+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 8, Issue 14, October 2, 2009.

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

++ISSUE 14 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: COLOR.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: NAVIGATION.
09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
10: TOOLS.
11: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Effective Practices for Description of Science Content within Digital Talking Books
By National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM).
NCAM published guidelines to describe diagrams on the web and elsewhere."A significant amount of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) information is presented visually, from graphs and tables to diagrams and math equations. Students and professionals in the STEM fields who are blind or visually impaired must find methods of accessing the data published in visual format. Here is an example (image courtesy of www.teachersdomain.org.)..."
http://ncam.wgbh.org/publications/stemdx/intro.html

WCAG 2.0 and Accessibility Supported
By Roger Hudson.
"Web accessibility is at the cross-roads. The WCAG of 1999 is not able to meet the needs of the web today, with its enhanced interactivity, greater community engagement and the proliferation of new technologies. WCAG 2.0 is supposed to address this problem by looking not at the technologies used to generate web content, but at how they are used. However, I am fearful that WCAG 2.0 and the concept of 'accessibility supportedÓ are not fully understood and this could put at risk the whole move to improve the accessibility of the web."
http://tinyurl.com/y9ahvuu

Relaunched Recovery.gov Fails Accessibility Standards
By Seth Grimes.
"Recovery.gov, a showcase government-transparency Web site that relaunched on Monday, fails to meet U.S. federal government Section 508 accessibility standards and accessibility best practices. The non-compliance issues relate to display of data tables -- an essential point given the site's promise of 'Data, Data & More Data' -- despite on-site compliance claims. Other elements including navigation maps, while compliant, are poorly designed. Sharron Rush, co-founder and executive director of accessibility-advocacy organization Knowbility, goes so far as to state, 'The recovery.gov Web site is a good example of what NOT to do for accessibility in my opinion.'..."
http://tinyurl.com/yaxszqd

Avoid Frustrating Users With tabindex
By Nick DeNardis.
"Even if you can use a mouse most of the time its easier to use a keyboard to fill out web forms. HTML has a nifty attribute called 'tabindex' which allows the site creator to dictate how the user will navigate through the forms or links on the page..."
http://tinyurl.com/yarj8uy


Clarifying ALT Text for WordPress Bloggers and Developers
By Bob Easton.
"...The discussion involves two 'elements,' IMG and CAPTION, and two 'attributes,' ALT and TITLE. Think of 'elements' as containers, or envelopes. They are uniform carriers for what is inside them. Think of 'attributes' as things inside the containers which offer additional precision..." 
http://tinyurl.com/yaz8999

Tech Developments for the Disabled (podcast)
By Minnesota Public Radio.
"Technology has made a huge reach in helping the physically disabled, but what specific roles will the internet and smart phones play as they begin to make life easier for the wider population?" Guests are Wendy Chisholm and Darren Burton.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/09/23/midmorning2/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Improve Readability with line-height
By Virginia DeBolt
"The CSS line-height property determines the distance or spacing between the lines of text on the page. In the print world, this property is called leading..."
http://tinyurl.com/ye5h9c6


+03: COLOR.

Design Patterns Solve Common Problems for Web's Color Blind Users
By Scott Gilbertson.
"...Color blindness affects between five and ten percent of the general population. Most color blind humans are male, and the most common form of color blindness makes it difficult for the person to distinguish between reds and greens..."
http://tinyurl.com/yd2uwd5


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Accessibility Testing Log
By Jack Pickard.
"...I've knocked together a little excel spreadsheet to be used for recording Accessibility Audit Results..."
http://www.thepickards.co.uk/index.php/200909/accessibility-testing-log/

6-Step Process for Planning a User Test
By Abid Warsi.
"Preparing for user testing requires a surprisingly large amount of planning. Here are the 6 key steps you should go through to get ready."
http://tinyurl.com/yamysld

Avoiding Demographics When Recruiting Participants: An Interview with Dana Chisnell
By Jared M. Spool.
"User research works best when you match your participants to the people who will use your designs. It makes sense that teams would try to use the demographics, often compiled by the organization's market research team, as the basis of their recruiting efforts. However, this can be problematic..."
http://tinyurl.com/yb58tes

Contextual Interviews and Ethnography: Two Different Types of Home Visits
By Demetrius Madrigal.
"It's important to make a distinction between these two different research methodologies and the kind of data you get from each..."
http://tinyurl.com/md4hjc


+05: EVENTS.

