[webdev] Web Design Update: February 23, 2007

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 5, Issue 36, February 23, 2007.

An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design 
and development.

++ISSUE 36 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: FLASH.
07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
08: JAVASCRIPT.
09: MISCELLANEOUS.
10: NAVIGATION.
11: PHP.
12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
13: TOOLS.
14: TYPOGRAPHY.
15: USABILITY.
16: XML.

SECTION TWO:
17: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Video Accessibility Problems
By Joe Dolson.
"In our Web 2.0 times it seems like video sharing has become a social 
media giant. I can certainly see why - it's exciting and novel to be 
able to transmit these magical moving images across time and space! 
Well, OK...if you put it that way, it's not all that new. It is, 
however, spectacularly easy to do today - and that is a major 
difference. What isn't so easy is to make these videos accessible. 
Video has a number of glaring accessibility problems. There's nothing 
especially complicated about these issues - they should be obvious, 
after all - but accomplishing them at all seems to be beyond the pale 
at the moment. It's not that it's difficult to make video accessible. 
It's not that the software to do it, at least in a limited manner, is 
expensive or difficult to use. It's mostly two issues: laziness or 
ignorance..."
http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/02/video-accessibility-problems/

IE7, Screen Readers And Screen Enlargers
By Mel Pedley.
"With the release of Internet Explorer 7 (IE7), questions have been 
raised as to how well the new browser will integrate with current 
screen readers and magnifiers and whether users of these products 
should update to IE7 immediately or remain with Internet Explorer 6 
(IE6) for now until they upgrade their existing software..."
http://blackwidows.co.uk/blog/?p=93

Computer-Based Exam Discriminated Against Blind Candidate
By out-law.com.
"A qualifications body discriminated against a blind systems manager 
when it failed to make its computer-based exam accessible to her. The 
tribunal ruling is the first to find a US company with no presence in 
the UK liable under the UK's Disability Discrimination Act..."
http://www.out-law.com/page-7692

Accessibility and International Law
By Joe Dolson.
"...The question is whether a company with no literal presence within a 
country can be held liable in that country due to an issue of website 
access. A tribunal in the United Kingdom has recently ruled just that - 
determining that a computer-based exam which was not accessible was in 
violation of the UK's Disability Discrimination Act..."
http://tinyurl.com/yub2az

How Accessible is 'Accessible'?
By Chris Hofstater.
"...Some of my friends who use Windows based screen readers...argue 
that even marginal accessibility is better than what we had twenty-five 
years ago so we should not yell too loudly about sites that do not 
comply fully with the various guidelines and standards for 
accessibility...My personal opinion is that we blinks need to try to 
force 100% compliance as, with anything less, we're going to get crap. 
If we push for 100% compliance, we'll be lucky to get 75 percent so 
accepting anything less gives a free pass to web developers as regards 
the discrimination, intentional or otherwise, caused by the lack of 
compliance.  What do you think?..."
http://tinyurl.com/2ftqq6

Dealing with Acronyms and Abbreviations
By Mike Cherim.
"For quite some time the methodologies of how best to deal with 
acronyms and abbreviations on the web have been discussed by developers 
the world over. We seek the best practices and hope to serve all of our 
visitors with something of use. But what is the best way? How do we 
please all of the people all of the time? Is it even possible? Let's 
explore this further..."
http://accessites.org/site/2007/02/dealing-with-acronyms-abbreviations/

Accessibility in the Design Process
By Joe Clark.
Web Directions North Speaker notes.
http://joeclark.org/appearances/WDN07/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Print Style Sheets: The Basics (for no excuses)
By Jens Meiert.
"There are no excuses for not having at least a simple print style 
sheet. Period. And if you're already on the web standards track, things 
are dead simple. (There's just no need to force users to disable style 
sheets, open Print Previews, select pages they want to print, and 
finally print.) Let's go..."
http://tinyurl.com/22xn85

Style Table Borders with CSS
By Tony Patton.
"Web developer Tony Patton examines how to use CSS to style the borders 
of HTML tables. He also offers examples that show how the CSS border 
property can specify the size of the border along with its color and 
type."
http://builder.com.com/5100-6371_14-6160190.html


+03: DREAMWEAVER.

