+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 8, Issue 51, June 18, 2010. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 51 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: MISCELLANEOUS. 10: NAVIGATION. 11: PHP. 12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 13: TOOLS. 14: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 15: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Future Web Accessibility: canvas By Aaron Andersen. "This is the sixth 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..." http://webaim.org/blog/future-web-accessibility-html-canvas/ Blind Students Sue Over Online Law School Applications By Adrian Roselli. "...The outcome of this case may be closely watched, since there is a lack of case law that defines how ADA and Section 508 compliance can and should be implemented. Given the regular debate between web developers and accessibility advocates about the nuances of the meaning and application of assorted web technologies to achieve maximum accessibility within a web site...Given the prior history that these cases settle, and given that NFB might be more motivated (based on the pay-outs from the Target case) to settle than to use this as case law for the rest of the web, I don't expect to see anything terribly useful coming from this case. Even if it did, it will still likely only address accessibility for the blind, leaving other disabilities out of any potentially useful case law." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2010/06/blind-students-sue-over-online-law.html A Few Problems With the Concept of Accessible PDFs, Part Two By Gian Wild. "...My conclusions...PDF is not an accessible technology... yet. I do commend Adobe for being one of the first companies to address accessibility issues in their products, however they still have a long way to go to match the accessibility features of X/HTML. The difficulty in tagging a PDF also essentially prohibits accessible PDFs from being developed in the mainstream media." http://www.gianwild.com/2010/06/11/a-few-problems-with-the-concept-of-accessible-pdfs-part-two/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS Layouts, Revisited By Craig Saila. "The HTML 5 edition of this classic CSS-based, liquid, three-column layout..." http://saila.com/webdesign/layouts/saila-html5/ Be a CSS Team Player: CSS Best Practices for Team-Based Development By Emily P. Lewis. "How many times have you picked up a project that someone else started, only to discover that the creator's original code is a mess? Or you work with several team members, each of whom has their own way writing code? Or you revisit a project you created years ago, and you don't remember what you were thinking?..." http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptjunkie/ff679957.aspx Make Rounded Corners with CSS3 By Virginia DeBolt. There's a new version of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in the works-CSS3. With this new set of rules for styling your blogs and web pages, you can do things that previously could only be done with images. http://www.webteacher.ws/2010/06/16/make-rounded-corners-with-css3/ Common CSS Mistakes - Putting a Stop to Them By Niels Matthijs. In the margins of the html5 and css3 rise one can find a whole lot of unpleasantness. Take your eyes away from the dazzling new features for just a couple of seconds and you'll be overwhelmed by a penetrating stench coming from underneath your browser's canvas. But that's not even the worst of it, take some time to look around and notice how badly written css is still very prevalent on the web. Time to get rid of that ugliness first." http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/common-css-mistakes Adding HTML5 Placeholder Attribute Support Through Progressive Enhancement By Robert Nyman. "I continually talk about HTML5 and how progressive enhancement is a simple approach to make any new behavior possible in web browsers that haven't implemented it yet. I thought I'd show you a simple example how to do this with the new placeholder attribute for input elements." http://robertnyman.com/2010/06/17/adding-html5-placeholder-attribute-support-through-progressive-enhancement/ +03: COLOR. CSS Color Values and Shades By page24x7. "CSS colors are defined using a hexadecimal (hex) notation for the combination of Red, Green, and Blue color values (RGB). The lowest value that can be given to one of the light sources is 0 (hex 00). The highest value is 255 (hex FF). Hex values are written as 3 double digit numbers, starting with a # sign..." http://page24x7.com/reference/css-color-values-and-shades/ +04: DREAMWEAVER. Creating a Site in Dreamweaver CS5 By Paul Davis. "...step-by-step guide on how to create a site in Dreamweaver CS5." http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=80980 +05: EVALUATION & TESTING. What Five Users Can Tell You That 5000 Cannot Web-Analytics and User-Testing by Jeff Sauro. "...To solve the mysteries of why users are doing what they're doing, we still need to observe users and ask them about their intentions and expectations. This can help solve the mystery of why. A small lab based study of a small number of users can tells us things analytic data from 5000 cannot..." http://www.measuringusability.com/analytic-testing.php Stat 101 By zuschlogin. What every user experience professional needs to know about statistics and usability tests. http://www.zuschlogin.com/?p=78 +06: EVENTS. 2010 Second World Congress on Software Engineering December 19-20, 2010. Wuhan, China. http://world-research-institutes.org/conferences/WCSE/2010 +07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Design Better And Faster With Rapid Prototyping By Lyndon Cerejo. "Prototypes range from rough paper sketches to interactive simulations that look and function like the final product. The keys to successful rapid prototyping are revising quickly based on feedback and using the appropriate prototyping approach. Rapid prototyping helps teams experiment with multiple approaches and ideas, it facilitates discussion through visuals instead of words, it ensures that everyone shares a common understanding, and it reduces risk and avoids missed requirements, leading to a better design faster." