[webdev] Web Design Update: August 28, 2008

Thu Aug 28 06:27:07 CDT 2008

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 7, Issue 09, August 28, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 09 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: BOOKS.
03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
04: JAVASCRIPT.
05: MISCELLANEOUS.
06: NAVIGATION.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
08: TOOLS.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Firefox and OS X's VoiceOver ... Reading the Magic 8 Ball
By Aaron Leventhal.
"Macs are quickly gaining popularity - they simply rock for mainstream 
users. Macs continue to make inroads for people with disabilities as 
well, via Apple's proprietary built-in tools such as VoiceOver. 
However, while Firefox has recently made amazing strides on the Mac, 
Apple's assistive technology tools are not compatible with it. Firefox 
users with disabilities are simply not included in the OS X party...."
http://tinyurl.com/5wrns3

Target and NFB Final Settlement
http://www.nfbtargetlawsuit.com/final_settlement.htm

NFB and Target Settle - $6 Million in Damages
By Jim Thatcher.
"...In my non-legal opinion, the Judge said that the ADA applied to 
Target.com (to the extent that the web site related to Target's bricks 
and mortar stores) and, most importantly, that the California 
anti-discrimination law (referred to as the Unruh Act) applied to 
Target. Whereas the ADA does not provide for damages, the Unruh Act 
does. Note that it doesn't make any difference where a U.S. company is 
located in applying the California law; the issue is whether or not 
there is discrimination against a California resident. The fact that 
Judge Patel said that the case would move forward meant that the issue 
of whether or not the web site discriminated against people who are 
blind would have to be settled in court and I think that is not where 
Target wanted to be."
http://www.jimthatcher.com/news.htm#nfbtarget

Target Lawsuit Settled
By Jared Smith.
"...While this is a great victory for the NFB and the claimants, I 
think the majority of the accessibility community was hoping for some 
long-awaited case law that might better define the relationship of the 
Internet and the Americans with Disabilities Act. While there have been 
many lawsuits claiming discrimination under the ADA because of 
inaccessible web sites, there is virtually no case law that clarifies 
that the ADA applies to web sites. This settlement clearly provides no 
additional insight into this matter..."
http://webaim.org/blog/target-lawsuit-settled/

+02: Books.

Sullivan, Stephanie and Rewis, Greg. Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver 
CS3, New Riders Press, 2008.

+03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

CSS Sprites2 - It's JavaScript Time
By Dave Shea.
"In 2004, Dave Shea took the CSS rollover where it had never gone 
before. Now he takes it further still-with a little help from jQuery. 
Say hello to hover animations that respond to a user's behavior in ways 
standards-based sites never could before..."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sprites2

The CSS3 :not() selector
By Kilian Valkhof.
"There isn't a lot of information to be found about the :not() 
selector. The specifications only offer 3 lines of text and a couple of 
examples. So lets see what it can do..."
http://kilianvalkhof.com/2008/css-xhtml/the-css3-not-selector/

+04: JAVASCRIPT.

Debugging JavaScript: Throw Away Your Alerts!
By James Edwards.
"One JavaScript statement that rarely surfaces in the wild is throw(). 
The throw statement allows you to throw a formal error - sending 
details of the error to the browser's error console - and halting 
further execution of the script."
http://tinyurl.com/6rpyc7

+05: MISCELLANEOUS.

Molly E. Holzschlag: 'Web Standards Is A Goal' Interview
By Design Interviews.
"Molly E. Holzschlag has been named one of the Top 25 Most Influential 
Women on the Web. She is one of the most enthusiastic Web standards 
advocate, instructor, and author. Molly is Group Lead for the Web 
Standards Project (WaSP), an invited expert to the HTML and GEO working 
groups at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), and an author of more 
than 30 web design and development related books."
http://tinyurl.com/6lt52n

+06: NAVIGATION.

Web Site Navigation Design Showcase
By Christian Watson.
"Just a quick note to say that I've gathered together a navigation 
design showcase with 70+ examples...."
http://www.smileycat.com/miaow/archives/001303.php

+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Best Practices in Web Development: Part 1
By Joe Dolson.
"This is the beginning of a five-part series highlighting the entire 
process of developing web sites for clients..."
http://tinyurl.com/5tgmeo

An Event Apart: Notes
By Luke Wroblewski.
"I spoke at and attended two iterations of Eric Meyer and Jeffrey 
Zeldman's An Event Apart this year. Here's a compilation of the notes I 
took..."
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?721

+08: TOOLS.

HTML 5, a New Step
By Karl Dubost.
"We are happy to announce that W3C has integrated a version of HTML 5 
conformance checker into a beta instance of the W3C Markup validator."
http://www.w3.org/QA/2008/08/html5-validator-beta.html

[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.

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+ 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.]