+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 9, Issue 16, October 16, 2010. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 16 CONTENTS. SECTION ONE: New references. What's new at the Web Design Reference site? http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/ New links in these categories: 01: ACCESSIBILITY. 02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 03: COLOR. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: PHP. 09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 10: TYPOGRAPHY. 11: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Updated WCAG 2.0 Techniques Published - You Can Help with More By Shawn Henry. "W3C WAI today published updates to two supporting documents for Web Content Accessibility Guideline (WCAG) 2.0..." http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2010OctDec/0017.html Displaying and Optimizing ALT text in Popular email Clients By Ros Hodgekiss. Back in 2007 we did a bit of testing regarding the display of ALT text in the popular email clients. Flash forward to 2010 and we felt it was about time to do a bit of a refresher. Not only are there new email clients on the scene, but some of the existing clients have changed their tune towards displaying ALT text when images are blocked. Plus, we've got a couple of tips that we'd love to share while we're at it. http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/post/3280/displaying-and-optimizing-alt-text-in-popular-email-clients/ Are These PDFs Accessible? By Roger Hudson. "The question of whether or not PDFs are sufficiently accessible to be used on the Web has stimulated much debate over the years. There are some who believe there is no place for PDF on the Web; while on the other hand, some argue that PDF is an essential tool for communicating via the Web..." http://www.dingoaccess.com/accessibility/are-these-pdfs-accessible/ Accessibility Lawsuit Filed Against JetBlue Airways By Lainey Feingold. "The California Council of the Blind and three California residents with visual impairments have filed a lawsuit against JetBlue Airways in Federal Court for the Northern District of California. The lawsuit alleges that JetBlue has violated California law by maintaining a website and operating airport check-in kiosks that are inaccessible to individuals with visual impairments..." http://lflegal.com/2010/10/jet-blue/ Universal Subtitles By Participatory Culture Foundation, et al. "Universal Subtitles is an open source, non-profit project...The lack of captions and subtitles on video is a major obstacle for people with hearing disabilities and a huge language barrier for the whole world. We want to give individuals and communities the power to overcome these barriers. The tools we're building are free and open source and will make the work of subtitling and translating video simpler, more appealing, and, most of all, more collaborative..." http://universalsubtitles.org/ Accessibility Initiative State of Minnesota. http://www.oet.state.mn.us/itproducts/program_information/AccessibilityInitiative.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. IE9 is the IE6 of CSS3 By Robert Biggs. "...Because Microsoft has updated IE to support CSS3 selectors and rounded corners, they want us to believe that somehow IE9 magically supports the whole slew of CSS3 visual styling. I'm afraid it doesn't. As a matter of fact, IE9's support for CSS3 visual styling is so poor that the results are shocking. Firefox, Chrome and Safari can render graphically rich interfaces using the sophisticated features of CSS3. IE9 does, well, rounded corners. That's why I'm saying: IE9 is the IE6 of CSS3. Repeat that a few times until it sinks in because if you do Web development, you're going to have to deal with it..." http://css3wizardry.com/2010/08/14/ie9-is-the-ie6-of-css3/ Why We Don't Have a Parent Selector By Jonathan Snook. "On a seemingly regular basis, I see this discussion come up as to whether CSS should have a particular feature like the parent selector and while I haven't worked on a browser engine, I have my theories. In short: performance..." http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/css-parent-selectors CSS Selector for :parent Targeting (Please) By Remy Sharp. "The what followed was some going back and forth with people who have thought this properly through..." http://remysharp.com/2010/10/11/css-parent-selector/ Is Hiding Text with CSS to Improve Accessibility Bad for SEO? By Roger Johansson. "Almost five years ago I posted an article titled Google, SEO and using CSS to hide text. In the article I brought up the possibility of getting in trouble with Google and other search engines for using CSS to hide text for accessibility reasons..." http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201010/is_hiding_text_with_css_to_improve_accessibility_bad_for_seo/ Hardboiled CSS3 Media Queries By Andy Clarke. "Making layouts responsive using CSS3 Media Queries are a big part of the work that I'm doing for the Hardboiled Web Design site in the run up to the book's launch..." http://stuffandnonsense.co.uk/blog/about/hardboiled_css3_media_queries/ Father of CSS plans for Web Publishing Future By Stephen Shankland. "Presenting a polished layout is crucial to newspapers and magazines publishing on the Web. Opera CTO Hakon Wium Lie says the CSS Web standard is adapting accordingly..." http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20019705-264.html +03: COLOR. Checking Colour Contrast By Leonie Watson. "Consider the links, headings and other text content on your website. Do you think the colours you've chosen contrast well against their background? More to the point, how can you tell?..." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2010/checking-colour-contrast/ +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Exciting Usability Testing Technique By John A. Vieth. John A. Vieth presentation's on testing using Camtasia Studio 7. http://www.viethfamily.com/testing/ Can Users Self-Report Usability Problems? By Jeff Sauro. "Having users self-report problems is different than having users complete usability tests remotely. In a typical unmoderated remote test using a popular service like usertesting.com, users are asked to attempt tasks and provide feedback..." http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/self-reporting.php Eye Tracking vs. Mouse Tracking By ClickTale. "Usability studies have been and continue to be a key method for testing and optimizing website usability. Both laboratory eye tracking and remote mouse tracking studies offer businesses accurate and actionable results. Eye tracking, as used by top enterprises such as Google, uses cameras and specialist software to track where the eyes of internet users land on a webpage. Mouse tracking follows the mouse movements of an internet user to simulate eye movement on a webpage. Over the last few years, mouse tracking has greatly matured, developing features and achieving accuracy that make it a credible alternative to eye tracking..." http://blog.clicktale.com/2010/10/14/eye-tracking-vs-mouse-tracking/ +05: EVENTS. Web Typography October 25 2010. Online Conference http://thinkvitamin.com/online-conferences/web-typography/ W3C TPAC 2010 November 1-5, 2010. Lyon, France http://www.w3.org/2010/11/TPAC/ Writing for the Web Workshop November 9, 2010 Melbourne, Australia http://www.visionaustralia.org.au/info.aspx?page=1653&event=190 Web Directions East November 13-16, 2010. Tokyo, Japan http://east.webdirections.org/2010/ Demystifying Accessibility November 22, 2010 in London, United Kingdom. December 13, 2010 in Liverpool, United Kingdom. http://edit.rnib.org.uk/professionals/solutionsforbusiness/trainingandconferences/webaccessibility/demystifyingaccessibility The A Team - ARIA and HTML5 November 23, 2010 in Sydney, Australia. November 24, 2010 in Canberra, Australia. November 25, 2010 in Melbourne, Australia. December 1, 2010 in Brisbane, Australia. http://wipa.org.au/html5/ AccessU West 2011 January 10-12, 2011. San Jose State, California, U.S.A. http://www.knowbility.org/accessu-west/ 26th Annual International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference March 14-19, 2011. Northridge, Califorinia, U.S.A. http://csunconference.org/cfp.cfm?EID=80000300 +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Research and Practice in IA By Andrea Resmini and Keith Instone. "Research and practice in IA are fractured, with very weak connections in between (and this gap is not unique: many disciplines face this challenge)." http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Aug-10/AugSep10_Resmini_Instone.html +07: JAVASCRIPT. OpenAjax Examples By Jon Gunderson. Example markup. http://www.oaa-accessibility.org/examples/ ARIA Roles 101 By Virginia DeBolt. "As part of the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI), the Accessible Rich Internet Applications Suite (ARIA), defines a way to make Web content and Web applications more accessible. It is used to improve the accessibility of dynamic content and advanced user interface controls developed with Ajax, HTML, JavaScript, and related technologies..." http://www.webteacher.ws/2010/10/14/aria-roles-101/ ARIA States 101 By Virginia DeBolt. http://www.webteacher.ws/2010/10/15/aria-states-101/ +08: PHP. Should You Close Your PHP Code Tags? By Craig Buckler. "Even those with a modest grasp of PHP know that code must be enclosed within special tags..." http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2010/09/18/should-you-close-your-php-code-tags/ Should You Close PHP Tags? The Debate Continues... By Craig Buckler. "I was amazed at the response to my recent article, Should You Close Your PHP Code Tags? I didn't think it would be controversial or cause so much debate among developers..." http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2010/10/15/closing-php-tags-debate/ +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. HTML5 Simplequiz #3: How to Mute a Video By Bruce Lawson. "This is a bit of a special Simplequiz this week. Simon Pieters (@zcorpan), who works on multimedia QA for Opera and is one of those working on the HTML5 spec, asked us to run a quiz that would help the spec writers decide on a new aspect of the language. What power you wield, gentle reader! Over to Simon..." http://html5doctor.com/html5-simplequiz-3-how-to-mute-a-video +10: TYPOGRAPHY. Using Pixels for Text WebAIM Thread. "...what's the latest for using pixels to size text. i'm doing some work for someone and she wants me to use pixels and i really feel adverse to it - rather use 'em' or '%'..." http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread?thread=4402 Justified Text By Steve Grobschmidt. "...For people with cognitive disabilities as well as those with dyslexia, these uneven spaces can be distracting. It can disrupt their ability to follow the flow of words and make reading and understanding the content difficult, if not hopeless. Whatever the perceived aesthetic value, it just isn't worth it to me. Big deal that my right margin is jagged and uneven..." http://www.theaccessibility.com/2010/10/justified-text-accessibility/ +11: USABILITY. Top Five Usability Myths Demolished By Tom Stewart. "I guess it's grumpy old man time but I am really beginning to get hacked off with general ignorance (with apologies to Stephen Fry) about usability..." http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/6662-the-top-five-usability-myths-demolished [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? Accessibility Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/accessibility.html Association Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/associations.html Book Listings. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/books.html Cascading Style Sheets Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/css.html Color Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/color.html Dreamweaver Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/dreamweaver.html Evaluation & Testing Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/testing.html Event Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/events.html Flash Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/flash.html Information Architecture Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/architecture.html JavaScript Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/javascript.html Miscellaneous Web Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html Navigation Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/navigation.html PHP Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/php.html Sites & Blogs Listing. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/sites.html Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/standards.html Tool Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/tools.html Typography Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/type.html Usability Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/usability.html XML Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/xml.html [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/itss/training/online/webdesign/webdev_listserv.html 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.]