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/06/16/design-better-faster-with-rapid-prototyping/ +08: JAVASCRIPT. Making JavaScript Accessible By Dennis Lembree. Dennis' BayJax presentation materials. http://webaxe.blogspot.com/2010/06/bayjax-presentation-making-javascript.html Web Accessibility and WAI-ARIA Primer By Emily P. Lewis. "There isn't a lot of data currently available that quantifies how many websites today are truly accessible. There have been some reports, however, that suggest the percentage of inaccessible web sites is alarmingly high. I've even seen figures as high as 81 percent. And these aren't global figures..." http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/scriptjunkie/ff743762.aspx +09: MISCELLANEOUS. Molly on How HTML5 is Going to Completely Change your Web App By Keir Whitaker. "At Future of Web Apps Miami 2010 Molly Holzschlag looked beyond the new HTML5 elements and into the technologies that will be powering your web apps in the future. A full transcript is available below." http://carsonified.com/blog/dev/molly-on-how-html5-is-going-to-completely-change-your-web-app/ +10: NAVIGATION. Hagan Rivers' Escaping Navigation Hell, Live By Brian Christiansen. "Web applications can get wild. You know the kind; something that's on your corporate intranet with an obscure purpose, hundreds of screens and some kind of navigation kudzu growing in every direction. Hagan Rivers is one of our favorite wranglers of such apps. When these types of applications have reached the critical point, companies turn to her to help regain the upper hand..." http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2010/06/11/spoolcast-hagan-rivers-escaping-navigation-hell-live/ +11: PHP. Three Advanced Object-Oriented PHP Features You Need to Know By W. Jason Gilmore. "...In this article I'll introduce you to three of PHP's advanced object-oriented features which seem to not have garnered the attention they deserve. The topics discussed here should be useful whether you're a relative newcomer to object-oriented development and are looking to expand your knowledge, or have a background using languages such as Java or C# and are trying to learn more about what PHP has to offer..." http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/Jason_Gilmore061510.php3 +12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. What Should be the New Mission of W3C? By Vlad Alexander. "As a new CEO of W3C takes the reins, the mission of W3C is getting a look over. W3C is the self-appointed steward of the Web. What happens at W3C will ultimately affect us all because the Web has become an integral part of our society. Going forward, W3C has made a commitment to be mindful of the needs of all Web users. How will they fulfill this commitment? And do you trust W3C to represent your interests?..." http://rebuildingtheweb.com/en/new-mission-of-w3c/ Apple's HTML5 Promotion May Backfire By Neil Mcalllister. "Apple's latest attempt to show off the HTML5 features of its newest Safari browser does more harm than good. Given all the hype, it's easy to forget that HTML5 is not yet a finalized Web standard. That hasn't stopped Apple from posting a site featuring demonstrations of various capabilities of HTML5 and its related technologies, including CSS3. The catch? As long as HTML5 and CSS3 remain draft specifications, you'll need Apple's Safari browser to view any of the demos..." http://www.infoworld.com/d/developer-world/apples-html5-promotion-may-backfire-737 HTML5 Defined! It's Not Just a Marketing Term By Brad Neuberg. "There's been a fair bit of discussion recently about what some folks mean when they say HTML5. I use HTML5 in the wider sense, so it's only right that I take a stab at defining what I mean when I say something is part of HTML5..." http://blog.codinginparadise.org/2010/06/html5-defined-its-not-just-marketing.html The Mess and Magic of HTML5 Video By Tiffany B. Brown. "HTML is the language used to create web pages. Version 5 is a complete re-write of the specification. It introduces several new features, including a geo-location API and a database API. But the feature that has received the most buzz this year is easily HTML5 video..." http://armchairmedia.com/2010/06/15/the-mess-and-magic-of-html5-video/ Required Form Fields in HTML5 By Virginia DeBolt. "...With HTML5, there is a new attribute available for required form controls. The attribute is required. The browser or user agent will check on this and notify the user if the requirement is not met..." http://www.webteacher.ws/2010/06/18/required-form-fields-in-html5 +13: TOOLS. AViewer Beta By The Paciello Group. "Here at TPG we have been working on a new tool to inspect elements on a web page and be able to view the HTML code, ARIA attributes (if any) and the information being conveyed by the browser to accessibility APIs, all in one neatish interface. We have given it the catchy moniker 'AViewer' and a beta version is available for download." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=635 +14: USABILITY. Website Redesign: Big Bang, Gradual or Evolutionary Approach? By Christian Watson. "...three approaches to redesigning a website: 1. Big bang - move completely from an old to a new design in one go. 2. Gradual - implement the redesign by sections over time. 3. Evolutionary - avoid redesigning altogether and focus on improving the existing site. These approaches have their advantages and disadvantages. Let's consider them in reference to a large, content-rich website." http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/001973.php There's No Right Answer By Donna Spencer. "When we are working on a hard design problem (or even on a fairly easy one), we often realise there are many ways we could go - lots of options and lots of potential solutions. It can be frustrating to figure out which is the right direction to take, the right components to choose, the right way to sequence things. In other words, sometimes it's really hard to find the right answer..." http://52weeksofux.com/post/694599232/theres-no-right-answer The Importance of Copywriting in Web Design By Joshua Johnson. "Designers often neglect to focus on both well-written copy and structuring a design so that it highlights the copy on the page. Today we'll discuss why copywriting is so important, who needs to learn it, and how to create content-centric designs." (Joshua Johnson) http://designshack.co.uk/articles/business-articles/the-importance-of-copywriting-in-web-design Usability is in the Details By W Craig Tomlin. "Although usability practitioners love to show examples of big usability issues with websites and applications, the vast majority of usability issues are typically in the details. By forcing your application users or website visitors to be constantly bothered with more detailed usability issues, you eventually wear down their patience and force them to decide whether to continue being annoyed, or to try a different application or website." http://www.usefulusability.com/usability-is-in-the-details/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +15: 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.]