+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 8, Issue 50, June 12, 2010. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 50 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: DREAMWEAVER. 05: EVALUATION & TESTING. 06: EVENTS. 07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 08: JAVASCRIPT. 09: PHP. 10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 11: TYPOGRAPHY. 12: USABILITY. 13: XML. SECTION TWO: 14: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Website Accommodation Rules on the Horizon By Jim Evans. "The DOJ's message was clear then, and it's clear now -- the ADA doesn't just apply to the physical world -- it also applies in cyberspace." http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/article/20100606/OPINION02/6060308 Blind Students Sue Law Schools Over Online Applications By Sophia Li. "...The four law schools-Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Chapman University School of Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law, and Whittier College Law School-highly encourage or require students to apply through the Law School Admission Council's Web site, which blind applicants say they must seek assistance to use. Arguing that the system amounts to discrimination, the group, the National Federation of the Blind, joined the students, Deepa Goraya, Bruce J. Sexton, and Claire Stanley, in suing the schools and the admission council..." http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Blind-Students-Sue-Law-Schools/24648/ The Challenges of Deaf Blind Internet Users By Tom Babinszki. "...Here, Ruby joins us one more time and shows us the challenges faced by deaf blind persons as they use the Internet..." http://www.evengrounds.com/blog/challenges-of-deaf-blind-internet-users Features of a Cognitively Accessible Web Site By John Rochford. "...Dr. Tamor's work mirrors that of my own and of others who specialize in cognitive Web accessibility. The principles she described and/or demonstrated included..." http://clearhelper.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/the-arclink-features-of-a-cognitively-accessible-web-site/ Cognitive Web Accessibility Assessments - Detailed Results By Site By John Rochford. "I published an index of detailed results, by site, of my cognitive Web accessibility assessments." http://clearhelper.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/cognitive-web-accessibility-assessments-detailed-results-by-site/ Web Accessibility Benefits Persons with Disabilities and ... Who Else? By Tom Babinszki. "...I invite you to read on and get to know another important group of people who can benefit from web accessibility..." http://www.evengrounds.com/blog/accessibility-helps-people-with-disabilities-and-you? Writing Text Alternatives for Maps By Dey Alexander. "When you use maps on your website you need to provide text alternatives. These will help people who have problems accessing information using graphical or interactive maps." http://www.deyalexander.com.au/blog/2010/06/writing-text-alternatives-for-maps/ Can Checklist Accessibility be Harmful? By Vlad Alexander. "Accessibility checklists based on WCAG or Section 508 guidelines were intended to help make Web sites accessible. These checklists are meant to ensure that the process of accessibility checking is done consistently and comprehensively. So how can accessibility checklists be harmful?..." http://www.rebuildingtheweb.com/en/checklist-accessibility-harmful/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Showing and Hiding Content with Pure CSS3 By Corey Mwamba. "Modern websites and applications are more dynamic than old style web pages, with several pieces of well-placed JavaScript providing smoother content updates, more intuitive user feedback and more responsive controls. One very common feature is the expanding/collapsing or shown/hidden box, whether this is a tabbed interface, a content "tray" on the side that can be slid out and then put away again, or a complex tree menu with expanding/collapsing sub-menus. Generally, these features are implemented via JavaScript, however using CSS3 it is possible to create such content using only HTML and CSS - no JavaScript required. In this article I'll show you how this works, including a few examples to get you started." http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/css3-show-and-hide/ The CSS white-space Property Explained By Louis Lazaris. "CSS has a pretty useful property called white-space that I'm guessing goes unnoticed among CSS beginners. You can probably live without this property for quite some time, but once you learn how to use it, it will come in very handy and you'll find yourself going back to it over and over again..." http://www.impressivewebs.com/css-white-space/ +03: COLOR. Does Color Impact How Users View a Web Portal Page? By J. Owens and S. Shrestha. "This study investigated the eye movement patterns of users viewing a portal web page. Previous research has shown that web portal pages are scanned by row from top to bottom. In the current study, the color of one channel title was manipulated in two different page locations to see what impact it would have on scan patterns. Results indicate that users fixated on the top-center channel first, irrespective of study condition. Eye movements after the first few fixations appear to be impacted by the color of the channel title, but only when it was located on the left side of the page. Also, increased fixation counts on the channel title did not result in an increased number of fixations on the content of the respective channel. Implications of these results to portal web page design are discussed." http://www.surl.org/usabilitynews/121/portal.asp +04: DREAMWEAVER. Dreamweaver Templates: Customizable Starter Designs for Web Designers, Part 2 By Chris Converse. This article loosely builds on my previous article, Dreamweaver templates: Customizable starter designs for beginners. http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/dreamweaver_custom_templates_pt2.html +05: EVALUATION & TESTING. Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites: Observing Users Who Work With Screen Readers By Mary Frances Theofanos and Janice (Ginny) Redish. "...To truly meet the needs of all users, it is not enough to have guidelines that are based on technology. It is also necessary to understand the users and how they work with their tools. For example, just realizing that vision-impaired users do not listen to the entire page is critical for designing usable pages for them. In this paper, we have developed guidelines for bringing accessibility and usability together based on observing, listening to, and talking with blind users as they work with Web sites and their screen readers." http://www.redish.net/content/papers/interactions.html 10 Tips for 'Ambush Guerilla User Testing' By Martin Belam. "Over the last couple of years I've been practicing 'ambush guerilla user testing', which is basically the art of pouncing on lone people in cafes and public spaces, and quickly filming them whilst they use a website for a couple of minutes. It isn't by any means a formal research technique, but you can soon build up a valuable clip library of initial reactions to you and your competitors' products, and tease out interesting anecdotal evidence about the way that people use and feel about your website." http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2010/06/10_tips_for_ambush_guerilla_user_testing.php Overcoming Fear of Moderating UX Research Sessions By Dana Chisnell. "It always happens: Someone asks me about screwing up as an amateur facilitator/moderator for user research and usability testing sessions. This time, I had just given a pep talk to a bunch of user experience professionals about sharing responsibility with the whole team for doing research. 'But what if the (amateur) designer does a bad job of moderating the session?'" http://usabilitytestinghowto.blogspot.com/2010/06/overcoming-fear-of-moderating-ux.html +06: EVENTS. PHP Live with Kevin Yank Starts June 14, 2010. Online. http://www.sitepoint.com/courses/php-live CSS Live with Russ Weakley Starts July 5, 2010. Online. http://www.sitepoint.com/courses/css-live Internet User Experience Conference July 24-28, 2010. Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. http://www.iue2010.com/ CSS Summit July 28 2010. Online. http://environmentsforhumans.com/2010/css-summit/ +07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. User Experience is More Than Wireframes and Prototypes By Gary Barber. "There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment, within developmental circles to just add a few wireframes and develop a prototype or two, and then you can declare you are across the user experience design process. The thing is User Experience is a lot more than just a few simple techniques, it's an entire collaborative design process, in a way it's not just a single methodology at all..." http://manwithnoblog.com/2010/06/07/user-experience-is-more-than-wireframes-and-prototypes/ Globalizing an Information Architecture By Louis Rosenfeld. "So in the interest of resurrecting a six-year old conversation, here are some questions. I plan to use these to get my client to think strategically about the challenge of developing a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and multi-regional information architecture. Being the information architect that I am, naturally I categorized them." http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/2010/06/globalizing_an_information_arc.html +08: JAVASCRIPT. New Windows with JavaScript and the target Attribute By Roger Johansson. "I've written a few articles about techniques that use JavaScript to open new browser windows, the most recent one being Opening new windows with JavaScript, version 1.2. A very quick summary of my reason for using JavaScript is that it enables me to use strict HTML 4.01 and XHTML doctypes, which do not allow the target attribute..." http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201006/new_windows_with_javascript_and_the_target_attribute/ +09: PHP. 10 Easy Solutions for PHP String Manipulation By W. Jason Gilmore. "... In this article I highlight the ideal solutions to 10 common string manipulation tasks..." http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/Jason_Gilmore060210.php3 9 Magic Methods for PHP By Lorna Jane Mitchell. "Following on from my previous two posts, showing a gentle introduction to OOP in PHP and some slightly more advanced concepts, I'd like to take a dive into the magic methods in PHP. It might be magic, but no wands are required..." http://carsonified.com/blog/dev/9-magic-methods-for-php/ +10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. The dl Element By Mike Robinson. "The