[webdev] Web Design Update: September 3, 2009

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 8, Issue 10, September 3, 2009.

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

++ISSUE 10 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: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: PHP.
10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
11: TOOLS.
12: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Evaluating Cognitive Web Accessibility
By WebAIM.
"Overview and checklist for ensuring accessibility of web content to 
users with cognitive or learning disabilities."
http://webaim.org/articles/evaluatingcognitive/

Internet Captioning and HR 3101
By Joe Santini.
"The impact of limited captioning on the internet and the importance of 
H.R. 3101 is discussed in this vlog..." Out of the nearly 18,000 Apple 
videos, 150 have captions. Out of their 200,000 educational media, 78 
are captioned.
http://signcasts.com/node/232

New York A.G. Announces Comprehensive Web Access Settlement
By Lainey Feingold.
"Congratulations to New York State Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo's 
office for its announcement this week of a comprehensive accessibility 
settlement with HSBC Card Services..."
http://lflegal.com/2009/09/ny-ag-press/

WCAG 2.0 Part of New York State AG Settlement Agreement
By Ken Nakata.
"...I'll try to provide some legal context for background reading and 
give my take in an FAQ format..."
http://www.accessibilitywatch.com/?p=186

Using Opera 10 With the Mac Screen Reader VoiceOver
By Henny Swan.
"Support for the Mac native screen reader VoiceOver was added to Opera 
in version 9.5. This is a quick overview explaining what you can access 
using VoiceOver with Opera. I'm hoping it will be of use to people with 
screen readers and developers debugging content alike..."
http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/show.dml/4291972


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

The Big CSS3 Validation Debate
By Chris.
"Over the past few weeks I've received a number of emails from visitors 
to CSS3.info regarding CSS3 validation errors when using vendor 
specific extensions, for example -moz, -webkit, to implement CSS3 in 
their websites..."
http://www.css3.info/the-big-css3-validation-debate/

Backgrounds In CSS: Everything You Need To Know
By Michael Martin.
"...We'll show some common tricks that can be done with the background 
as well as what's in store for backgrounds in CSS 3 (including four new 
background properties..."
http://tinyurl.com/lu36m9

Opera 10 Unleashed, Brings Web Fonts and Transparency to the Table
By David Storey.
"...Web Fonts allow the author of a Web page to link to a font file on 
a server, rather than just the users local machine..."
http://tinyurl.com/kla74t

Seven Web Fonts Showcases
By Chris Mills et al.
"As we were coming up with web standards examples to highlight the 
standards support in our Opera 10 final release, we realized that we 
were all very excited about CSS 3 Web Fonts, possibly above any other 
feature..."
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/seven-web-fonts-showcases/


+03: COLOR.

Color in Opera 10 - HSL, RGB and Alpha Transparency
By Molly E. Holzschlag.
"...Intelligent use of the RGB and HSL color models will allow clever 
designers to overlap colors and even images, gaining powerful control 
over managing color and working with it to create a variety of 
imaginative designs. I hope this article has helped you to understand 
how these color models work, and inspired you towards better web 
design."
http://tinyurl.com/nbodos


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Ultimate Usability Testing Toolkit
By Chas Grundy.
"I've written and spoken on website usability testing plenty of times. 
But recently, our team at Notre Dame has begun to seriously investigate 
other methods, tools, and concepts to improve every part of our 
projects..."
http://grundyhome.com/2009/08/29/ultimate-usability-testing-toolkit/


+05: EVENTS.

7th International Conference on Scalable Vector Graphics
October 2-4 2009.
Mountain View, California, U.S.A.
https://www.svgopen.org/2009/

Closing the Gap - Changing lives with assistive technology
October 15-17, 2009.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.
http://www.closingthegap.com/conference/

Zend PHP Conference 2009
October 19-22, 2009.
San Jose, California, U.S.A.
http://zendcon.com/


+06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Card Sorting: Pushing Users Beyond Terminology Matches
By Jakob Nielsen.
"It's easy to bias study participants, whether in user testing or in 
card sorting, if they focus on matching stimulus words instead of 
working on the underlying problem."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/word-matching.html


+07: JAVASCRIPT.

