+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 9, Issue 08, August 21, 2010. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 08 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: DREAMWEAVER. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: MISCELLANEOUS. 07: NAVIGATION. 08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 09: USABILITY. 10: XML. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Longdesc is Dead! Long Live Longdesc! By Joshue O Connor. "The future of an important mechanism allowing the creation of accessible images using HTML5 hangs in the balance after a working group decision to remove it from the specification - despite the recommendations of their own expert working group to keep it..." http://www.cfit.ie/news-and-commentary-archive/525-longdesc-rip Podcast #83: Fate of Longdesc in HTML5 By Dennis Lembree. "What's the fate of the 'longdesc' attribute in HTML5? Can or should the "aria-labelledby" ARIA attribute replace it? These are some of the controversial issues discussed by Dennis and guests John Foliot (@johnfoliot), Everett Zufelt (@ezufelt), and Joe Dolson (@joedolson)..." http://webaxe.blogspot.com/2010/08/podcast-83-fate-of-longdesc-in-html5.html Alone in the Pitch Black Dark By Kyle Weems. "...the longdesc attribute, which is a method of serving detailed alternate text for complex images to visually impaired web users, is now obsolete and not a part of HTML5....As a website owner who does make use of accessibility features for my actual blind users, I'll take my validation error. The code was valid, it does work, and I don't see any reason to clutter the visual design to implement a less elegant solution." http://www.cssquirrel.com/2010/08/16/comic-update-alone-in-the-pitch-black-dark/ No longdesc Attribute in HTML5 By Roger Johansson. "...The longdesc attribute is not perfect. It is rarely used and its contents are hidden or difficult to access for many users who would benefit from it. But in some specific situations it may be still be the best choice, so I really donÕt see why it needs to be removed, especially considering that HTML5 is intended to be 'backwards-compatible'." http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201008/no_longdesc_attribute_in_html5/ Accessibility and Cognitive Challenges on the Web By MediaLT. "Web accessibility for people with cognitive disabilities is an important and difficult issue. These users have very different abilities and needs, and taking all this into account is not a trivial matter! Nevertheless, there are principles and knowledge already available, that will help many more people to enjoy using the Web. I have collected some of this information in this article." http://medialt.no/news/en-US/accessibility-and-cognitive-challenges-on-the-web/654.aspx Being Accessible is a Step Towards Better Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) By Webdragon. "It's sometimes said that building an accessible website also helps with your organisation's search engine optimisation (SEO) campaign. But how does that work?..." http://www.webdragon.com.au/main-site/welcome/being-accessible-is-a-step-towards-better-search-engine-optimisation-seo Captioning YouTube Videos By Gian Wild. http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/victorian-government-resources/manuals-and-toolkits-victoria/accessibility-toolkit/accessibility-toolkit-version-3-2009/accessibility-toolkit-version-3-2009-section-5-top-issues/captioning-youtube-videos-accessibility-toolkit-version-3-2009.html Captioning Vodcasts By Gian Wild. http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/victorian-government-resources/manuals-and-toolkits-victoria/accessibility-toolkit/accessibility-toolkit-version-3-2009/accessibility-toolkit-version-3-2009-section-5-top-issues/captioning-vodcasts-accessibility-toolkit-version-3-2009.html Audio Describing Videos By Gian Wild. http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/victorian-government-resources/manuals-and-toolkits-victoria/accessibility-toolkit/accessibility-toolkit-version-3-2009/accessibility-toolkit-version-3-2009-section-5-top-issues/audio-describing-videos-accessibility-toolkit-version-3-2009.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS3 Media Queries By Nick La. "CSS2 allows you to specify stylesheet for specific media type such as screen or print. Now CSS3 makes it even more efficient by adding media queries. You can add expressions to media type to check for certain conditions and apply different stylesheets. For example, you can have one stylesheet for large displays and a different stylesheet specifically for mobile devices. It is quite powerful because it allows you to tailor to different resolutions and devices without changing the content. Continue on this post to read the tutorial and see some websites that make good use of media queries..." http://www.webdesignerwall.com/tutorials/css3-media-queries/ Are We Taking CSS Too Far? By Matt Ward. "CSS is a remarkable technology, capable of doing things that I wouldnÕt have even dreamed of when I was first introduced to it. And, with added support for rounded corners, box shadows, text shadows, rotation and a wide range of other possibilities, web designers and developers can accomplish all sorts of amazing things when it comes to applying a design to a website. But are we starting to take things too far?..." http://blog.echoenduring.com/2010/08/14/are-we-taking-css-too-far/ CSS Lounge "CSS Lounge is a constantly growing project focused on providing you with a database of the best designed CSS based websites from around the world. Its purpose is to showcase designers' work and to act as a small portal to the CSS design community." http://css-lounge.com/ Using Less.js to Simplify Your CSS3 By Joshua Johnson. "LESS is an amazing little tool that extends CSS with the addition of variables, mixins, operations and