+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 8, Issue 31, January 29, 2010. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 31 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: FLASH. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 10: TYPOGRAPHY. 11: USABILITY. 12: XML. SECTION TWO: 13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Is Web Accessibility a Human Right? By Vlad Alexander. "The Web is now so tightly integrated into our society that it's second nature to obtain employment, access education, do commerce, get information, get entertainment and even build social relationships online. If the Web is now a permanent and integral part of our society, then is denying a group of people access to much of the Web a form of discrimination and a denial of a human right?" http://rebuildingtheweb.com/en/is-web-accessibility-a-human-right/ The Accessibility Verdict: HoustonTx.gov By Jim Thatcher. "First I looked at the District of Columbia web site and then New York City. We are looking for government (non-federal) web sites that are accessible. Both DC and NYC were disappointing, garnering a C- for accessibility with a limited assessment..." http://dotgov.com/2010/01/the-accessibility-verdict-houstontx-gov/ Web Accessibility Myths By Ian Pouncey. "There is a lot of good advice for the discerning web developer to find on the web on how to make a website accessible, unfortunately there is also plenty of bad or outdated advice out there as well. Here are a few of the myths of accessibility that you may hear..." http://ianpouncey.com/weblog/2010/01/web-accessibility-myths/ When the Right Hand Doesn't Listen to the Left By Joe Dolson. "Authoring forms is an important part of keeping the web fully accessible - not just providing access to information, but allowing users to fully interact with the web in all it - glory. Interactivity is what makes the web powerful and persuasive..." http://tinyurl.com/yay4c6v Click Versus Activate By Gregory J. Rosmaita. "...There is too much natural language "baggage" associated with the term "click" for it to be used in a generic manner..." http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/wiki/Click_versus_activate Could Ruby, a HTML 5/CSS 3 Feature, Help People with Cognitive Disabilities? By John Rochford. "...It is clear from the above example how Ruby could technically provide literal alternatives. In practice, I think it won't work. Definitions of non-literal text such as sarcasm and idioms are open to wide interpretation. They are also culture dependent. This means people will see different definitions for the same non-literal text, which will be confusing. Furthermore, attempts at such definitions are likely to be clumsy and difficult to understand, such as the above example. Ruby should not be used for this purpose." http://tinyurl.com/yexnmra Guideline 3.1 Easy to Read, Please By Olga Revilla. "Make text content readable and understandable..." http://tinyurl.com/ykelylj Hey Apple, What About iPad's Accessibility? By Suzanne Robitaille. "In Apple's rush to debut the new iPad tablet it forgot one little piece of marketing: Accessibility. Apple has an accessibility page but it didn't bother to add the iPad before launching it yesterday at its headquarters. And even though Steve Jobs' keynote was likely prepared, Apple didn't bother to add captions for deaf or hard of hearing reporters, nor did it add captions to the 46-minute video broadcast of Jobs' speech or the video 'demo' of the new tablet. Sheesh. Apple knows better. The good news is that all existing iPhone accessibility features will be available on the iPad..." http://tinyurl.com/ygvnt6n +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. High Contrast Proof CSS Sprites By Steve Faulkner. "CSS sprites are a useful method to display graphics while preserving bandwith and improving page rendering times. One of the problems with CSS sprites when it comes to their accessibility is that some operating system display themes such as Windows High Contrast mode have the effect of hiding CSS background images. So if an alternative version of the image is to be displayed when a user changes the default theme to suit their requirements, the developer has needed to provide an alternative with images inserted inline rather than as CSS background images. In many cases the developer does not do this, as it is a lot of extra work and undermines the performance benefits of CSS sprites..." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=514 70+ Essential Resources For Creating Liquid and Elastic Layouts By Zoe Gillenwater. "...Check out these great online resources on creating liquid/fluid and elastic layouts, including sources for design inspiration, downloadable templates, frameworks, articles and tutorials...." http://tinyurl.com/yf4xnsq Up Late with CSS3, and Loving It! By Andy Clarke, John Allsopp, Dan Cederholm, Miraz Jordan. "Andy Clarke believes in experiments, Dan Cederholm is excited about layering, and John Allsopp reveals an nth-child secret. Learn the favorite CSS tricks of these three web design experts. Deck: Andy Clarke believes in experiments, Dan Cederholm is excited about layering, and John Allsopp reveals an nth-child secret. Learn the favorite CSS tricks of these three web design experts." http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1439190 IE Background RGB