Accessibility in Web 2.0 Technology
By Jie Hu et al.
"Accessibility has become a hot topic as increased awareness and 
growing requirements demand that applications take into account the 
needs of all potential users. Accessibility covers not only the Web 
application, but document, desktop application and hardware, and so on. 
In the Web application domain, making static Web pages accessible is 
relatively easy. But for Web 2.0 technology, dynamic content and fancy 
visual effects can make accessibility testing very difficult. This 
article introduces the WAI-ARIA standard, which is designed to make 
future Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (Ajax) widgets accessible. The 
article also covers accessibility principles in Web 2.0 design and 
provides several code samples to get you started..."
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-aj-web20/index.html

WAI-ARIA  Finally Added to HTML5
By Joshue O Connor.
"WAI-ARIA is an incredibly powerful technology that allows developers 
to easily describe the purpose, state etc or other functionality of 
visually rich user interfaces - in a way that can be understood by 
Assistive Technology..."
http://www.cfit.ie/news-and-commentary-archive/96-wai-aria-in-html5

Accessibility/ARIA Conflicts With Native Markup
By Mozilla.
"The page is designed to extend section 3.2 "Conflicts between native 
markup semantics and ARIA" of the ARIA implementation guide to get rid 
of possible multiple treatments of the specification..."
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Accessibility/ARIAConflictsWithNativeMarkup


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

When Online Is Better Than Face-To-Face
By Gerry McGovern.
"There is an assumption that a face-to-face interaction delivers a 
better result than a 'cold' online interaction. But that is not always 
the case."
http://tinyurl.com/nz3rzz


+09: PHP.

Tutorial - PHP and MySQL
By etutorials.
This online tutorial on PHP and MySQL for beginners offers 10 eChapters 
on topics from an introduction to PHP through arrays and files to 
building databases with MySQL. The final chapter provides a3-tiered Web 
application.
http://etutorials.org/Programming/PHP+MYSQL.+Programming+for+beginners


+10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Loving HTML5
By Jeffery Zeldman.
"Half of standards making is minutia; the other half is politics. 
Rightly or wrongly, I've long suspected that Atom was born, not of 
necessity, but because of conflicts between the XML crowd and the 
founders of RSS. Likewise, rightly or wrongly, I reckoned HTML5 was at 
least partly Hixie's revenge against XHTML served as text/html..."
http://www.zeldman.com/2009/08/31/loving-html5/

Super Friends Guide to HTML5 Hiccups
By HTML5 Super Friends.
"HTML5 is the next generation of web markup, and the first web markup 
language created in the era of web applications. While we view many 
aspects of it quite favorably, we believe the specification could 
benefit from a few changes and clarifications, outlined below..."
http://www.zeldman.com/superfriends/guide/

The HTML5 Semantics Debate
By Joshua Allen.
"...I predict that the techniques for expressing semantics will become 
more diverse, not simpler."
http://visitmix.com/Opinions/The-HTML5-Semantics-Debate

HTML 5 and Me
By Jeremy Keith.
"...my own little list of things that are troubling 
me...small...time...figure...details...article...footer..."
http://adactio.com/journal/1604/

HTML 5 is No Flash or Silverlight Killer - Yet
By Scott Gilbertson.
"...HTML 5 is a nice dream, but the practical realities of web 
development mean that the dream faces a serious struggle becoming a 
reality. And, even if it does end up winning, it isn't likely to happen 
any time soon..."
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/28/html_5_dream/

Get Ready for HTML 5
By J. David Eisenberg.
"Ready or not, here it comes. Despite the confusion surrounding its 
evolution, real-world HTML 5 is right around the corner. Longtime ALA 
contributor J. David Eisenberg returns to get us all up to speed on the 
markup we're about to be writing.
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/get-ready-for-html-5/

Demo of Deep Hyperlinking into HTML5 Video
By Silvia Pfeiffer.
"In an effort to give a demo of some of the W3C Media Fragment WG 
specification capabilities, I implemented a HTML5 page with a video 
element that reacts to fragment offset changes to the URL bar and the 
<video> element..."
http://tinyurl.com/ndjao2

