+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 7, Issue 11, September 12, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 11 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS
09: TOOLS.
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.

Accessible Forms Using WCAG 2.0
By Roger Hudson.
"This document aims to provide web developers and others with practical advice about the preparation of accessible HTML forms. It compares the WCAG 1.0 accessibility requirements relating to forms with those contained in WCAG 2.0..."
http://www.usability.com.au/resources/wcag2/

Auditory Captchas Web Survey
By University of Washington.
"We are conducting this study to determine the usability and accessibility of a new interface to audio captchas. A captcha is a computer-generated challenge-response test that is intended to be easily solved by a human, but difficult for a computer to solve. Captchas are often used to prevent automated software from performing unauthorized actions, like creating user accounts or downloading software."
http://webinsight.cs.washington.edu/webeval/captchas2/. 

Analysis - Target Web Lawsuit: The Six Million Dollar Question
By Majeed Saleh and Dan Jellinek.
"For years the web accessibility community has been waiting for clear legal precedent to be set enforcing the accessibility of websites for people with disabilities, but to date the wait has gone largely unrewarded..."
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=204

Accessibility In Suit And Tie
By Vitamin.
"...this article is for the suits who care: if you can't use cutting-edge tools, technologies or techniques, what can you do to ensure that you're doing all you can for all of your users? My tried-and-tested method is..."
http://tinyurl.com/6oxyke


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Core CSS: Part I
By Molly E. Holzschlag.
"...The first of my three part Core CSS reference is available for free download to registered members (registration is free too, of course) and there are very stylin' print versions of the cards available as well..."
http://refcardz.dzone.com/refcardz/corecss-part1


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

When Role Playing Doesn't Work: Seven Guidelines for Grounding Usability Testing in Participants' Real Lives 
By Isabelle Peyrichoux.
"When participants are better able to relate to a task, content, or data you are showing them, you'll get richer and more reliable insights that will help you to better evaluate and improve your product."
http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000317.php


+04: EVENTS.

International PHP Conference 2008
October 27-31.
Mainz, Germany
http://it-republik.de/php/phpconference/


+05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Information Architecture for Audio: Doing It Right
By Jens Jacobsen.
"Content today is increasingly delivered by audio both online and in the real world..." 
http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/information150


+06: JAVASCRIPT.

Validating ARIA Markup
By Gez Lemon.
"The HTML5 Validator  can be used to validate WAI-ARIA markup."
http://juicystudio.com/article/validating-aria-markup.php

A Few Live Region Examples
By Peter Thiessen.
"I recently posted a few Live Region examples on Code Talks. My end goal is to create a list of simple and easy to follow examples for Web developers to quickly learn how to apply Live Regions to their apps. The examples (with more to come in the near future) include..."
http://blog.overscore.com/?p=12

JavaScript Benchmark Quality
By John Resig.
"JavaScript Benchmarks aren't adapting well to the rapid increase in JavaScript engine performance. I provide some simple tests for verifying this and propose a modified setup which could be used by all JavaScript Benchmarks to achieve high-quality results."
http://ejohn.org/blog/javascript-benchmark-quality/


+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

Christian Heilmann Interview
By Christian Heilmann.
"At dconstruct in Brighton this year the BBC backstage people interviewed me about My job and also about Scripting Enabled. Here are the videos"
http://scriptingenabled.org/2008/09/bbc-interview/


+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS

Two Thousand Twenty Two
By Jeff Croft.
"Hixie suggests HTML 5 will reach the 'Proposed Recommendation' stage sometime in 2022. Go ahead, read it again. It's not a typo. Two thousand twenty two. I immediately stopped reading. Didn't even bother with the rest of the interview. Why? Because it just doesn't matter...while you count the days until HTML 5 is available to you, I'll be doing real work, on real websites, which have real users, for real clients." 
http://jeffcroft.com/blog/2008/sep/11/two-thousand-twenty-two/

The Holy Wars of the Humble alt
By Hallvord R. M. Steen.
"Should the HTML5 specification require ALT attributes for all IMG tags? The raging debates on the public-html list seem endless. But let's see if we can get an overview..."
http://tinyurl.com/6la3vq


+09: TOOLS.

Color Contrast Comparison
By Joe Dolson.
"This test allows you to compare two colors and test them using the color contrast algorithms specified for the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) versions 1 and 2."
http://www.joedolson.com/color-contrast-compare.php

Color Contrast Test
By Joe Dolson.
http://www.joedolson.com/color-contrast-tester.php

Note: "WCAG 1 does not, in fact, provide any specific guidelines concerning color contrast. The formulas commonly used to judge this were specified in Techniques For Accessibility Evaluation And Repair Tools, published in 2000. The document is intended to help authors conform to WCAG, but is not actually part of the WCAG document."


+10: USABILITY.

Zebra Striping: More Data for the Case
By Jessica Enders.
"As designers or marketers, we share a desire that our tables and forms be easy to scan, read, and use. Does the widely practiced shading of alternate rows help, hurt, or have no effect? A previous study proving inconclusive, designer and researcher Jessica Enders has tackled the conundrum again, coming up with statistically relevant data and a set of recommendations."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/zebrastripingmoredataforthecase

Look at it Another Way
By Indi Young.
"Before you can solve a user's problems, you must see them as that user sees them. Once you understand what drives people's behavior, not only do new ideas flow freely, but the ideas that flow are appropriate and useful. Indi Young tells how to get out of your own way and hear what your users are telling you."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/lookatitanotherway

Marking Required vs. Optional Form Fields
By Erin Walsh.
"In a comparative test, Erin Walsh learned that spelling out that a form field is optional works significant better than indicating it with some visual means."
http://www.ixda.org/discuss.php?post=32161

Usability Tip: Use Verbs as Labels on Buttons
By Dmitry Fadeyev.
"We're all familiar with the 'OK' and "Cancel' buttons you get on dialog boxes. Simple labels that ask us whether we agree or disagree to the next action the application wants to take. The interesting thing is that using exclamations like 'OK" and 'No' isn't all that usable. Instead, you should use verbs. Let me illustrate this with an example..."
http://tinyurl.com/55b6le


+11: XML.

Learn about SMIL 3.0 and Test It!
By Karl Dubost.
"SMIL stands for Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language. It is an XML language which has been designed for creating interactive multimedia presentations, including timing and synchronization. For example, a fade effect from black to a photograph, or starting an animation at the same time than an audio file..."
http://www.w3.org/QA/2008/09/learn-test-smil30.html


[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
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+ 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.]