+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 8, Issue 02, July 10, 2009.

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: ASSOCIATIONS.
03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: FLASH.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: NAVIGATION.
10: PHP.
11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
12: USABILITY.
13: XML.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Accessible Information Technology and Web Bill in Minnesota with Implementation Funds Passed and Signed by the Governor
By Gregg Vanderheiden.
"The new law requires that the state adopt 508 Standards and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Guidelines and establish an advisory committee that will make hardware, software, products and Websites accessible without causing an undue burden (too much cost  not technically feasible) to the state..."
http://trace.wisc.edu:8080/mailarchive/uaccess-l/msg03222.shtml

Response to Questions about Accessible Lecture Capture Solutions
By Pat Brogan.
"My understanding is that most of the lecture capture systems are not compliant because of
some of the database issues. but their output is or can be made to be compliant through captioning. The consequences of not buying the most compliant system can be economic penalties. This generally focuses on the use of the tool itself--can a disabled person use the lecture capture system? The second and more important aspect is--Is the content the system generates compliant? For the lecture capture vendors, this means that one can navigate with tools other than a mouse, users can control content navigation and flow. But the big challenge is to really make the content accessible, the audio and video need to have synced captions..."
http://athenpro.org/pipermail/athen_athenpro.org/2009-June/003728.html

High Tech Center Training Unit of the California Community Colleges
By The High Tech Center Training Unit of the California Community Colleges.
"California community colleges have a legal responsibility to provide equal access to video resources for students, faculty and staff who are deaf or hard of hearing. This is often most easily accomplished through closed captioning of video resources..."
http://htctu.net/divisions/altmedia/captioning/cc/ccmain.htm

12 Tools To Check Your Site's Accessibility
By Sean P Aune.
"When you design any web site, one of your first goals is to make sure you get as many visitors as you can, but have you checked the true accessibility of your site? Can a color blind person read it? Are all of your scripts cooperating? Your colors may look nice together, but is the contrast different enough that it is all legible?  Well, those questions are exactly what these 12 tools are designed to help you answer, and it certainly may never be a bad idea to run more than one to make sure they are all telling you the same thing..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/07/06/site-accessibility-tools/

Don't Just Tick Boxes
By Mel Pedley.
"Meeting the diverse needs of your site's visitors is likely to mean a great deal more than ticking off individual accessibility checkpoints."
http://accessites.org/site/2009/07/dont-just-tick-boxes/

Web Accessibility and the Law
By Joseph C. Dolson.
"The state of legal requirements and protections concerning the accessibility of websites is far from uniform. Many countries have some form of web accessibility laws in place, but the extent of those laws is radically variable. Furthermore, as many websites serve multiple countries, the question of jurisdiction can become a tricky aspect of accessibility law. It's well beyond the scope of this article to discuss the exact limits of web accessibility law around the globe, but I do aim to discuss the ramifications and philosophies of these laws for your web-based business."
http://tinyurl.com/l43g8q

More Fun With The tabindex Attribute
By Becky Gibson.
"Back in November, 2007 I blogged my results of testing the tabindex attribute in several browsers. I recently retested with the latest versions of the browsers and included Safari 4. Luckily the recommended methods for working with the tabindex attribute do not change. Here is the updated version..."
http://tinyurl.com/nypo32

Advocates for the Blind Sue Arizona State U. Over Kindle Use
By Marc Beja.
"The National Federation of the Blind and the American Council of the Blind are suing Arizona State University for its use of the Amazon Kindle to distribute electronic textbooks to students, saying the device cannot be used by blind students..."
http://tinyurl.com/mhhye7

Four WCAG 2.0 Guidelines That Could Improve Readability For All Audiences
By Mary Donnelly. 
"I often hear how accessibility can help everyone. One of the most common examples I've heard is that sidewalk ramps not only help people in wheel chairs but they also help people rolling luggage, strollers, hot dog carts, grocery carts, etc. Along the same lines the WCAG 2.0 guidelines listed below are by far some of my favorite because they can improve content in a web site for everyone. These guidelines should not only be applied to accessibility, they should also be applied to style guidelines and user interface guidelines for a site."
http://tinyurl.com/nc8gzh

InDesign Accessibility Best Practices
By Andrew Kirkpatrick.
"InDesign authors often ask about generating accessible PDF files. To help respond to this, we worked with David Blatner of InDesignSecrets.com to combine our accessibility experience with his deep knowledge of InDesign so that we could produce a document that would be useful to InDesign authors interested in accessibility..."
http://tinyurl.com/nfzwv7


+02: ASSOCIATIONS.