CSS Design Basics with Dreamweaver - Part 5: Defining and Using ID 
Selectors
By Adrian Senior.
"Understand when to use ID selectors, how to create them, and why they 
are different from other types of CSS selectors."
http://tinyurl.com/yqbpbu

CSS Design Basics with Dreamweaver - Part 6: Defining and Using 
Descendant Selectors
By Adrian Senior.
"Learn to use type, class, and ID selectors to build descendant 
selectors."
http://tinyurl.com/2txkot

Dreamweaver 8 In Pictures
By inpics.net.
"This tutorial helps beginners learn the basics of creating Web sites 
with Adobe Dreamweaver 8."
http://inpics.net/dreamweaver8.html


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Expert Usability Review vs. Usability Testing
By Lisa Halabi.
"One question we're often asked is which method is best: usability 
testing or expert usability reviews? Well, if they were sports cars, 
expert usability reviews might be a Porsche (pretty decent car and 
better than no car at all), but usability testing would be in a 
different league, namely Formula 1..."
http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article3616.asp


+05: EVENTS.

Enterprise Information Architecture
Because Users Don't Care About Your Org Chart
May 10, 2007 in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
May 31, 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.
http://louisrosenfeld.com/presentations/seminars/eia/

Don't Make Me Think!
Web Usability Workshop (with Steve Krug)
May 11, 2007 in Portland, Oregon, U.S.A.
June 1, 2007 in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.
http://www.sensible.com/workshops.html

WETICE 2007
16th IEEE international Workshops on Enabling Technologies: 
Infrastructures for Collaborative Enterprises
June 18-20, 2007.
Paris, France
http://www-inf.int-evry.fr/WETICE/

An Event Apart Seattle
June 21-22, 2007.
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
http://www.aneventapart.com/news/2007/02/an_event_apart_seattle_2007.php

Seattle Google Conference on Scalability
June 23, 2007.
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
http://tinyurl.com/ynn7nr

Pragmatic Web
October 22-23, 2007.
Tilburg, The Netherlands
http://www.pragmaticweb.info/

Designing for User Experiences (DUX'07)
November 5-7, 2007.
Chicago Illinois, U.S.A.
http://www.dux2007.org/


+06: FLASH.

Fear of Flash
By James Ward.
"...So how did I overcome my fears and jump head first into the 
Flash/Flex world, eventually becoming an evangelist for Flex? Before I 
begin, the following is not meant to be a point-by-point argument for 
why to use Flash and Flex. I save those for when I am confronted with 
specific use cases. The following is more about my specific use case, 
which may or may not apply to your use case. If you want to talk 
specifically about your use case please ping me. I'd love to hear what 
you are building and honestly talk about whether Flash and Flex is the 
best fit..."
http://tinyurl.com/yvmlp4


+07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

The No-Knead Approach to Information Architecture, 2 of 5
By Louis Rosenfeld.
"...Ban the word 'redesign' from your meetings. Redesign is a really, 
really dirty word, and your design discussions-and outcomes-will be far 
more successful if you avoid it. Here's why..."
http://tinyurl.com/27gjbh

Information Design for the Web
By Colin Lieberman.
"The art and science of preparing data for human consumption is 
Information Design. Every train schedule, product data sheet, and 
customer survey we encounter was designed, either expertly or crudely, 
to organize information to facilitate interaction. Good information 
design solves problems and communicates effectively. Bad design muddles 
facts and misses causality. When we're lucky, bad design results merely 
in confusing or misleading information displays; at its worst, 
ineffective information design can cost lives..."
http://www.cactusflower.org/information-design-for-the-web


+08: JAVASCRIPT.

The Road to Cross-Domain XMLHttpRequest
By Anne Van Kesteren.
"Enabling Read Access for Web Resources is the first step to 
XMLHttpRequest2 which will have support for cross-site requests. Ian 
Hickson wrote up a proposal for cross-site extensions to XMLHttpRequest 
a while ago which uses the aforementioned document. When the algorithms 
for 'Enabling Read Access for Web Resources' are finalized I'll take a 
stab at writing XMLHttpRequest2..."
http://annevankesteren.nl/2007/02/xxx

Parse a String Using JavaScript
By Christopher Jason.
"A handy trick for Web Developers in the ability to parse a string to 
check for a given sub-string. In plain English, this means checking if 
a word or part of a word is contained within text. This tutorial 
demonstrates how to do this using JavaScript..."
http://www.christopherjason.com/articles/parse-string-javascript/


+09: MISCELLANEOUS.