nested rules. What this means is that you can write leaner code very quickly. And with the recent rise of complex CSS3 properties, we have a few glaring examples of code that could definitely stand to be simplified a bit..." http://designshack.co.uk/articles/css/using-less-js-to-simplify-your-css3 +03: DREAMWEAVER. Using the HTML5 Pack for Dreamweaver CS5 By Jon Michael Varese. "The HTML5 Pack for Dreamweaver CS5 is an extension that adds support for HTML5 and CSS3 in Dreamweaver. This article provides a brief overview of HTML5 and CSS3, and outlines the new features available in Dreamweaver once the extension has been installed...." http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/html5_update_for_dwcs5.html +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Three Questions You Shouldn't Ask During User Research By Jared M. Spool. "The participant was struggling. While he was a high-volume customer who had bought tons from this site in the past, today he wasn't getting along with the checkout process. Confusion happened in both directions: the shopper didn't understand what the site was trying to tell him and the site definitely didn't understand what he wanted." http://www.uie.com/articles/three_questions_not_to_ask/ Are We Measuring the Wrong Assumptions? By Jared Spool. "Picking the right assumptions to measure against can improve our results, but basing our measures on the wrong assumptions can send us in the wrong direction..." http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2010/08/16/are-we-measuring-the-wrong-assumptions/ Usability Evaluators: Reliable as Radiologists? By Jeff Sauro. "Different usability teams find different problems in websites and applications. Would you get different diagnoses if different radiologists read your X-ray or MRI? It turns out you would. While there is a lot of room for improvement in the reliability of usability evaluations, much of the variability is due to human judgment--a problem that also plagues the medical field." http://www.measuringusability.com/usability-radiology.php +05: EVENTS. Web Design World October 18-20, 2010. Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A. http://webdesignworld.com/ +06: MISCELLANEOUS. Learn Web Design - Free Tutorial Videos By Ryan Carson. "We've been adding a ton of videos to Think Vitamin Membership so I though it'd be useful to give you all a list.." http://thinkvitamin.com/web-design-2/ +07: NAVIGATION. Accessing Nav Drop-Downs By Roger Hudson. "Recently I came across a site that has a less than accessible horizontal main navigation bar with drop-down menus containing links to the different pages in each section. This got me thinking once again about the use of drop-downs from an accessibility perspective..." http://www.dingoaccess.com/accessibility/accessing-nav-drop-downs/ Web Management's Biggest Issue: Confusing Menus and Links By Gerry McGovern. "No other single factor causes greater customer frustration and dissatisfaction than confusing menus and links." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2010/nt-2010-08-16-Web-confusing.htm +08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. BBC Questions HTML5 By Alastair Campbell. "Whilst I don't think that 'HTML5 is starting to sail off-course', that's because its being dragged (kicking and screaming) onto course... Some aspects (notably accessibility) are not 'common' scenarios, but they are requirements for public organisations such as the BBC. Unless HTML5 can provide a complete (or at least sufficient) solution, it is going to be difficult for large organisations to adopt it..." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2010/bbc-questions-html5/ +09: USABILITY. Please Don't Resize My Browser Window By Roger Johansson. "...Resizing my browser window to make sure it fills up my entire screen will not make me focus on your pretty pictures or admire your wicked design. What it will do is make me close down the tab or window that contains your site, resize my window back to the size it had before you started messing with it, and never come back again if I can help it..." http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201008/please_dont_resize_my_browser_window/ Best Practices for Writing Interface Text By Tom Johnson. "In this ongoing series on organizing content, we've shifted from organizing help outside the interface to organizing help inside the interface. Moving help inside the interface has many advantages, and there are plenty of best practices for style and format. But the biggest shift in perspective, which I argued in my last post, is to stop differentiating between the interface and the help content. The interface is mostly text. It is an orchestra of words on a page that users rely on to navigate and understand the application's content..." http://idratherbewriting.com/2010/08/13/best-practices-for-writing-interface-text-organizing-content-24/ New Study - Gender Differences in Web Usability By Frank Spillers. "The worldwide study adds some key insights into the growing research on gender differences on the Web and in particular around social networking usage..." http://www.demystifyingusability.com/2010/07/gender-differences-in-web-usability.html +10: XML. SMIL: A Way to Make An Ideal Web-Presentation. By Rob Johnson. "SMIL (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language) is an XML application, created by the W3C Consortium. The most recent SMIL standard version is 2.0, and it has been released on 7 August 2001. Its main purpose was to define a language optimal for writing interactive multimedia presentations, also with support of reusing the syntax and semantics of SMIL to ther XML languages, such as XHTML..." http://www.indelv.com/smil-a-way-to-make-an-ideal-web-presentation.html [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +11: 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.]