Technically Women
"Technically Women comprises a group of women from all walks of business. This blog presents our unique views on how technology is shifting our world. The women are business owners, marketers, evangelists and leaders. The idea for Technically Women stemmed from a ?'women and leadership?' piece penned by Dennis Howlett, which brought several of these women together to share their unique views on the current state of business. We decided to keep the conversation going and bring in some additional voices..."
http://technicallywomen.com/


+03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

CSS Effect: Space Images Out to Match Text Height
By Zoe Gillenwater.
I've been on my soapbox a lot lately, so I decided it was time to step down for a bit and do a nice, non-controversial CSS tutorial..."
http://zomigi.com/blog/css-effect-space-images-out-to-match-text-height/

Handheld Media Type, RIP?
By Jens Meiert.
"Website authors don't use handheld as it's barely supported; mobile device suppliers don't support handheld because it's barely used..."
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20090630/handheld-media-type-rip/

CSS Fundamentals: Containing Children
By Jeffrey Way.
"I've received multiple requests for simpler CSS tutorials that teach the tricky fundamentals. This will serve as the first entry in a series that will receive new additions sporadically each month. Today, we'll be reviewing the overflow: hidden, and clearfix tricks to force a parent div to contains its children."
http://tinyurl.com/nm3ydx

CSS line-height - A Simple Step-by-Step Presentation
By Russ Weakley.
"Here is another presentation I gave at a company training session recently - this time on CSS Line-height (which is far more complex than it first appears). A simple, step-by-step presentation on CSS line-height covering how to apply various line-height values, as well as line-height and the inline box model..."
http://www.maxdesign.com.au/2009/07/07/css-line-height/

CSS Depot
By Adrian Lazariuc.
A brand new web gallery.
http://cssdepot.com/

Using the Golden Ratio in Liquid Web Page Designs
By Alejandro Gervasio.
"At first glance some basic principles of graphic design like the Golden Proportion and the Rule of Thirds seem to have nothing to do with web design..."
http://tinyurl.com/nouo2q

The Rule of Thirds and the Golden Ratio Are Not the Same...
By Ross Johnson.
"...If you pay attention to design then I am sure you have read countless articles on typography, grids, the rule of thirds and the golden ratio. What Laura and I ended up discussing was the constant reference to the rule of thirds being a 'easyÓ version of the golden ratio, despite the fact that they are completely different rules and have different uses..."
http://tinyurl.com/kv3ek6


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Testing in the Wild, Seizing Opportunity
By Dana Chisnell.
"When I say 'usability test,' you might think of something that looks like a psych experiment, without the electrodes (although I'm sure those are coming as teams think that measuring biometrics will help them understand users' experiences). Anyway, you probably visualize a lab of some kind, with a user in one room and a researcher in another, watching either through a glass or a monitor..."
http://tinyurl.com/mbu2ys

Focus Groups vs. Usability Testing - What, When and Why?
By Alistair Gray.
"Focus groups and usability testing are two very useful but very different user research disciplines. This article will look at the difference between focus groups and usability testing, the pros and cons of each and when in the development process you should use them."
http://tinyurl.com/mp5eqz

Building Respect for Usability Expertise
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Enemies of usability claim that because "the experts disagree," they can safely ignore user advocates' expertise and run with whatever design they personally prefer..."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/respect.html

Tips For Effective DIY Participant Recruitment for Usability Testing
By Abhay Rautela.
"In case you are not using the services of a professional recruitment agency, or do not have an internal recruitment team that can help you acquire participants for usability tests, here are some tips to help you begin with finding those participants successfully."
http://tinyurl.com/lxrcyy


+05: EVENTS.

Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS '09)
July 15-17, 2009.
Mountain View, California
http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/soups/2009/

International Conference on the Applications of Digital Information
August 4-6, 2009.
London, United Kingdom
http://www.dirf.org/diwt2009

International Conference on Computer Science and Information Technology '09 (ICCSIT '09)
August 8-11, 2009.
Beijing, China 
http://www.iccsit.org

INTERACT '09
August 24-28, 2009.
Uppsala, Sweden
http://www.interact2009.com 

MobileHCI '09
September 15-18, 2009.
Bonn, Germany
http://www.mobilehci09.org


+06: FLASH.

New Tutorial on Flash Accessibility
By Andrew Kirkpatrick.
"...The tutorial introduces Flash accessibility topics, and is accessible for screen reader and magnifier users, and includes closed captions for users who are deaf or hard-of-hearing and audio descriptions for blind or low-vision users..."
http://tinyurl.com/lfy4ae

Flash Accessibility
By WebAIM Thread.
http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=3893


+07: JAVASCRIPT.

Accessible Drag and Drop Using WAI-ARIA
By Gez Lemon.
"This article is intended for people who create rich internet applications with drag and drop functionality and want to make them accessible..."
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/accessible-drag-and-drop/

The WAI-ARIA Windows Screen Reader Shootout
By Marco Zehe.
"Firefox 3.5 has been released, and now it's time to take a look at what features of WAI-ARIA are being supported by which Windows screen reader..."
http://tinyurl.com/ndussk

Truthy and Falsy: When All is Not Equal in JavaScript
By Craig Buckler.
"Like most computer languages, JavaScript supports Boolean data types; values which can be set to true or false. In addition, everything in JavaScript has an inherent Boolean value, generally known as either truthy or falsy. Handling truthy and falsy values can be a little quirky, especially when comparing variables. Understanding some of the more bizarre rules can help when debugging complex client-side applications."
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/07/01/javascript-truthy-falsy/

Understanding JavaScript Closures
By Rob Gravelle.
"Closures are the answer to the problem of how to bind variables to functions that are called at a later time. Today's article will explain what closures are, outline some common dilemmas, and present ways that closures can be utilized to overcome them..."
http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/rg36/

Introduction to Regular Expressions in JavaScript
By Chrysanthus Forcha.
What exactly is a regular expression and how is it handled in JavaScript These are the questions tackled by this five-part series. In this first part we'll introduce the topic of regular expressions often abbreviated RegExp and delve into objects patterns and variables..."
http://tinyurl.com/lsc5n8


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

Interview With Tim Berners-Lee, Part 1
By Richard MacManus.
"...we cover the emergence of Linked Data and how it is being used now even by governments..."
http://tinyurl.com/ltgozl

Interview With Tim Berners-Lee, Part 2
By Richard MacManus.
"...we discuss: how previously reticent search engines like Google and Yahoo have begun to participate in the Semantic Web in 2009, user interfaces for browsing and using data, what Tim Berners-Lee thinks of new computational engine Wolfram Alpha, how e-commerce vendors are moving into the Linked Data world, and finally how the Internet of Things intersects with the Semantic Web..."
http://tinyurl.com/ltgozl

The Great Big Grand Web
By Gerry McGovern.
"The Web has happened in a really big way, and most organizations 
have not adapted to the way it has changed the world. But they 
will..."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2009/nt-2009-07-06-grand-web.htm


+09: NAVIGATION.

Search Matters: The Mystery of Filtering by Sorting
By Greg Nudelman
"What is the difference between filtering and sorting for a search query? Any SQL developer would be happy to tell you that a sort translates to a SQL ORDER BY statement, while a SQL WHERE clause performs a filter. However, for most users of consumer-facing ecommerce applications, the difference between a sort and a filter presents a mystery they understand dimly, if at all. The distinction between sorting and filtering blurs, because of a phenomenon I've called filtering by sorting, which leads to all sorts of interesting search user interface implications."
http://tinyurl.com/mo6zde


+10: PHP.

