+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 8, Issue 09, August 28, 2009. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 09 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: FLASH. 06: JAVASCRIPT. 07: MISCELLANEOUS. 08: NAVIGATION. 09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 10: TYPOGRAPHY. 11: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Display Size and Resolution Accessibility By merttol. "...Various web sites provide statistics on the popularity of the possible resolutions, some with stats for free, many for a fee. But be aware: These stats are gathered from web sites that may very well have completely different user demographics than the demographics for your site. Again, you must identify your audience and try to ascertain the type of computer systems they are most likely to have before you make resolution-dependent decisions." http://tinyurl.com/nlczpg Using Title in Basic Form Elements By Ken Nakata. "For a long time, I've been an advocate of using whenever possible and generally shunning the use of title attributes whenever I could use a label. I felt this way especially about forms buried in HTML tables. In fact, back in 2001 when Doug Wakefield and I were running through the testing that developed in the Access Board's Guidance on HTML Forms, we told developers to always use explicit labels when putting forms into tables..." http://www.accessibilitywatch.com/?p=175 Disability Style Guide By National Center on Disability and Journalism. http://ncdj.org/styleguide/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS 3: Progress By Alex Russell. "I've been in a pretty heated email conversation over the past couple of days regarding how effective (or not) the CSS Working Group has been. I've been pretty brutal in my critique in the past (and much of it still stands), but there's reason to hope..." http://alex.dojotoolkit.org/2009/08/css-3-progress/ CSS 3 Flexible Box Model By Dion Almaer. "Alex Russell has been having a really interesting discussion with some standards folks about what is wrong on the Web right now, and it narrowed down to discuss CSS variables as a case study..." http://ajaxian.com/archives/css-3-flexible-box-model CSS Code Structure for HTML 5: Some Useful Guidelines By Antonio Lupetti. "In this post I want to illustrate some useful guidelines about how to implement a well organized CSS code structure in view of introduction of HTML 5 markup language. They are not general rules but simple suggestions you can follow in order to improve the readability, manageability, and general organization of CSS code. These suggestions are especially useful if you have to work on complex CSS files that otherwise can be difficult to manage..." http://tinyurl.com/nhg66f +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. The Value of Web Site Usability Evaluations By Krause Berg. "Despite how much I rely on site audits, I'm well aware that some companies don't put much stock in them. In fact, many gurus from the usability industry don't like them at all. They have a point." (Kim http://cre8pc.com/archives/1522 Volume is the Wrong Way to Measure Web Success By Gerry McGovern. "Are you measuring the right things? Could growth in your page views in fact be a negative trend?" http://tinyurl.com/lpewda How to Combine Multiple Research Methods: Practical Triangulation By Patrick Kennedy. "...triangulation is the act of combining several research methods to study one thing. They overlap each other somewhat, being complimentary at times, contrary at others. This has the effect of balancing each method out and giving a richer and hopefully truer account." http://johnnyholland.org/magazine/2009/08/practical-triangulation/ +04: EVENTS. Standards.Next - Cognition and Accessibility September 19, 2009. London, United Kingdom http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/4235828/?ps=6 Accessibility 2.0 September 22, 2009. London, United Kingdom http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/accessibility2/ +05: FLASH. Adobe Flash Accessibility: Best Practices for Design By Erik Johnson. "Norman Nielsen once said that "About 99% of the time, the presence of Flash on a website constitutes a usability disease."