+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 7, Issue 06, August 7, 2008.

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

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

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Steppingstones Literature Review Summary
By WebAIM.
"A summary of an extensive literature review which analyzed recommendations regarding cognitive and learning disabilities and technology accessibility."
http://webaim.org/projects/steppingstones/litreviewsummary.php


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Mining the SitePoint CSS Reference
By Andrew Tetlaw.
"...While editing the SitePoint CSS Reference I came across many valuable nuggets of CSS knowledge; things I only partially understood or was completely unaware of. Here are a few examples..."
http://tinyurl.com/5dwega

CSS Contents and Browser Compatibility
By Peter-Paul Koch.
PPK updated his CSS browser compatibility charts to include iPhone.
http://www.quirksmode.org/css/contents.html

Solving 5 Common CSS Headaches
By Jeffrey Way.
"CSS is a relatively simple language to learn. Mastering it, on the other, can prove a little more difficult. Compensating for various browser inconsistencies alone can produce a migraine. In this article, we'll demystify five of the most head thumping issues that you'll encounter when building web applications..."
http://nettuts.com/html-css-techniques/solving-5-common-css-headaches/

Using CSS to Make Content Area Images Stretch and Compress
By Phil Smears.
"How CSS can be used to allow images to stretch or compress within liquid layouts thus preventing layout breaks..."
http://www.sdesign1.com/flexible-css-images.htm

Why 'variables' in CSS are Harmful
By Bert Bos.
"Adding any form of macros or additional scopes and indirections, including symbolic constants, is not just redundant, but changes CSS in ways that make it unsuitable for its intended audience. Given that there is currently no alternative to CSS, these things must not be added..."
http://www.w3.org/People/Bos/CSS-variables


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

User Interviews - A Basic Introduction
By Alistair Gray.
"It's surprising how few people have a real understanding of who's using their site. You can collect demographic data on your site visitors but to really know your users you must have direct contact with them. Knowing your users means you know what to do to keep them happy and returning to your site. This month's feature article offers a basic introduction to user interviews - a great way to gain insights into user behavior and help improve the usability of your site."
http://tinyurl.com/5jfhe4

Using Persona Advocates to Develop User-Centric Intranets and Portals
By Howard McQueen.
"Intranets and portals are all-or mostly-about serving and enabling users. What information do they need and what tasks must they accomplish? How will they look for information? How does it need to be organized and presented for them to understand and use it? Do users have expertise in different subject areas or varying levels of technical vocabularies? Do they need instant information gratification or will they patiently research until they explore all possibilities? Do users know what information they are seeking or do they need to be able to browse for something that will catch their eyes and provide the 'Aha!' experiences. Grasping complex information needs and uses can indeed be daunting. One powerful design tool, personas, can help make sense of these needs and provide a framework for building Intranets that will satisfy a variety of needs. Effectively developed and used, personas enable Intranet teams to hone in on user needs and build interfaces and user experiences that end-user audiences can and will use." 
http://www.mcq.com/article-persona


+04: EVENTS.

Fronteers 2008
September 11-12, 2008
Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
http://fronteers.nl/congres/2008/english

The Future of Web Design
November 3-4, 2008.
New York, New York U.S.A.
http://futureofwebdesign.com/2008/newyork/


+05: JAVASCRIPT.

Introduction to WAI ARIA
By Gez Lemon.
"This article is for those who are new to ARIA. You need an understanding of HTML and the potential difficulties that people with disabilities can face using the Web. It is useful to be familiar with some Rich Internet Applications from a user's perspective. After reading this article, you'll understand what ARIA is for, how to integrate it into your sites, and how you can use it now to make even the simplest of sites more accessible..."
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/introduction-to-wai-aria/

Enhancing TabView Accessibility with WAI-ARIA Roles and States
By Todd Kloots.
"...through the application of the WAI-ARIA Roles and States, it is possible to enhance TabView's accessibility such that users of screen readers perceive it as a desktop tab control..."
http://yuiblog.com/blog/2008/07/30/tabview-aria/