PHP Security: Fortifying Your Website
By Joel Reyes.
"...Though many programmers and developers may be implementing PHP in their websites, the issue of PHP security is often overlooked when building a site..."
http://www.noupe.com/php/php-security-tips.html

PhpSecInfo
By phpsec.
"PhpSecInfo provides an equivalent to the phpinfo() function that reports security information about the PHP environment, and offers suggestions for improvement. It is not a replacement for secure development techniques, and does not do any kind of code or app auditing, but can be a useful tool in a multilayered security approach..."
http://phpsec.org/projects/phpsecinfo/

Internationalization in PHP 5.3
By Stas Malyshev.
"PHP 5.3 has recently been released and one of the new features in core is the internationalization extension. It allows you to support a multitude of languages and local formats much easier than before, without having to learn all the tiny the details of local formats and rules..."
http://devzone.zend.com/article/4799-Internationalization-in-PHP-5.3


+11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

HTML5: The DOCTYPE Declaration
By Virgina DeBolt.
"This article is the first in a series of brief discussions about the proposed specifications for HTML 5. View the Working Draft for HTML 5 at the W3C."
http://www.webteacher.ws/2009/07/08/html5-the-doctype-declaration/

Practical HTML 5
By Bobby van der Sluis.
"My current train of thoughts on how you can best author HTML 5 websites today by using a phased approach for your transition..."
http://www.bobbyvandersluis.com/articles/practical_html5/

Impasse on HTML 5 Video
By Bruce Lawson.
"The video element is the one that seems to excite n00bz the most when I do introductory talks about HTML 5, yet it was always the element that seemed to me to be furthest away from cross-browser interoperability. Originally, the specification (being an Open Standard) said User agents should support Ogg Theora video and Ogg Vorbis audio..."
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2009/impasse-on-html-5-video/

Yes, You Can Use HTML 5 Today!
By Bruce Lawson.
"The blogosphere was jerked into excitement when Google gave a sneak preview of its new service, Google Wave. Only the select few have an account, but there's an 80-minute video about it on YouTube for the rest of us. The service is an HTML 5 app, and so HTML 5 has gone from being too far away to care about to today's hot topic..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/html-5-snapshot-2009/

Adobe and HTML5's Canvas
By Jonathan Snook.
"I had an epiphany and I hope somebody at Adobe has been paying attention to the HTML5 developments. Adobe is well positioned to take advantage of emerging browser features, most specifically canvas..."
http://snook.ca/archives/opinion/adobe-html5-canvas

HTML 5 Parsing
By John Resig.
"One of the biggest wins of the HTML 5 recommendation is a detailed specification outlining how parsing of HTML documents should work..."
http://ejohn.org/blog/html-5-parsing/

HTML 5 and CSS 3: The Techniques You'll Soon Be Using
By Mads Kjaer.
"In this tutorial, we are going to build a blog page using next-generation techniques from HTML 5 and CSS 3. The tutorial aims to demonstrate how we will be building websites when the specifications are finalized and the browser vendors have implemented them. If you already know HTML and CSS, it should be easy to follow along..."
http://tinyurl.com/kkulcq

Accessibility for the HTML5 <video> Element
By Silvia Pfeiffer.
"In this paper, we describe existing implementations for putting subtitles and captions alongside the HTML5 <video> tag inside Web pages and a proposal for standardizing such approaches, which will make them interoperable and easier to be processed by automated tools..." 
http://tinyurl.com/pmnfw9

Decoding the HTML 5 Video Codec Debate
By Ryan Paul.
http://tinyurl.com/p8kfce

Ogg Theora, H.264 and the HTML 5 Browser Squabble
By Prince McLean.
http://tinyurl.com/msrffm

HTML 5: Ogg Theora Vs H.264 In The Battle For A Web Video Standard
By Devin Coldewey.
http://tinyurl.com/lp5dna

HTML 5 Drops Open-Source Video Codec
By David Meyer.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-318208.html


+12: USABILITY.