InfoCamp Seattle
October 10-11, 2009.
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
http://infocamp.info/

Usability Week Las Vegas
October 11-17, 2009.
Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.
http://www.nngroup.com/events/las_vegas/agenda.html 

Usability Week Berlin
November 15-19, 2009.
Berlin, Germany
http://www.nngroup.com/events/berlin/agenda.html


+06: JAVASCRIPT.

Web 2.0 Accessibility and a Personalized Web - My TechShare Keynote 2009
By Richard Schwerdtfeger. 
"WAI-ARIA is a way for authors to provide semantic 'sugar' to a web page to allow a browser to support the accessibility services provide by an operating system which are used by assistive technologies. We call this 'interoperability.'..."
http://tinyurl.com/ycwpmbp 

HTML5 and WAI-ARIA Happy Families
By Steve Faulkner.
Steve's accessibility 2.0 presentation.
http://tinyurl.com/yegku2d

Apple Webkit Gets Serious About WAI-ARIA (on MAC)
By Steve Faulkner.
"...MAC Webkit nightly builds now support more than 60% of the ARIA roles, up from 25% a few months ago. Improved support includes all ARIA landmark roles and many document structure roles..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=454

JavaScript String Regular Expressions
By Chrysanthus Forcha.
"The regular expression object in JavaScript has the test() and exec() methods for regular expression problems. This object is called RegExp. The JavaScript String object has the match(), search(), replace() and split() methods for regular expression problems. The string object methods are actually better and easier to apply than the RegExp object methods. This two-part series takes a look at what you can do with them."
http://tinyurl.com/ydfflbk


+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

13 Questions - Cynthia Waddell
By Ouch Team.
"US based Cynthia Waddell is known the world over as a top level disability rights lawyer and an expert in web accessibility. On a trip to the UK, she answered 13 Questions."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ouch/interviews/13_questions_cynthia_waddell.shtml

Interview with Web Usability Guru Jakob Nielsen
By Walter Apai.
"In this article, we'll be focusing on web usability and more specifically, on the views of world renowned usability expert, Jakob Nielsen."
http://tinyurl.com/yejmoyf

Interview with Chris Coyier: Random Thoughts on the Future of Web Design
By Jeff Noble.
"...Chris Coyier is a web designer from Madison, Wisconsin currently living in Chicago, Illinois and working for Chatman Design. He also happens to run a web design community (css-tricks.com) that has an extensive collection of really awesome articles, forums, videos, downloads and snippets..."
http://tinyurl.com/yb4w3ol

Duct-Tape Programmers
By Joel Spolsky.
"Jamie Zawinski is what I would call a duct-tape programmer. And I say that with a great deal of respect..."
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2009/09/23.html

Oven Stories
By Gerry McGovern.
"Web teams often think progress can't be made because 'it's always been this way.' By challenging tradition you can find that it's not as immovable as it seems."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2009/nt-2009-09-28-Oven-stories.htm

How To Respond Effectively To Design Criticism
By Andrew Follett.
"...despite its negative connotation, criticism often presents an excellent opportunity to grow as a designer. Before you can respond effectively, you need to understand what those opportunities are..."
http://tinyurl.com/yejlh7h


+08: NAVIGATION.