[1] However, this statement was made in 2000 when Flash lacked many of the accessibility functions that are available today..." http://tinyurl.com/m6akxh +06: JAVASCRIPT. ARIA - A Brief Introduction By Silvia Pfeiffer. "...Getting straight to the point: ARIA mostly cares about giving screen control to the keyboard (away from the mouse) and about exposing semantic information, such that vision-impaired people have a way to interact with Web content and screen readers can read out useful information..." http://blog.gingertech.net/2009/08/21/aria-a-brief-introduction/ Inappropriate Uses By Chris Coyier. Database is for content. HTML is for describing and displaying content. CSS is for design. JavaScript is for functionality. http://css-tricks.com/inapproprite-uses/ eduWeb 2009: JavaScript For People Who Don't Code Christopher Schmitt. Christopher's presentation slides. http://tinyurl.com/nk9ot2 +07: MISCELLANEOUS. What Developers Want from HTML5 (Bruce Lawson Interview) "Lachy caught up with the world famous Blorsen (aka. Bruce Lawson), one of Opera Software's developer relations guys, about what developers want from HTML5. Bruce and Lachy also discuss recent happenings in the W3C's HTML Working Group, such as new alternative drafts, and a few of the open issues faced by the group..." http://standardssuck.org/what-devs-want-from-html5 SpoolCast: The Web as a Conversation By Jared Spool. "Guest Ginny Redish speaks about writing on the web." http://tinyurl.com/m3q3n6 +08: NAVIGATION. Take My Hand: Faceted/Guided Navigation By Sarah Selser. "There are times when the majority of users agree on how an item should be classified, but when dealing with an extensive list of items, this is rarely the case.* Faceted, or 'guided' navigation works well in these situations because it allows the user to access the item via multiple 'facets'. Here are a few good examples.." http://uitrends.com/2009/08/25/take-my-hand-facetedguided-navigation/ +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. New Co-Chairs for HTML Working Group By Tim Berners-Lee. "As you may know by now, Chris Wilson (Microsoft) has stepped down as co-Chair of the group..." http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2009Aug/1293.html HTML 5 - What I'm Watching By Wendy Chisholm. "I have recently become glued to my computer monitor as the latest reality show "HTML 5" unfolds. Since I was a participant in previous W3C reality shows (both seasons of WCAG), I understand some of the history and sympathize with many of the participants/actors. Here's my take on where things are and where I hope they are going..." http://sp1ral.com/2009/08/html-5/ HTML 5: What's Hot, What's Not By Bruce Lawson. "As HTML 5 hurtles towards Last Call (or 'first last call' as co-chair Sam Ruby called it) there has been a lot of tidying up of the spec..." http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2009/html-5-whats-hot-whats-not/ Willful Violation of the Spec By Sam Ruby. "At the present time, the front page of my weblog does not validate. >From what I can tell, I am using an extension point in a manner totally consistent with the intent of that grammar, and in a way that produces useful results, at least with Firefox. My only sin is that I'm using that attribute in a way that was unanticipated by the authors of the SVG..." http://intertwingly.net/blog/2009/08/21/Willful-Violation-of-the-Spec HTML5 RDFa Arguments By Jeni Tennison. "When I came back from holiday, I caught up with the recent discussions around RDFa and HTML5. It's exhausting reading so many posts repetitively reiterating the positions of people who all have the best of intentions but fundamentally different priorities. And such a shame that so much energy is spent on fruitless discussion when it could be spent at the very least improving specifications, if not testing, implementing, experimenting or otherwise in some very minor way changing the world..." http://www.jenitennison.com/blog/node/124 Maxwell's Silver Hammer: RDFa and HTML5 's Microdata Shelley Powers. "...Confusion. Confusion because the HTML5 specification is being drafted specifically to counter several initiatives that the W3C has been nurturing over the last decade: Microdata over RDF/RDFa; HTML over XHTML; Reverse DNS identifiers over namespaces, and URIs; the elimination of non-visual cues, not only for metadata, but also for the visually challenged. And respect. There is no respect for the W3C among many in the HTML Working Group. And I know I lose more respect for the organization the closer we get to HTML5 Last Call...In fact, HTML Working Group is a bit of a misnomer. We don't have HTML anymore, we have a Web OS...Accessibility shouldn't be added begrudgingly, woodenly, resentfully. It should be integrated into the HTML, not just pasted on to quiet folks because LC is coming up..." http://tinyurl.com/nudptr Real-World Usage Sometimes Includes Things You Don't Like By Ben Adida. "...In other