+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 7, Issue 22, November 26, 2008. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 22 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: BOOKS. 03: DREAMWEAVER. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: MISCELLANEOUS. 08: PHP. 09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 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. SJSU Becomes First School in CSU to Use iTunes U By Chris Curry. San Jose State University provides transcripts of ALL its iTunes content. Many of the files have transcripts embedded. http://tinyurl.com/62ela6 iTunes and iTunesU Adds VoiceOver By Cory Bohon. "Apple just released an update to iTunes. Version 8.0.2 "...improves stability and performance and provides a number of important bug fixes." They note that this update adds VoiceOver capabilities for both iTunes and iTunes U. VoiceOver is the built-in screen reader utility for Mac OS X that helps visually challenged users..." http://tinyurl.com/64gdt7 National Federation of the Blind and Commonwealth of Massachusetts Announce Agreement with Apple to Make iTunes Fully Accessible By Chris Danielsen. "Apple will make iTunes U (a dedicated area of the iTunes Store for content provided by colleges and universities) fully accessible by December 31, 2008, and will ensure the full accessibility of the iTunes software and the rest of the iTunes Store to blind people using both Mac and Windows operating systems by June 30, 2009." http://www.nfb.org/nfb/NewsBot.asp?MODE=VIEW&ID=366 iTunes U Accessibility Working Group By Athen (Access Technologists in Higher Education Network). http://tinyurl.com/5jb5jw Includes an iTunes U Accessibility Evaluation (powerpoint presentation) By Joe Humbert. http://www.colorado.edu/Atconference/AHG_2008_iTunes_Presetation.ppt Do You Use Access Keys? By Robert Nyman. "I felt it was about time to bring up the topic in one of my oldest drafts (written in May 2005) which, for some reason, never saw the light of day." http://www.robertnyman.com/2008/11/25/poll-do-you-use-access-keys/ Accessible Interface Design, Part 1 By Mark McKay. "A lot of what I will cover in this article is just plain good design with a few tweaks to make it more accessible..." http://tinyurl.com/5og446 Accessible Interface Design, Part 2 By Mark McKay. "...It is true that well designed, properly coded, visually appealing applications can be even more accessible when they use proper structure, plain language, headings and label interface controls in a meaningful way. I challenge everyone reading this article to make your next application beautiful, usable and accessible." http://tinyurl.com/6zkhge Section 508: Uncle Sam's Guide To Web Accessibility By Rob Ballou. "If you've ever worked on a US federal government web site, you've probably encountered Section 508 law for web accessibility. In this article, Rob wades through the jargon to deliver the tips you need to ensure the sites you build are compliant." http://www.sitepoint.com/article/section-508-web-accessibility/ +02: BOOKS. Harper and Yesilada. Web Accessibility: A Foundation for Research, Springer, 2008. Online at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-1-84800-049-0 Jarrett and Gaffney. Forms That Work: Designing Web Forms For Usability, Morgan Kaufmann, 2008. Seale, Jane. E-learning and Disability in Higher Education, Routledge, 2006. +03: DREAMWEAVER. Dreamweaver CS3 and CS4 Video Tutorials By Stefan Mischook. "I just released a new set of Dreamweaver video tutorials that cover Dreamweaver CS3 and CS4..." http://tinyurl.com/6osq34 +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Why We Call Them Participants By Dana Chisnell. "It was not an easy recruit. Directors of IT are busy people. Oddly, they're hard to get hold of. They don't answer calls from strangers. They don't answer ads on web sites. The ones who do answer ads on web sites we had to double-check on by calling their company HR departments to verify they had the titles they said they did..." http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/why-we-call-them Genetic A/B Testing with JavaScript By John Resig. I've long been interested in the concept of A/B testing (Also called split testing). It's a simple concept that should sit will with most mathematically-inclined types: You have a baseline interface in which you adjust a single variable, at random, for each user that visits your application. After a given amount of time you should be able to see if certain variables affect