247 Web Usability Guidelines
By userfocus.
"Although designing usable systems requires far more than simply applying guidelines, guidelines can still make a significant contribution to usability by promoting consistency and good practice. We use this list of guidelines in our consultancy work. For best results, remember to interpret the guideline in context - this requires a bit more thought but ensures you will get a lot more from your review..."
http://www.userfocus.co.uk/resources/guidelines.html


+13: XML.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) About the Future of XHTML
By Philippe Le Hegaret and Ian Jacobs, W3C.
"When W3C announced the HTML and XHTML 2 Working Groups in March 2007, we indicated that we would continue to monitor the market for XHTML 2. W3C recognizes the importance of a clear signal to the community about the future of HTML. While we recognize the value of the XHTML 2 Working Group's contributions over the years, after discussion with the participants, W3C management has decided to allow the Working Group's charter to expire at the end of 2009 and not to renew it..."
http://www.w3.org/2009/06/xhtml-faq

XHTML WTF
By Jeffery Zeldman.
"The web's future isn't what the web's past cracked it up to be. 1999: XML is the light and XHTML is the way. 2009: XHTML is dead-kind of..."
http://www.zeldman.com/2009/07/02/xhtml-wtf/

An Unofficial Q & A about the Discontinuation of the XHTML2 WG
By Henri Sivonen.
"... many of the comments on Zeldman's post indicate that there are people who are badly misinformed about the matters surrounding this announcement. To help remedy that, here's some quick Q&A for getting informed..."
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/xhtml2-html5-q-and-a/

In Defense of Web Developers
By Jeffery Zeldman.
"...XHTML is not dead (XHTML 2 is dead, thank goodness), and HTML 5 is not here yet. Between now and 2022, we have plenty of time to learn about HTML 5 and contribute to the discussion-and browser makers have 13 years to get it right..."
http://www.zeldman.com/2009/07/07/in-defense-of-web-developers/

Misunderstanding Markup 
By Jeremy Keith.
"...The death of XHTML 2 does not mean the death of XHTML syntax. If you want to continue to close all tags and quote all attributes, you can do so. You can either use the existing XHTML 1 spec or you can use HTML 5. That's right; HTML 5 allows you to use whichever syntax you are most comfortable with..."
http://adactio.com/journal/1595

HTML 5 and XHTML 5 - one vocabulary, two serializations (Editor's First Draft)
By Karl Dubost, Editor.
"This document provides summaries about the two serializations of the HTML 5 [HTML5] vocabulary specification. It documents the differences between the two serializations and their associated mime types. It's intended to be readable as a 'standalone' document."
http://www.la-grange.net/2009/07/05/html5-xhtml5/

XHTML, RIP
By Jens Meiert.
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20090704/xhtml-rip/

Goodbye XHTML 2
By Bruce Lawson.
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2009/goodbye-xhtml-2/

W3C, You Ignorant Slut
By Shane McCarron.
http://blog.halindrome.com/2009/07/w3c-you-ignorant-slut.html

XHTML 5
By Bruce Lawson.
http://html5doctor.com/html-5-xml-xhtml-5/

XHTML 1, HTML 4, or HTML 5?
By Michel Bozgounov.
http://www.optimiced.com/en/2009/05/15/xhtml1-html4-html5/

XHTML 1.0 Transitional vs. HTML 5
By stackoverflow.
http://tinyurl.com/nbv7nv

X/HTML 5 vs. HTML 2
By xhtml.com.
http://xhtml.com/en/future/x-html-5-versus-xhtml-2/

Setting the Standards: HTML 5 vs. XHTML 2
By Eric Anderson.
http://tinyurl.com/lk59v8

XHTML 2 Dies a Lonely Death, Makes Room For HTML 5
By Scott Gilbertson.
http://tinyurl.com/nu7gsm

Introduction to RDFa II
By Mark Birbeck.
"In part I of this series, we looked at how semantic features normally confined to the head of an HTML document can be used to add semantic richness to the elements of the body. Along the way, we defined six rules of RDFa. In part II, we'll learn how to add properties to an image, and how to add metadata to any item-and we'll add a few more rules to that list."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/introduction-to-rdfa-ii/


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+14: 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.]