Strategies For Designing Application Navigation
By Charles Kreitzberg and Ambrose Little.
"Getting the navigation right is one of the most important aspects of design..."
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd458810.aspx

Skip Links Need to be at Least Temporarily Visible
By Roger Johansson.
"One problem that I run into on some sites is that the skip links are hidden...If you, for whatever reason, cannot use skip links that are always visible, at least use Links that become visible with keyboard focus. That way they aren't completely hidden from those who benefit from them being there."
http://tinyurl.com/yb2ryuo

Question on Skip to Main Content 
WebAIM Thread.
"Are "Skip to main content" links a requirement for the updated version of 508. If so, is the requirement that it remain visible or can it be either hidden or visible?"
http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=3977

Keywords Meta Tag
By S.R. Emerson.
"If you have done any research/studying of search engine optimization you will have heard of keywords and the keywords meta tag. There's lots of information and opinions on how to use this meta tag. Some of this is hear say some is backed up by facts. Here we'll present the facts."
http://www.webpagemistakes.ca/keywords-meta-tag/


+09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

This Week in HTML5 - Episode 36
By Mark Pilgrim.
"...This week's changes are mundane, and I expect (and hope!) that future summaries will be even more mundane. That's a good thing..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/this-week-in-html5-episode-36


+10: TOOLS.

Caption Tube
By YouTube.
"CaptionTube is a utility for adding closed captions to YouTube videos. After you import a video, you play the video and add captions as needed. When you are done, you export the captions and then upload to YouTube. CaptionTube provides improved precision with a scaleable timeline. You can also make changes to captions and preview them immediately. It also allows you to create multiple language tracks."
http://captiontube.appspot.com/


+11: USABILITY.

Breaking Up Large Documents for the Web - Part 1
By Janice (Ginny) Redish.
"Most people come to the web for information, not for a complete document. They don't want the user manual; they want instructions for the task they are doing. They don't want the handbook; they want the answer to specific questions. They want usable, manageable pieces..."
http://www.uie.com/articles/breaking_down_documents/

Breaking Up Large Documents for the Web - Part 2
By Janice (Ginny) Redish.
"We've been looking at how to break your web content into pieces - by time or sequence, by task, by people, by type of information, and by the different questions that people ask. Once you have the pieces, you have to decide how many topics, articles, questions, or pieces of information to put together on one web page.."
http://www.uie.com/articles/breaking_down_documents_part2/

Breaking Up Large Documents for the Web - Part 3
By Janice (Ginny) Redish.
"PDF - Yes or No?..."
http://www.uie.com/articles/breaking_down_documents_part3/

10 Useful Usability Findings and Guidelines
By Dmitry Fadeyev.
"Everyone would agree that usability is an important aspect of Web design. Whether you're working on a portfolio website, online store or Web app, making your pages easy and enjoyable for your visitors to use is key. Many studies have been done over the years on various aspects of Web and interface design, and the findings are valuable in helping us improve our work. Here are 10 useful usability findings and guidelines that may help you improve the user experience on your websites..."
http://tinyurl.com/yedejdm

Usability and RIA User Test Video
By Joshue O Connor. 
"Joshue O Connor was invited by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) to give a presentation on accessibility, WAI-ARIA and Rich Internet Applications (RIA) at the recent Techshare 2009 pre-conference workshop..."
http://tinyurl.com/y9sem8e

Learning More About User Interruptions
By Celeste Lyn Paul.
"Interruptions in information systems are a tricky problem. It is a constant trade off of providing the user with timely information at the cost of efficiency, performance, and satisfaction of their current task, the interruption, and the information system as a whole. A common interruption system in personal computing are information notifications, the delivery of information to the user in a timely manner..."
http://www.obso1337.org/2009/learning-more-about-user-interruptions/

Using Web Analytics to Assess CAPTCHA Usability
By Christian Watson.
Recent articles about the impact of CAPTCHAs on conversion rates caused me to look at the web analytics for the CAPTCHA we use on the account signup page for our online game, Warrior Epic .
http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/001793.php

Order Effect Affects Orders
By neurosciencemarketing.
"...the order of presentation can be a huge factor in our final decision..."
http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/order-effect.htm


[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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+ 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.]