how your users behave (either negatively or positively). http://ejohn.org/blog/genetic-ab-testing-with-javascript/ +05: EVENTS. Designing For All December 3, 2008. London, United Kingdom. http://www.headstar-training.com/dfa/ Affordable Web Training Online five week course beginning December 3, 2008. http://www.molly.com/2008/11/25/finally-affordable-web-training/ +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Wireframeworks Manifesto By Hammad Khan. "Over the last ten years, the Internet has gone from being the product of technology to the media channel of choice for much of the general public. Designers and developers have forged together innovative, entertaining and essential landmarks that can be accessed by computer, mobile and TV. As the importance of access, effectiveness and ergonomics of the web has become self evident, the role of the user experience professional has become the missing link between technology and people. We aim to make the web more usable, accessible, findable and practical." http://wireframeworks.org/manifesto.aspx The Real Information Architect By Peter Morville. "This entertaining presentation by Gail Leija is one of the best (and most fun) overviews of information architecture that I've seen in a while..." http://www.findability.org/archives/000225.php +07: MISCELLANEOUS. Women in Tech: Jill Whalen By Virginia DeBolt. "Jill Whalen is a leading expert in the field of search engine optimization (SEO) and the head of High Rankings. Meet Jill Whalen..." http://www.webteacher.ws/2008/11/25/women-in-tech-jill-whalen/ Designers and Developers, Why Can't We All Just Get Along? By Simon Mackie. "At The Future of Web Design in New York, the final session of the day was a panel discussion on the frictions and misunderstandings that often arise between designers and developers working together..." http://tinyurl.com/5ryhds +08: PHP. Real-World OOP With PHP and MySQL By Angelo Rodrigues. "Numerous examples from robots to bicycles have been offered as 'easy' explanations of what OOP is. I've opted to show you how OOP works with a real-life example, for a programmer. By creating a MySQL CRUD class you can easily create, read, update and delete entries in any of your projects, regardless of how the database is designed." http://nettuts.com/tutorials/php/real-world-oop-with-php-and-mysql/ +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. W3C Validator, Now with HTML5 Flavour By Olivier Thereaux. "A lot of recurring discussions among the W3C staff and contributors, whenever the question of 'what should be the focus of our validation tools' arises, seem to split the world in two camps..." http://www.w3.org/QA/2008/11/w3c_validator_now_with_html5.html W3C Markup Validation Service adds experimental HTML5 support By Meitar Moscovitz. "A few days ago, the W3C added experimental support for HTML5 to their online markup validation service. There's been an HTML5 validator available at Validator.nu for a while now, but the addition of HTML5 validation to the W3C's own site is an important catalyst that is arguably overdue..." http://tinyurl.com/64mhll Web Standards in China By Henny Swan. "In early October I was lucky enough to spend some time in China talking to web professionals and students alike about web standards and their current status..." http://www.webstandards.org/2008/11/24/web-standards-in-china/ This Week in HTML 5 - Episode 14 By Mark Pilgrim. "...The big news this week is a radical proposal for integrating HTTP authentication with HTML forms..." http://blog.whatwg.org/this-week-in-html-5-episode-14 +10: USABILITY. Web Content Migration: Disastrous Strategy By Gerry McGovern. "There is probably no worse strategy for an intranet or public website than content migration. It is doomed to failure from the very start." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-11-24-content-migration.htm +11: XML. What If There Already was Broad Support for XHTML? By Adrian Bateman. "...Of course, XHTML isn't just about well-formedness. The documents are truly XML and have the ability to embed mark-up from other namespaces such as SVG and MathML and to be processed with standard XML tools. There is also work underway in the HTML 5 WG to define the mechanisms for these languages to be embedded in HTML. What value is there in XHTML if it only differs from HTML in which type of parser I instantiate to read a document?" http://tinyurl.com/6sa7qe [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. 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.]