Bug By Chris Coyier. "Using RGBa for progressive enhancement is getting more and more popular, which is awesome. Even nearly a year ago it was pretty much ready to rock. A great way to handle the progressive enhancement part is just to declare a fallback color before the RGBa value, so older browsers that don't support it will get a solid color version..." http://css-tricks.com/ie-background-rgb-bug/ Find Unused CSS Selectors With CSS Usage, A Firebug Extension By Neal Grosskopf. "As a website grows so does its stylesheet. The problem is, the opposite is not true. As a pages get removed, seldom do the selectors in the external stylesheet. This becomes even worse with multiple employees, especially if people come and go. Enter CSS Usage..." http://www.nealgrosskopf.com/tech/thread.php?pid=66 +03: COLOR. Color Theory for Designers, Part 1: The Meaning of Color By Cameron Chapman. "Color in design is very subjective. What evokes one reaction in one person may evoke a very different reaction in someone else. Sometimes this is due to personal preference, and other times due to cultural background. Color theory is a science in itself. Studying how colors affect different people, either individually or as a group, is something some people build their careers on. And there's a lot to it. Something as simple as changing the exact hue or saturation of a color can evoke a completely different feeling. Cultural differences mean that something that's happy and uplifting in one country can be depressing in another..." http://tinyurl.com/y8a49dk +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Testing Expert Users By Jakob Nielsen. "It's more difficult to conduct usability studies with experienced users than with novices, and the improvements are usually smaller. Still, improving expert performance is often worth the effort." http://www.useit.com/alertbox/experienced-users.html Why Testers? By Joel Spolsky. "...You don't have to be a programmer to be a tester. A lot of companies want testers to be programmers who write automated test suites. It seems more efficient that way. This reflects a misunderstanding of what testers are supposed to do, which is evaluate new code, find the good things, find the bad things, and give positive and negative reinforcement to the developers..." http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2010/01/26.html +05: EVENTS. Web APP Masters Tour April 27-28, 2010. Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. http://www.uie.com/events/web_app_masters/ UX Fundamentals June 11, 2010. Brighton, United Kingdom http://workshopsfortheweb.com/uxfundamentals/ Web APP Masters Tour June 6-7, 2010. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A. http://www.uie.com/events/web_app_masters/ Usability Testing July 16, 2010. Brighton, United Kingdom http://workshopsfortheweb.com/usability/ Web APP Masters Tour July 12-13, 2010. Seattle, Washington , U.S.A. http://www.uie.com/events/web_app_masters/ Mobile HCI 2010 September 10, 2010. Lisbon, Portugal http://mobilehci2010.di.fc.ul.pt/ +06: FLASH. With iPad, Apple has Started a New Browser War By Stefan Mischook. "...Apple does not like Adobe Flash and they are not supporting it on iPad and iPhone..." http://tinyurl.com/yfnzuoz +07: JAVASCRIPT. Unobtrusive JavaScript is Not Necessarily Accessible JavaScript By Roger Johansson. "Plenty of JavaScript demos and tutorials that you come across on the Web note that they are implemented using unobtrusive JavaScript. While that is great and should always be encouraged, some people seem to believe that unobtrusive JavaScript equals accessible JavaScript. That is not always the case..." http://tinyurl.com/y95j9pt How To Emulate a Foreach Loop in JavaScript By Rob Glazebrook. "JavaScript does many things well, but one area I've always had trouble with is the array and array-manipulation department. For example, this weekend I was working on a project that required me to iterate through a JavaScript array and perform a set of functions on the values within. In PHP, that would have looked something like this..." http://www.cssnewbie.com/emulate-a-foreach-loop-in-javascript/ +08: MISCELLANEOUS. A Little Less Conversation By Joel Spolsky. "Have you ever invited employees to a meeting just so they wouldn't feel left out? If so, you may be an overcommunicator..." http://www.inc.com/magazine/20100201/a-little-less-conversation.html +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. YouTube Embraces HTML5, But Stops Short of Open Web Video By Scott Gilbertson. "Google is now offering up YouTube videos using HTML5's next-generation video tag. But this advancement is only available to those surfing with Chrome or Safari- Firefox and Opera users need not apply..." http://tinyurl.com/ylbyxfd HTML5 Video: 25% H.264 reach vs. 95% Ogg Theora Reach By Silvia Pfeiffer. "Vimeo started last week with a HTML5 beta test. They use the H.264 codec, probably because much of their content is already in this format through the Flash player..." http://tinyurl.com/yfzc775 YouTube and Vimeo Support HTML5 Video By Richard Clark. "Unless you've been hiding under an XHTML2 shaped rock for the past week or so, you'll know that both YouTube and Vimeo have announced plans to support the HTML5 video element. Two blog posts published last week announced that the two major players in online video are experimenting with the HTML5