[webdev] Web Design Update: May 29, 2008

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Thu May 29 15:34:22 CDT 2008 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 49, May 29, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 49 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: EVENTS.
05: FLASH.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: NAVIGATION.
08: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Web Accessibility - The Power of Five
By E-Access Bulletin Live.
A study completed by the Society of IT Management (Socitm) cites the 
five most common web accessibility errors, which reportedly make up 76 
percent of all website accessibility failures. 1.) no alternative text 
for images; 2.) inappropriate use of JavaScript; 3.) errors in simple 
data tables; 4.) errors in complex data tables; 5). use of features 
with a lack of accessible alternatives.
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=183


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

How to Create Alternating Background Colors in Table Rows with CSS
By Virginia DeBolt.
"In larger tables it is often an aid to reading to have alternating 
background colors for every other row in the table. It can help readers 
follow lines across the table. It is easy to implement with CSS. Here 
is how."
http://www.ehow.com/how_2281410_colors-table-rows-with-css.html

How to Create a Run-in Heading with CSS
By Virginia DeBolt.
"If you want to create an appearance where the heading at the beginning 
of a paragraph appears to run into the paragraph--it is possible with 
CSS."
http://www.ehow.com/how_2280932_runin-heading-using-css.html

How to Reduce Classitis in HTML with CSS Descendant Selectors
By Virginia DeBolt.
"Have you heard of classitis? Beginning CSS designers quickly master 
the ability to create dozens of classes in a CSS stylesheet and to 
apply them liberally to their HTML documents. Most of these classes are 
unnecessary and merely clutter up the code and add to the document 
size. A bigger document size translates to a slower download and 
increased bandwidth expenses. Cluttered code afflicted with classitis 
is not good for business; it's not the best practice and it doesn't 
help achieve the accessibility goal of separating content from 
presentation. Here is how to reduce classitis using CSS."
http://tinyurl.com/3v5j3r

How to Left, Right, and Center Align with CSS
By Virginia DeBolt.
"Instead of using HTML alignment attributes with the HTML tags that 
markup text, the best practice for web designers is to move the 
presentation (alignment options) information to the stylesheet. This 
article will explain how to align text and how to center larger page 
elements such as divs."
http://www.ehow.com/how_2284643_left-right-center-align-css.html


+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Introducing Dreamweaver CS4 Beta
By Scott Fegette.
"Find out what's in store for the next version of Dreamweaver..."
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/logged_in/sfegette_dwcs4_beta.html

Dreamweaver CS4 Public Beta: What's New?
By Sheri German.
"It's here - the public beta of Adobe Dreamweaver CS4 is available for 
immediate download at Adobe Labs. This week Community MX will help you 
sort out the major new features of the upcoming version of the best web 
authoring tool on the planet. Today you'll get a sneak peek at some of 
the new CSS tools and features."
http://www.communitymx.com/abstract.cfm?cid=6D4C1


+04: EVENTS.

Voices That Matter
June 11, 2008.
Nashville, Tennessee, U.S.A.
http://www.voicesthatmatter.com/webdesign2008/index.aspx

Hot and Spicy Style with CSS with Molly Holzschlag
August 16-17, 2008.
Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S.A.
http://www.outreach.hawaii.edu/pnm/programs/2008/EVENT-L09669.asp


+05: FLASH.

Accessibility.active Put to Good Use
By Andrew Kirkpatrick.
"Steve Faulkner wrote a good post at The Paciello Group's blog on 
screen reader detection. His points are all quite fair and it is worth 
noting that what the Flash Player does is detect the presence of a 
running MSAA client, which is broader than screen readers. This 
technique shouldn't be entirely discounted, however, for certain kinds 
of use that take advantage of the facts, which are that all 
Flash-reading screen readers will cause the player to set the 
Accessibility.active property to true, and that there are few MSAA 
clients that are likely to be running, although some are likely to be 
non-screen reader assistive technologies..."
http://tinyurl.com/3mzexv


+06: JAVASCRIPT.

Updated WAI-ARIA Editors' Drafts Now Publicly Available
By Shawn Henry.
"Previously WAI's Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 
documents were periodically published as a Public Working Drafts, and 
the in-progress "Editors' Drafts" were available only to W3C members. 
As of today, the Editors' Drafts are available publicly, so that anyone 
can follow how issues are being addressed in the developing WAI-ARIA 
documents."
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2008AprJun/0087.html

Durable Objects
By Douglas Crockford.
"Cooperating applications, such as mashups, must be able to exchange 
objects with robust interfaces. An object must be able to encapsulate 
its state such that the state can be modified only as permitted by its 
own methods. JavaScript's objects are soft and currently the language 
does not include any means to harden them, so an attacker can easily 
access the fields directly and replace the methods with his own. 
Fortunately, JavaScript provides the means to construct durable objects 
that can perfectly guard their state by using a variation of the Module 
Pattern.
http://yuiblog.com/blog/2008/05/24/durable-objects/

Ajax Accessibility
By John Resig.
"A common concern of most Ajax applications has been around their 
resulting accessibility. While, arguably, it's possible to design some 
form of a usable web page without the use of JavaScript it should be 
possible - with the additional scripting information - to provide a 
better experience to users. It's at this point that the ARIA 
specification comes into play. A large set of interaction is defined 
within it which is able to help web applications communicate directly 
to a screen reader in an effective manner. To get a feel for what this 
interaction looks like, take the example of ARIA Live Regions (more 
info). With this functionality it would be possible to keep a 
live-updated list of users and allow the screen reader to keep 
up-to-date."
http://ejohn.org/blog/ajax-accessibility/


+07: NAVIGATION.

How to Evaluate Your Website's Keyword Density
By Virginia DeBolt.
"Using keywords on a web page helps the search engines understand what 
your pages are about and helps people who are searching for your 
information find you with a search. Using good keywords is one of the 
cardinal principles of search engine optimization. This article 
explains an online tool that will help you analyze keyword density."
http://www.ehow.com/how_2279660_evaluate-sites-keyword-density.html

Web Semantics and Search
By Mike Cherim.
"Semantics, schemantics, right? If that's your view, you might want to 
start questioning it now. The importance of web semantics may be on the 
rise. Semantics is meaning. On the web semantic HTML conveys this 
meaning to the user and his or her user agent. It lends itself to web 
accessibility, and the clear content organization is extraordinarily 
helpful to being properly indexed by search engines. Someday this fact 
may be more important than ever thanks to an interesting new approach 
to search..."
http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=226


+08: USABILITY.

OK-Cancel or Cancel-OK?
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Should the OK button come before or after the Cancel button? Following 
platform conventions is more important than suboptimizing an individual 
dialog box."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/ok-cancel.html

Interactive is a Meaningless Word
By Gerry McGovern.
"Making your websites more interactive is a meaningless strategy. Make 
your website more useful instead."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-05-26-interactive.htm


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+09: 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.]

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