+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 8, Issue 32, February 5, 2010. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 32 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: NAVIGATION. 08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 09: TOOLS. 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. Simple Steps Towards Building an Accessible Site (part 2) By Henny Swan. "Not all types of content can be accessed by all of people, hardware or software so alternative formats are needed..." http://tinyurl.com/yko7wwt How Should Web Browsers Render Alternative Text? By Vlad Alexander. "...If there is agreement that textual alternative content for an image is an equivalent replacement for the visual content of an image, then the textual alternative content alone should replace visual content when it is not rendered." http://rebuildingtheweb.com/en/how-should-browsers-render-alt-text/ Who is Required to Close-Caption? By closedcaptioning. "...There is currently a movement to pass legislation that will define and regulate accessibility for developing technology. H.R. 3101 was introduced in June 2009 by Edward Markey (D-MA). Called the 'Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2009,' this legislation will, if enacted, amend the nation's Communications Act. With more than 240 national, state, and community-based organizations supporting the legislation, and with telecommunications becoming more essential to our daily lives all the time, it looks like it won't be long before captions will be required across all forms of visual media." http://tinyurl.com/yfqqhc8 Common Accessibility Mistakes By Mark Aplet. "So here is my general list of accessibility mistakes and a few ways to improve the overall accessibility of your site for everyone and not just disabled users..." http://www.visual28.com/articles/common-accessibility-mistakes My Web My Way By British Broadcasting Corporation. "This site provides accessibility help, enabling computer users to make the most of the internet whatever their ability or disability." http://www.bbc.co.uk/accessibility/accessibility_beta/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Multiple Backgrounds and CSS Gradients By Jonathan Snook. "CSS3 features are making their way into the various browsers and while many are holding off on implementing them, there are those who are venturing ahead and likely running into a world of interesting quirks across the various platforms..." http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/multiple-bg-css-gradients The CSS Background Property By Virginia DeBolt. "Several CSS properties are involved in understanding how to use background images. As you probably know, a background image can be added to any element on a page of HTML using a CSS rule for background-image which points to a URL for the image you are using. The CSS syntax looks like this.." http://www.webteacher.ws/2010/02/04/the-css-background-property/ Adding Focus to Form Fields By Virginia DeBolt. "You can highlight the form field a user is in. It's a small visual cue as to where the cursor is in the form. Here's a simple example..." http://www.webteacher.ws/2010/02/02/adding-focus-to-form-fields/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Analytics - The Usability Lab of the New Decade By Peter Morville. "...if you're not embracing analytics, do so, now. Google Analytics is free. Use it. But don't go crazy. Identify a few key measures. Allow a little while for the data to be dependable. Develop some hypotheses as to what's happening, and make some small changes to test those hypotheses. Lather, rinse, and repeat. You'll grow more confident, and as you do, you'll get more sophisticated. Always remember that analytics are not 'the answer' - but they are an input into a continually improving and iterating development process." http://tinyurl.com/ygd77l8 +04: EVENTS. European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software (ETAPS) March 20-28, 2010. Paphos, Cyprus http://www.etaps10.cs.ucy.ac.cy/ CSS3 Online Conference Online March 22, 2010. http://carsonified.com/online-conferences/css3/ Information Architecture Summit April 9-11, 2010. Phoenix, Arizona , U.S.A. http://2010.iasummit.org/ Web APP Masters Tour April 27-28, 2010. Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. http://www.uie.com/events/web_app_masters/ +05: FLASH. Flash, iPad, Standards By Jeffrey Zeldman. "Lack of Flash in the iPad (and before that, in the iPhone) is a win for accessible, standards-based design..." http://www.zeldman.com/2010/02/01/flash-ipad-standards/ Ahem By Jeffrey Zeldman. "The first part of my post of 1 February was not an attack on Flash. It described a way of working with Flash that also supports users who don't have access to Flash. I've followed and advocated that approach for 10 years. It has nothing to do with Apple's recent decisions and everything to do with making content available to people and search engines..." http://www.zeldman.com/2010/02/03/ahem/ Lack of Flash Support by the iPad - Bad News or Good? By Brian Kelly. "A post I wrote in