words, at this point, If HTML5 fails to specify how to include RDFa markup, then the HTML Working Group has failed to capture real-world usage..." http://tinyurl.com/lubl5j What Improvements to Accessibility are Offered by HTML5? By Austin Cheney. "Some stuff that comes to mind - there's probably lots more..." http://tinyurl.com/mb8eyr Spec/HTML5 Alignment By netsurf. "The way HTML's align attribute interacts with CSS properties is only really explained in the HTML5 spec. However, the explanation there is quite opaque. Here there is a clearer version with more explanation..." http://wiki.netsurf-browser.org/Spec/HTML5_Alignment 25+ Great HTML 5 Resources to Get You Started By Tripwire. "...In this article tripwire magazine provides you with the resources you need to get overview of what HTML 5 is, to get started and to understand how you can benefit from it at this early point in time..." http://tinyurl.com/l6p2n6 Why is HTML Suddenly Interesting? By Simon St. Laurent. "Web developers couldn't stop talking about HTML and its evolution during the 1990s. New features were usually tempting, though not always workable, and the Browser Wars meant that vendors competed by providing and copying features. The HTML standardization process had its twists and turns, moving from the IETF to the W3C, developing standards that reflected immediate needs and tried to channel developer energy in more productive directions..." http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/08/why-is-html-suddenly-interesti.html Absent Elements and Validation By Richard Clark. "We received the below question from Guy Carberry who was wondering what affect changing the doctype on your HTML or XHTML pages to the HTML 5 doctype will have on those elements that are deprecated current draft..." http://html5doctor.com/absent-elements-and-validation/ This Summer in HTML 5 - Episode 33 By Mark Pilgrim. "...So what new and exciting stuff has been added to HTML 5 this summer?..." http://blog.whatwg.org/this-summer-in-html-5-episode-33 +10: TYPOGRAPHY. A Shared Encyclopedia of Typefaces By Jason Santa Maria et al. "In a nutshell, Typedia is a community website to classify typefaces and educate people about them. Think of it like a mix between IMDb and Wikipedia, but just for type. Anyone can join, add, and edit pages for typefaces or for the people behind the type..." http://typedia.com/ +11: USABILITY. Web form design guidelines: an eyetracking study Chui Chui Tan. "Forms can be found on almost every website; from contact or feedback forms in small websites to bank details in commerce websites, from registration to communication, from banking to searching." http://tinyurl.com/dnygyl Managing UI Complexity By Brandon Walkin. "Interface complexity is an issue every designer wrestles with when designing a reasonably sophisticated application. A complex interface can reduce user effectiveness, increase the learning curve of the application, and cause users to feel intimidated and overwhelmed..." http://www.brandonwalkin.com/blog/2009/08/10/managing-ui-complexity/ 20 Tips for Writing for the Web By Eric Reiss. "There are a lot of writing tips floating around cyberspace. Most deal with general writing skills, which are actually less important than you might think. The truth is, most online readers don't care much about grammar, spelling, and punctuation as long as they get the information they need. Here are some of the many tips I give our clients during my popular 'Writing for the web' workshop..." http://www.fatdux.com/blog/2009/08/07/20-tips-for-writing-for-the-web/ Top 10 UX Myths By Keith Lang. "...If the Design is a Good One, You Don't Need to Test It...People Don't Change...Design to Avoid Clicks...UX Design Stops at the Edges of the Product...If you Have Great Search, You Don't Need Great Information Architecture...Can't Decide? Make it a Preference...Design Always with Implementation in Mind...People Know What They Like...People Read...The Design Has to be Original..." http://carsonified.com/blog/design/top-10-ux-myths/ The Dark Side Of Usability: When Business Goals & User Goals Collide By Lance Loveday. "We've all experienced it at some point; the sneaking suspicion that those we've chosen to trust may not be entirely worthy..." http://tinyurl.com/l4j3oc Twitter Postings: Iterative Design By Jakob Nielsen. "We made a timeline message more punchy, credible, and viral through 5 rounds of redesign." http://www.useit.com/alertbox/twitter-iterations.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. 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.]