Conversation With X/HTML 5 Team (Ian Hickson Q and A)
By xhtml.com.
"A new version of HTML is in the works, called X/HTML 5. Vlad Alexander 
from xhtml.com was invited to post a series of questions to the X/HTML 
5 team on their public mailing list. The responses, republished below, 
came from Ian Hickson, editor of the X/HTML 5 specification..."
http://xhtml.com/en/future/conversation-with-x-html-5-team/

Accessibility Videos and Podcasts
By University of Wisconsin Madison.
http://www.doit.wisc.edu/accessibility/video/

Chris Wilson on IE7, Ajax, and Web Standards (podcast)
By Jon Udell.
"Hi, this is Jon Udell. In this first installment of my new Microsoft 
Conversations series I got together with Chris Wilson. He's been 
involved with Internet Explorer and with web standards for over a 
decade..."
https://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=276286


+10: NAVIGATION.

Search Doesn't Compete with Navigation
By James Robertson.
"...Fundamentally, search is great for known item searching, but 
hopeless at unknown item searching. If you don't know what you are 
looking for, you don't know what terms to type into search...you need 
both search and navigation. They both need to be effective. So let's 
bury the hatchet, and get on the with the job of making them work."
http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/archives/002376.html

Link Hide-and-Seek
By Jonathan Nicol.
"An article on the importance of making hyperlinks stand out might seem 
like an exercise in stating the obvious. I would have thought so too, 
until I came across the portfolio site of a reputable web design firm 
last week and found myself playing a game of link hide-and-seek..."
http://f6design.com/journal/2007/02/21/link-hide-and-seek/

Using Icons for Web Site Navigation - a Waste of Time?
By Christian Watson.
"...Given how poorly icons work for most aspects of web site 
navigation, I have to conclude that the cost to develop them is not 
worth it. I'll admit that when well-designed they look nice, but if you 
removed from a site it would be none the worse for it. Valuable design 
time would most likely be better spent elsewhere."
http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/000603.html

The Truth About SEO
By Scott Karp.
"When a controversy foments to the point where both sides are shouting 
at the top of their lungs and can't even hear each other, the truth is 
typically somewhere between the two extremes. Such is the case it seems 
with search engine optimization, or SEO..."
http://publishing2.com/2007/02/08/the-truth-about-seo/

The 3-Click Rule
By Free Usability Advice.
"Is it important that users be able to get to any content in a website 
within 3 clicks?..."
http://freeusabilityadvice.com/archive/35/the-3-click-rule


+11: PHP.

Detailed Guide On Arrays In PHP
By fastcreators.
"Here is yet another article of Fast PHP Articles Series. Today we are 
going to discuss arrays. We will learn its syntax, its different types, 
the different built-in Array functions that help to perform different 
tasks related to Arrays quickly and different practical examples 
explaining the use of Arrays in PHP. By the end of this article you 
should be able to..."
http://tinyurl.com/2hesrg

Introduction to PHP Security
By Leidago.
"Security in a scripting language such as PHP is more 
developer-dependent than language-dependent. In other words, although 
the language offers you the tools to create secure code, it cannot 
prevent insecure code. Thus, the degree to which code is secure almost 
entirely depends on how security conscious a developer is."
http://www.devshed.com/c/a/Security/An-Introduction-to-PHP-Security/


+12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Web Misunderstandards
By Andy Rutledge.
"the Internet can no more offer a tactile experience than a print 
magazine can offer a video on its pages. What that means is that 
designers have to respect the strengths and limitations of the medium 
and work to communicate within the relevant context."
http://www.andyrutledge.com/web-misunderstandards.php

Web Standards: It's About Quality, Not Compliance
By Andy Rutledge.
"In spite of the widespread acceptance of Web standards by a specific 
segment of the design and development community, hosts of professionals 
-those out there right now creating the Web - are working in direct 
opposition to these standards. A significant reason for why this is 
happening and how those not working with Web standards justify their 
activity boils down, I believe, to something regrettably simple: 
nomenclature."
http://www.andyrutledge.com/web-standards.php

Web Standards and Accessibility
Ricky Onsman.
"...And that's why standards and accessibility are so intertwined, and 
always have been, even if the web community is no better at 
understanding the limitations of exploring accessibility through 
disability as everyone else."
http://www.onsman.com/?p=34