ARIA in Gmail 1: Alerts
By Marco Zehe.
"Google have recently started to put ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) into GMail. This means that ARIA is now getting a lot more exposure than it used to, with GMail being probably one of the most widely used web applications today. It's great to see that the hard work Mozilla, IBM, the W3C and especially Aaron Leventhal put into this standard recommendation is getting this prominent placement so soon!.."
http://www.marcozehe.de/2008/08/04/aria-in-gmail-1-alerts/

Primitive Data Types, Arrays, Loops, and Conditions
By Stoyan Stefanov.
"Before diving into the object-oriented features of JavaScript, one needs to look at some of the basics, including: primitive data types, such as strings and numbers, arrays, common operators, flow control statements, etc..."
http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/beginning-oojs/


+ 06: NAVIGATION.

Linkification
By Cameron Moll.
"How do we select the particular words that are linked within a sentence or paragraph, and does it matter for the user?"
http://cameronmoll.com/archives/2008/07/linkification/


+07: PHP.

Top Ten Security Vulnerabilities in PHP Code
By Rochak Chauhan.
http://tinyurl.com/5ks8m7


+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

A Brave New alt in {HTML5}
By Steve Faulkner.
"After much data crunching Of 'billions of web pages', in his infinite wisdom the King of HTML5 has given us a whole new way of using the alt attribute in HTML5..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=84

HTML5 Video Element About to Land in Firefox 3.1
By Stuart Langridge.
"Firefox 3.1 is about to support the HTML5 <video> element, and Opera already does. This means that both those browsers will have support for inline video in the browser without plugins. As usual, Internet Explorer lag behind, and sadly Safari does as well - they're fast at implementing lots of stuff over at the WebKit team, but Apple don't like easy video that isn't in a patented format, so the Safari <video> support only plays stuff that QuickTime can do..."
http://tinyurl.com/5gp453

Announcing the WaSP Curriculum Framework
By Steph Troeth.
"In parallel to the wonderful work that Chris Mills and team are doing on the Opera Web Standards Curriculum, the Education Task Force has begun efforts since March this year on a complementary project: the WaSP Curriculum Framework. Our framework aims to identify the skill sets and competencies that aspiring Web professionals need to acquire to prepare them for their chosen careers..."
http://tinyurl.com/6mmqrj

Borderline Semantics/Crossing the Line
By Niels Matthijs.
As modern-day web developers, we eat, breath and sleep semantics. When adapting designs to html, making our documents as semantic as possible is one of our main priorities (the other being structuring). Lucky for us, html is not too complex and most elements have a clear semantic meaning. Even the generic ones, like div and span elements, have a clear purpose. But work with html long enough and you'll definitely run into some borderline cases..."
http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/borderline-semantics


+09: USABILITY.

Why Usability Versus Branding is Such a Farce
By David Hamill.
"...usability is branding. It shapes people's opinions of your product or organization. The brand is not a color palette, it is not a typeface and it is not a selection of images. The brand is the way someone feels about your product or organization..."
http://tinyurl.com/688wpb

Low Value Content is Destroying Your Website
By Gerry McGovern.
"Low-value content is destroying the usefulness of intranets and public websites. It needs to be stored separately..."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-08-04-archive.htm

7 Essential Guidelines For Functional Design
By Dustin M. Wax.
"Look at what you've made. Beautiful, isn't it? But does it work? For whom does it work? Of course you can use it, but can anyone else? In short, is it functional?..."
http://tinyurl.com/6kb6zt

Closed Question Response Categories
By Jessica Enders.
"There are two main types of questions on form: open and closed..."
http://formulate.com.au/articles/closed-question-response-categories/

How Environments, Real And Virtual, Influence Us
By Kyle Mueller.
"What sort of state is your desk in right now? Clutter on your website, just as in your environment, can have a negative effect on your visitors' state of mind. Kyle Mueller takes a look at some 
of the common pitfalls and how to avoid them."
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/environments_real_and_virtual/

[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.]