November 2008 entitled 'Why Did SMIL and SVG Fail?' has been referenced by the Stevie 5 is Alive blog. The post on the lack of Flash support for the iPad device says 'Apple: Thank You for Leaving Flash Out..." http://tinyurl.com/yz77ew2 +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Attending to Performance By Thom Haller. "As information architects, we have the opportunity to learn when our constituents are thwarted by information structure. If possible, we should observe actual performers doing actual work in actual work contexts. We should understand what performers need to know, what is better referenced and what is best supported. We should understand the pressures, activities, accountabilities, interruptions, relationships and consequences of good and flawed performance. And we should measure." http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Feb-10/FebMar10_Haller.html +07: NAVIGATION. Search Patterns By Peter Morville and Jeffery Callender. ""Search is among the most disruptive innovations of our time. It influences what we buy and where we go. It shapes how we learn and what we believe. This provocative and inspiring book explores design patterns that apply across the categories of web, e-commerce, enterprise, desktop, mobile, social, and real time search and discovery. Using colorful illustrations and examples, the authors bring modern information retrieval to life, covering such diverse topics as relevance ranking, faceted navigation, multi-touch, and mixed reality. Search Patterns challenges us to invent the future of discovery while serving as a practical guide to help us make search applications better today..." http://www.searchpatterns.org/ +08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. HTML5 Change Proposal: Replace img Guidance for Conformance Checkers Editor Laura Carlson. "This change proposal modifies the HTML5 Specification so that automatic validators can programmatically detect the presence or absence of text alternatives on the img element..." http://esw.w3.org/topic/HTML/ChangeProposals/ImgElement20090126 Hello, summary and figcaption Elements By Bruce Lawson. "This weekend saw the minting of not one but two new elements. The summary element (not the summary attribute on the table element) goes inside the details element.." http://html5doctor.com/summary-figcaption-element/ Bet Against HTML and You Lose By Joe Clark. "The more your online content diverges from a traditional Web page, the less likely a format that isn't HTML is going to work. The less your content resembles a Web site, the greater the need to use HTML, at least if you intend to distribute it online. Any format that is not HTML in some guise has a short life expectancy..." http://blog.fawny.org/2010/01/29/backtherighthorse/ +09: TOOLS. WAVE Dreamweaver Extension By WebAIM. WebAIM has released a beta version of a WAVE Dreamweaver Extension. http://wave.webaim.org/dwextension +10: USABILITY. The Last Road Block for Your Customers - Web Forms By Gary Barber. "You have built the perfect web site, the colours invoke the right emotional response, the visual imagery leads customers to the relevant information while allowing the audience to personally relate to the site. The content is ideal for the web, not to much but enough to convince people of the service. The major call to actions are in the right locations, and easy to find. Everything is set, the web site is ready to take on the world..." http://tinyurl.com/ybokbyd When Do You Have Too Much Information? By Gerry McGovern. "There is no greater skill a web professional needs to develop than the ability to create quality links. Many websites do not need more publishing. Rather, they need more linking of content in appropriate task journeys. Linking is a complex skill because it requires you to see the task through your customer's eyes." http://tinyurl.com/y89akcl Content Is King By Paul Boag. "Just because content is king doesn't mean, however, that the designer's job is any less important. How seriously would people take the King if his suit was poorly made? It has to look good..." http://boagworld.com/site-content/content-is-king The Battle Between Usability and User-Experience By Thomas Baekdal. "The main reasons why it is so hard to create usable products is that there is a conflict between a high-usability level and great user-experience. You might think this as strange, but there is a important difference between the two..." http://tinyurl.com/rcg5l +11: XML. W3C Launches RDFa Working Group By W3C. "W3C launched today the RDFa Working Group, whose mission is to support the use of RDFa, a format for embedding structured data in Web documents..." http://www.w3.org/News/2010.html#entry-8711 SVG or Canvas? Choosing Between the Two By Mihai Sucan. "In this article Mihai Sucan explores the differences between SVG and Canvas and presents a few examples to help you decide which one is best for the functionality you are trying to implement." http://tinyurl.com/yb8cohx [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +13: 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.]