents' document type..." http://meiert.com/en/blog/20080708/you-can-use-html-5/ +07: TOOLS. The Pencil Project By Duong Thanh. Firefox 3 wireframing tool extension. http://www.evolus.vn/Pencil/ +08: USABILITY. Web Form Design Patterns: Sign-Up Forms By Vitaly Friedman and Sven Lennartz. "Below we present findings of our survey of current web form design patterns - the results of an analysis of 100 popular web-sites where web-forms (should) matter. We have decided to start with sign-up forms first. We present the first part of our findings below; the second part of the survey results will be published next week..." http://tinyurl.com/59je2h +09: XML. HTML or XHTML: Does It Really Matter? By James Edwards. "I could say that HTML has come a long way since its first standard specification, HTML 2.0, was published in 1995. I would like to say that-but it wouldn't be true..." http://www.sitepoint.com/article/html-or-xhtml-does-it-matter [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +10: 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.]