Why Microformats?
By Andy Mitchell.
"...Right now, microformats can be used to let users easily extract 
people/event information from your website for their organizer software 
(like Outlook). It also submits your documents into Technorati's new 
microformat search engine. In the near future, microformats will help 
both you and your work be better ranked by conventional search engines 
like Google. They will also make your data accessible to other sites - 
like event organizers - who in turn will promote your site."
http://www.whymicroformats.com/pages/home

Semantics in HTML Part I - Traditional Semantic HTML
By John Allsopp.
"This is the first in a series of articles which aims to survey the 
issue of semantics in current web design and development..."
http://microformatique.com/?p=83

Semantics in HTML Part II - Standardizing Vocabularies
By John Allsopp.
"A few weeks back I posted the first in a series of articles in 
'semantics in HTML', trying to look a little more deeply into what 
semantics in relation to HTML actually means, where we get it from, and 
where it might come from in future. I've just posted Part II, Semantics 
in HTML Part II - standardizing vocabularies, which mostly focuses on 
microformats, and the kind of semantics they bring to HTML, as well as 
the mechanisms microformats use to do this. Hope you might find it 
useful in some way."
http://microformatique.com/?p=97


+13: TOOLS.

FirePHP
By Christoph Dorn.
Firefox extension and PEAR package for debugging PHP apps.
http://www.firephp.org/


+14: TYPOGRAPHY.

The 100 Percent Easy-2-Read Standard
By Information Architects.
"Most websites are crammed with small text that is a pain to read. 
Why?..."
http://www.informationarchitects.jp/100e2r?v=4


+15: USABILITY.

Selection-Dependent Inputs
By Luke Wroblewski.
"As arbitrators of checkout, registration, and data entry, forms are 
often the linchpins of successful Web applications."
http://uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000172.php

Perceptions of Page Loading Speed
By Alastair Campbell.
"...I'd much rather a site seem fast than be fast. Unfortunately, 
little truths like this don't tend to stop the checkbox mentality."
http://alastairc.ac/2007/02/perceptions-of-page-loading-speed/

Does Your Copy Hold Up To A Quick Glance?
By Jessica Neuman Beck.
"It's an all-too-common problem that anyone running a website will 
recognize. Lots of visitors, but no comments. Plenty of page views, but 
no purchases. Whether you're building a reputation, a community, or an 
online business, converting virtual passers-by into readers, 
subscribers, or customers is the most important step you need to 
master-and Digital Web's newest author, Jessica Neuman Beck, is here to 
point you in the right direction..."
http://tinyurl.com/ynmqn9

Balance and Simplicity
By D. Keith Robinson.
"...In today's world where technology, information and complexity (both 
good and bad) play an ever increasing (and often unwanted) role in our 
lives, there is a serious need for balance and simplicity. We have to 
begin to eliminate meaningless and valueless complexity wherever it can 
be found to ensure we can get the most value, meaning (and delight) out 
of our lives."
http://www.blueflavor.com/ed/thinking/balance_and_simplicity.php

Jakob Jumps The Shark
By Peter Merholz.
"...his latest essay, where he claims 'In one example, a state agency 
could get an ROI of 22,000 percent by fixing a basic usability 
problem.' If he hadn't jumped the shark before, he really has now. He 
backs this outrageous claim with a remarkably naive cost-benefit 
analysis, the kind of financial fiddling that no serious finance 
director within any organization would believe. (At Adaptive Path we 
actually conducted research with a range of organizations on how they 
do such math, and these kinds of 
multiplying-lots-of-little-numbers-to-make-a-big-number kind of math 
never holds water.) I wouldn't write about it except that I fear that 
Jakob is turning into a pernicious force when it comes to advancing the 
field of design, because his reach means tens of thousands of people 
are reading this unsubstantiated crap. Such outrageous claims truly 
feel like the wild flailings of increasing irrelevance..."
http://www.peterme.com/?p=520


+16: XML.

XHTML 1.1 Second Edition: Working Draft
By W3C.
"The HTML Working Group released the second edition of XHTML 1.1 - 
Module-based XHTML as a Working Draft in preparation for Proposed 
Edited Recommendation. XHTML 1.1 is a reformulation of XHTML 1.0 Strict 
based on XHTML modules. Not a new version, the second edition 
incorporates all known corrections and adds a new description in XML 
schemas."
http://www.w3.org/TR/2007/WD-xhtml11-20070216/


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+17: 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 at d.umn.edu


[Issue ends.]