[webdev] Web Design Update: July 7, 2007

Sat Jul 7 05:22:55 CDT 2007

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 02, July 7, 2007.

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

++ISSUE 01 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: EVENTS.
05: JAVASCRIPT.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: PHP.
08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
09: TOOLS.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Improving Accessibility for Motor Impaired Users
By Trenton Moss.
"The unique requirements for motor impaired web users can often be 
overlooked or poorly implemented. Motor impairments can be caused by a 
stroke, Parkinson's disease, Multiple Sclerosis (MS), a physical 
disability or even a broken arm. This group of users essentially have 
limited or no ability to use a mouse."
http://tinyurl.com/ywasx3

Jaws, Window Eyes, Parallels, and Boot Camp
By Jared Smith.
"Screen readers and my HP laptop have never been friends. JAWS causes 
major stability issues. Window Eyes stutters a lot. Now that I have an 
Intel-based Mac with Parallels and Boot Camp for running Windows, I 
have found the perfect screen reader testing system. Parallels is a 
program that allows Windows to run within a window under OSX. Boot Camp 
allows you to boot into Windows on a Mac computer. Both of these 
applications work with Intel-based Macs only and support the most 
popular screen readers - JAWS and Window Eyes. Below are a few tips to 
ensure they install and function well..."
http://webaim.org/blog/2007/06/29/screenreaders_on_mac/

London 2012 Olympics Branding Film Causes Epileptic Seizures
By Roger Johansson.
"One thing to keep in mind when introducing any kind of flashing on the 
Web is the possibility of it causing seizures in people who have 
photosensitive epilepsy. It's one of the basics of Web accessibility, 
and the fact that flashing or strobing can trigger epileptic seizures 
is widely known even among people who do not work in the field of 
accessibility..."
http://tinyurl.com/2zoukc

Web Accessibility Guidelines Update
By Shawn Henry.
Shawn's presentation at Yahoo is available on video.
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?ei=UTF-8&b=0&vid=677211&gid=133414

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

CSS: Using Percentages in Background-Image
By Alex Walker.
"...I thought I'd share some of my research on CSS background images..."
http://tinyurl.com/yt7eqt

+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Dreamweaver CS3 CSS Templates
By Meryl Evans.
"Dreamweaver CS3 adds pre-designed CSS layouts with inline comments to 
help you understand the CSS. If you start with a blank page using HTML, 
you have a choice of over 30 templates -- all based on CSS. The 
templates range in the number of columns and can be liquid (site adapts 
to browser window size), fixed/absolute (does not resize), elastic 
(changes based on text size, not browser window size), and hybrid 
(combo of any other options)..."
http://tinyurl.com/2rrcrb

+04: EVENTS.

Zend PHP Conference
October 8-11, 2007.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://www.zendcon.com/

+05: JAVASCRIPT.

Drag and Drop
By Peter-Paul Koch.
"Here's a simple accessible drag and drop script. It works with both 
mouse and keyboard."
http://www.quirksmode.org/js/dragdrop.html

Shortening JavaScripts with Math
By Christian Heilmann.
I just went through an exercise for a DOM scripting course with the YUI 
and had the task to write a function that takes any element and centers 
it at the current cursor position. I also wanted to make sure that the 
displayed object never causes scrollbars or gets cut off when the 
cursor is too high up the document..."
http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=461

+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Websites: Designed by Dogs, Managed by Cats
By Gerry McGovern.
"A key danger in website design is over-ambition. We need to design a 
website we can professionally manage."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2007/nt-2007-07-02-dogs.htm

Let There be Web Divisions
By Jeffery Zeldman.
"We are still crunching numbers on the Web Design Survey-with over 
32,000 responses to 36 questions, there's a lot to crunch. But in one 
area, preliminary data supports what anecdotal experience led us to 
expect: almost no one who makes websites works in their company or 
organization's web division. That's because almost no company or 
organization has a web division. And that void on the org chart is one 
reason we have so many bloated, unusable failures where we should be 
producing great user experiences. Ponder. No matter how critical the 
web experience may be to the organization's mission, the people who 
design and build those mission-critical sites work in divisions that 
have nothing to do with the web, and report to leaders whose expertise 
is unrelated to web design and development. It's a startling fact with 
profound implications-and as such has gone unnoticed by the business 
community and press..."
http://www.zeldman.com/2007/07/02/let-there-be-web-divisions/

+07: PHP.

AJAX and PHP Part 2 - XML Communication/Processing
By Jon Campbell.
"AJAX and PHP 5 both have powerful features for processing and using an 
XML document. XML is a method of formatting data often for 
communication purposes between different computer systems. In this 
article, we will show you how to access an XML document with AJAX!..."
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/jon_campbell_20070627.php3

+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Web Standards for Skeptics
By Michael Montgomery.
Slides from Michael RefreshMiami presentation.
http://webstandardsforskeptics.com/refreshmiami_16may07.html

+09: TOOLS.

iPhoney
By marketcircle.
"Looking for a way to see how your web creations will look on iPhone? 
Look no further. iPhoney gives you a pixel-accurate web browsing 
environment-powered by Safari-that you can use when developing web 
sites for iPhone. It's the perfect 320 by 480-pixel canvas for your 
iPhone development. And it's free...Mac OS X 10.4.7 or later..."
http://www.marketcircle.com/iphoney/

Optimizing Web Applications and Content for iPhone
By Apple.
"The following guidelines will help you prepare web content and design 
a website or web-based application for iPhone. If you are a seasoned 
web developer, there are probably just a few refinements you can make 
to ensure that your site looks great and works best on iPhone. You'll 
need to read only those guidelines that are unique to iPhone. If you 
are fairly new to web development, you'll want to make sure that you 
understand web standards and established web design best practices 
before following any iPhone-specific guidelines..."
http://developer.apple.com/iphone/designingcontent.html

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+10: 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.]