+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 7, Issue 05, August 1, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 05 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: MISCELLANEOUS.
05: NAVIGATION.
06: PHP.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
08: TOOLS.
09: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Personalized Access - the next step beyond WAI-ARIA
By Rich Schwerdtfeger.
"WAI-ARIA brings Web accessibility on par, or better, than what is available for today's desktops. It provide the Web developer with the tools to deliver fully keyboard accessibility as well as full interoperability between web applications and an assistive technology either through the DOM. If the browser manufacturer chooses, it can make the interaction with the assistive technology even easier by mapping the new found WAI-ARIA meta data in the DOM to the accessibility API supported by the browser. While this will carry us very far with Web accessibility it does not take us all the way..."
http://tinyurl.com/5w76uq

Web Accessibility is Not SEO
By Joe Dolson.
"There are numerous articles pointing out the business advantages of accessibility. Many of these reflect the similarity between accessibility and SEO. However, despite the close technical relationship between the needs of disabled users and the technical requirements of search engine optimization, the fact remains that the two goals are not the same, are not equivalent, and do not reflect the same ultimate goals..." 
http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/07/web-accessibility-is-not-seo/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

HTML and CSS List Based Menus
By Schalk Neethling.
"HTML and CSS based menus is nothing new. I believe web developers has understood the semantic meaning behind this and are using lists to create their web site menu structures. With that said, what does lists add in a semantic sense. If you think about a menu of a website, what does it boil down to..."
http://css.dzone.com/news/html-and-css-list-based-menus


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Weekly User Testing: TiVo Did It, You Can, Too
By Jakob Nielsen.
"TiVo ran 12 user tests in 12 weeks while designing its new website. As TiVo's experience shows, frequent and regular testing keeps the design usability focused."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/weekly-usability-tests.html


+04: MISCELLANEOUS.

Pioneers of the World Wide Web: The Glazz is Full
By Sam Hiser.
"...This is a Q&A with Daniel Glazman, programmer of the old Mozilla Composer HTML editor, who is leading the effort to rescue Nvu from end-of-life obscurity in the form of KompoZer..."
http://fussnotes.typepad.com/plexnex/2008/07/pioneers-of-the.html


+05: NAVIGATION.

Any-Element Linking Demo
By Eric A. Meyer.
"In support of the still-to-be-finished proposal for allowing most HTML 5 elements to become hyperlinks, I've written a quick proof-of-concept demo for your perusal. Basically, it's a page with some JavaScript that captures the whole document tree, looks for any elements with an href attribute, and then sprinkles some events on those elements in order to make them act like hyperlinks. There's also some CSS that applies old-school link presentation to said elements (blue and underlined, baby!). I'm using href because it was the easiest thing to do..."
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2008/07/23/any-element-linking-demo/

The Hyperlink as Organizing Principle
By Alexander Halavais.
"What does a hyperlink mean? The question itself is problematical. We might be satisfied with the simpler and related question of what a hyperlink is and what a hyperlink does. But in trying to understand what the larger social effects of hyperlink networks are, it is not enough to be able to define a hyperlink, we need to understand its nature, its use, and its social effects..."
http://tinyurl.com/6ocxd3


+06: PHP.

Mangling XML as Text with PHP DOM
By James Edwards.
"Recently I had to do some mass-conversion of HTML files to DITA XML - material..."
http://tinyurl.com/69kfow


+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Curriculum Survey Results
By Rob Dickerson.
"Early in 2006, members of the Web Standards Project Education Task Force and the World Wide Web Consortium Quality Assurance Interest Group first met to discuss the need for a standards-based curriculum to aid Educational Professionals in higher education teach modern Web techniques. At that time, it was decided that more information was needed and could be gathered with a survey. Questions were formulated and much of the next year was spent taming an unruly survey engine..."
http://www.webstandards.org/2008/07/28/curriculum-survey-results/

Validated Ampersands in HTML Links
By Christopher Schmitt.
"When dealing with the W3C's HTML Validator, you know that the error messages try to be helpful. But when you are new to HTML and Web design in general, the messages can be hard to decode..."
http://tinyurl.com/6cedol

The Survey, 2008
By A List Apart.
"Calling all designers, developers, information architects, project managers, writers, editors, marketers, and everyone else who makes websites. It is time once again to pool our information so as to begin sketching a true picture of the way our profession is practiced worldwide..."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/survey2008

HTML 5 and summary: the feast of shrimp?
By Roberto Scano. 
Article is in Italian.
http://tinyurl.com/6j2yp5
Translation tool:
http://www.google.com/language_tools


+08: TOOLS.

LowBrowse
"While existing programs enable blind people to access the web effectively, LowBrowse is the first program to enable people with moderate or severe low vision to both view web pages as the original web author intended and read the text on those pages tailored to their own visual needs. The highly anticipated program, which runs in conjunction with the Mozilla Firefox browser, will be offered at no charge and is expected to be available to the public for download via the Firefox add-on site in late summer or early fall of 2008."
http://www.lighthouse.org/aboutus/press/press-releases/lowbrowse/


+09: USABILITY.

News You Can Use
By Gerry McGovern.
"In an age of attention deficit and impatience, news created on organizational websites and intranets needs to be brutally action-oriented and to-the-point It needs to help people do things. It needs to be practical and real. And it needs to be newsworthy-not simply put up because it's Tuesday and we need to publish something."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-07-28-news.htm


[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:
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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.]