Nine Into Five
By Eric A. Meyer.
"Like so many others, I had tried to dig into the meat of HTML5 and 
figure out just what the heck was going on. Like so many others, I had 
come away with my head reeling from the massive length and depth of the 
often-changing specification, unsure of the real meaning of much of 
what I had read. And like so many others, I had gone to read the 
commentary surrounding HTML5 and come away deeply dispirited by the 
confusion, cross-claims, and rancor I found..."
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2009/09/02/nine-into-five/

Polyglot Validation
By Sam Ruby.
"At the moment Henri is a bit firefox-focused, but I'll volunteer to 
help to the extent that I can, with one key proviso, namely that the 
'super friends' produce concrete test cases for what they want flagged. 
The test cases I have in mind should be very simple to write: a 10 to 
30 line HTML document which demonstrates the condition to be flagged, 
and the text of an even-toned message to be produced..."
http://intertwingly.net/blog/2009/09/02/Polyglot-Validation

This Week in HTML 5 - Episode 34
By Mark Pilgrim.
"In last week's episode, I mentioned that the HTML 5 specification now 
includes a media registration for text/html. Ian Hickson explains why 
HTML 5 re-registers text/html..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/this-week-in-html-5-episode-34

This Millennium in HTML 5 (Politics)
By Bruce Lawson.
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2009/this-millenium-in-html-5-politics/


+11: TOOLS.

vldtr
By Jeroen Kruis.
"vldtr validates your entire website. Html and xhtml pages, css files, 
rss and atom feeds. All validation is done using W3C validators."
http://vldtr.com

TextWrangler
By Barebones.
New textwrangler released.
http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/download.html


+12: USABILITY.

Dial Up and Accessibility
By Roger Hudson.
"...Economics and geography are probably two main reasons why internet 
users are unable to enjoy the benefits of high speed internet 
connection. And, people with disabilities, as well as many living in 
rural Australia, are among those in our community with the least 
disposable income..."
http://www.dingoaccess.com/accessibility/dial-up-and-accessibility/

Time on Site Stays the Same, Regardless of Slower Pages
By Peter Van Dijck.
"What happens to user behavior when we tweak the site to be slower in 
various degrees for them?..."
http://tinyurl.com/nd2p9j

Drag and Drop It Like It's Hot
By Ron Norman.
"This may be another case of the web world catching up with the desktop 
world, in terms of interaction, but Drag and Drop interfaces are 
another UI trend that's starting to popup in a lot of places.  While it 
can be useful for customization, the interaction can sometimes feel a 
little clunky.  There's also the problem of calling out the 
interaction? i.e. letting the user know that they can drag an item, and 
where it can be dropped.  There's good patterns and bad patterns."
http://uitrends.com/2009/08/28/drag-and-drop-it-like-its-hot/

Inline Validation in Web Forms
By Luke Wroblewski.
"Web forms don't have to be irritating, and your inline validation 
choices don't have to be based on wild guesses. In his examination of 
inline form validation options, Luke Wroblewski offers that rarest of 
beasts: actual data about which things make people smile and which make 
them want to stab your website with a fork..."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/inline-validation-in-web-forms/

(Almost) Never add a Reset Button to a Form
By Roger Johansson.
There was a time when many, many, forms on the web had a reset button. 
Thankfully, reset buttons are not quite as common these days, but there 
are enough of them out there to cause users lots of frustration.
http://tinyurl.com/m9h3tb

Get Your Head Out of The Tag Clouds
By Jeff Noble.
"Just like real clouds, tag clouds make it rain, but with information 
and none of that dangerous lightning stuff."
http://uitrends.com/2009/08/31/get-your-head-out-of-the-tag-clouds/

The Seven Sins of Usability
By Neil Walker.
" Inconsistent and confusing site navigation...Difficult to scan 
content...Misidentified and unidentified links...Too much industry 
jargon...Hidden or absent contact information...Not allowing user 
browser control...Content that looks like advertising..."
http://tinyurl.com/lafolg


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+13: 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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+ TEXT EMAIL NEWSLETTER (TEN).

As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the 
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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.]