+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 8, Issue 45, May 6, 2010. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 45 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: DREAMWEAVER. 03: EVENTS. 04: FLASH. 05: MISCELLANEOUS. 06: NAVIGATION. 07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 08: TYPOGRAPHY. 09: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Future Web Accessibility - HTML5 Semantic Elements By Aaron Andersen. "This is the second in a multipost series about the immediate and likely future of web accessibility. Each week or so IÕll discuss a different upcoming technology, tag, platform, or system from an accessibility perspective. Additions, corrections, or further thoughts are welcome in the comments." http://webaim.org/blog/future-web-accessibility-html5-semantic-tags/ WCAG 2.0 Audio Audio Contrast Tool Help For Success Criteria 1.4.7. By eramp. "WCAG 2.0, Success Criteria 1.4.7 is a guideline for accessible audio files on the internet. The goal is to help people who are hard of hearing understand the speech (foreground). This is done by making sure that any background music or noise is very quiet. Background music (or sound) should be at least 20dB lower than the foreground speech..." http://www.eramp.com/WCAG_2_audio_contrast_tool_help.htm Captioning - It's Easier Than You Sync, Ahem, Think. By Liz Giorgi. "Captioning video content should be a priority for any one who is producing video..." http://tinyurl.com/29ph3vp What are Transcripts? By Leonie Watson. "...Transcripts are text based alternatives to multimedia content. They include the spoken dialogue from the soundtrack, as well as descriptions of important sound effects..." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2010/what-are-transcripts/ What is Audio Description? By Leonie Watson. "Audio description is an extra narrative thatÕs mixed in with the original soundtrack. In the gaps between the existing dialogue and sound effects, someone describes the important visual action taking place on screen..." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2010/what-is-audio-description/ What is an Accessibility Audit? By Leonie Watson. "An accessibility audit is a thorough evaluation of your website using recognized guidelines and metrics. There are a lot of different approaches to doing an accessibility audit; this article gives you the low-down on exactly what you need to know..." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2010/what-is-an-accessibility-audit/ +02: DREAMWEAVER. Creating Your First Website - Part 1 By David Powers. "This tutorial introduces you to the concept of an Adobe Dreamweaver CS5 site and shows you how to set up the project files for the Check Magazine sample website..." http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/first_website_pt1.html +03: EVENTS. Boston Accessibility Unconference May 15, 2010. Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. http://a11y-bos.org/ Two Apps Per Day June 4, 2010. Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. http://www.twoappsperday.com/ Voices That Matter - Web Design Conference June 28-29, 2010. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. http://www.voicesthatmatter.com/webdesign2010/index.aspx EuroIA 2010 September 23-25, 2010. Paris, France http://www.euroia.org +04: FLASH. Thoughts on Flash By Steve Jobs. "...I wanted to jot down some of our thoughts on Adobe's Flash products so that customers and critics may better understand why we do not allow Flash on iPhones, iPods and iPads..." http://www.apple.com/hotnews/thoughts-on-flash/ HTML5 vs. Adobe Flash By Bill Cullifer. "The controversy for the 'hearts and minds' of Web professionals heats up as press reports reflect that Steve Jobs goes public with a statement that Adobe's Flash software has fallen short as a mobile technology. At issue is the public debate between the companies over the program used to create online video. Clearly, the case for HTML5 vs. Adobe Flash is sure to intensify in the weeks and months to come..." http://webprofessionals.org/blog/html5-vs-adobe-flash/ +05: MISCELLANEOUS. Minnewebcon Presentation Material Via Kristofer D. Layon. Presentation materials are becoming available from the Minnewebcon conference. They include videos of Wendy Chisholm and Kristina Halvorson keynotes. http://www.minnewebcon.umn.edu/schedule.php A Brief History of Markup by Jeremy Keith. http://www.alistapart.com/articles/a-brief-history-of-markup/ +06: NAVIGATION. WAI-ARIA Document Landmark Roles By Leonie Watson. "There are eight document landmark roles in the specification. Their purpose is to help screen reader users navigate through content, and to identify the purpose of content in different areas of the page." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2010/wai-aria-document-landmark-roles/ +07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Is HTML5 Ready for eLearning Development? By Yogesh Agarwal. "I think HTML5 still has some real constraints and it may not replace Flash for eLearning/mLearning development in near future. In fact I believe it may not replace Flash at all. Here are a few reasons why..." http://tinyurl.com/25d9hw2 Understand The Web By Ben Ward. "Perceptions of the web is changing. People are advocating that we treat the web like another application framework. An open, cross-platform, multi-device rival to Flash and Cocoa and everything else. I'm all for making the web richer, and exposing new functionality, but I value what makes the web web like much, much more." http://benward.me/blog/understand-the-web HTML5 Video By Dean Hachamovitch. "Today, video on the web is predominantly Flash-based. While video may be available in other formats, the ease of accessing video using just a browser on a particular website without using Flash is a challenge for typical consumers. Flash does have some issues, particularly around reliability, security, and performance. We work closely with engineers at Adobe, sharing information about the issues we know of in ongoing technical discussions. Despite these issues, Flash remains an important part of delivering a good consumer experience on today's web." http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2010/04/29/html5-video.aspx Microsoft Agrees With Apple And Google - The Future Of The Web Is HTML5 By Erick Schonfeld. "Did we mention that 2010 would be a big year for HTML5? Apple and Google are pushing it big time, and now so is Microsoft. When Internet Explorer 9 comes out, it will support HTML5 and help make it more common across the Web..." http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/30/microsoft-html5/ IE9 HTML5 Video Will Be H264 Only By Kroc Camen. "I am almost flabbergasted by the spin and blunt-face upon which this news is delivered. We were just discussing the pot calling the kettle black with Apple / Adobe and now Microsoft have also come out in favor of a closed video format for an open web--IE9's HTML5 video support will allow H264 only. Update Now that the initial shock is over, I've rewritten the article to actually represent news rather than something on Twitter..." http://www.osnews.com/story/23229/IE9_HTML5_Video_Will_Be_H264_Only Microsoft Says Web Video in IE9 Is All About H.264 By Michael Calore. "...Microsoft and Apple are supporting H.264, Mozilla and Opera are supporting Ogg Theora and Google, for the time being, is supporting both..." http://tinyurl.com/24fzfaw Distributed, Extensibility, and Other Fancy Words By Mark Pilgrim. "There are over 100 elements in HTML5. Some are purely semantic, others are just containers for scripted APIs..." http://diveintohtml5.org/extensibility.html Your Questions Answered Number 8 By Richard Clark. "...In this article, we'll discuss using a