[webdev] Web Design Update: April 10, 2010

Sat Apr 10 02:50:30 CDT 2010

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 8, Issue 41, April 10, 2010.

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

++ISSUE 41 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: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: NAVIGATION.
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.

Text Alternatives: WCAG 2.0 for Content Writer
By Rachel McAlpine.
"...Nobody else can write your ALT-text. You're the only one who knows 
why you've added that image, and what information you want it to convey..."
http://tinyurl.com/yfzl3vu

When Should You Provide Transcription?
By Tom Babinszki.
"...I'd like to end this post by stating that I'm not encouraging 
transcription over closed captioning. Both of these are excellent tools 
specifically in terms of accessibility. I nonetheless believe that in 
certain cases, transcription is sufficient, and it can be a more 
affordable option too."
http://www.evengrounds.com/blog/when-should-you-provide-transcription

Word Doesn't Do Section 508, PDF Gets the Blame
By Duff Johnson.
"...The solution? There is no good solution – for now. At the present 
time, Word can't make a Word file that complies with Section 508, 
paragraphs (g) and (h), so don't expect it to make a compliant PDF 
either. Were you hoping that Open Office might do better? Me too. Think 
again; OO 3.1 slavishly follows Word, and includes the exact same 
limitations..."
http://www.appligent.com/talkingpdf-worddoesntdo508

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Deal-Breaker Problems with CSS3 Multi-Columns
By Zoe Gillenwater.
"I've been playing around with the new multi-column properties of CSS3 
(column-count, column-width, and so forth), and I've come to the 
conclusion that they're sadly not ready to really use..."
http://zomigi.com/blog/deal-breaker-problems-with-css3-multi-columns/

Inline-Block vs Float - Thinking Horizontal
By Niels Matthijs.
With display:inline-block finally ready for everyday use across the most 
popular browsers (in all honesty, it has been for a while now), I 
quickly hit a pretty big dilemma. When comparing inline-block to floats, 
it wasn't immediately clear what the exact differences were and what 
method to prefer. I looked online but couldn't find a source listing the 
difference between the two. Guess that's a good reason for keeping a 
blog then.
http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/inline-block-vs-float

Building Sites Without using IDs or Classes
By Harry Roberts.
This morning, for one reason or another, I decided to have a go at 
coding up a page without using any IDs or classes in my markup, and 
therefore none in my CSS. I'm not sure why I tried it, I guess I just 
did...In order to make it a fairly painless job I dove straight into the 
browser and coded up a simple header, footer, two column layout. View 
the demo and be sure to view the source."
http://tinyurl.com/y9yo8pj

Annoying Opera CSS3 Bug - INPUT border-radius
By Anders Tornblad.
When styling form input fields using CSS3, be aware of an annoying bug 
in Opera 10.50 and 10.51. If you add border-radius to an INPUT element, 
and you also hide the default border, Opera forgets to render the 
element's background.
http://tinyurl.com/yl8wgsd

Browser Support Checklist
By findmebyip.
Browser support charts for CSS3 properties and selectors as well as 
HTML5 embedded content  codecs, form inputs, and form attributes.
http://findmebyip.com/litmus

+03: COLOR.

Colour Your Blog to Maximize Readability
By Glenda Watson Hyatt.
"...how do you measure colour contrast? How much contrast is sufficient?..."
http://tinyurl.com/y2oe8dp

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

The Power of Personas
By Charles B. Kreitzberg and Ambrose Little.
"In this installment, we took somewhat detailed tour of personas. First, 
we covered how to make them-the processes and techniques involved in 
developing, validating, and maturing the personas themselves, which has 
a big benefit to the whole team involved in getting a much better 
understanding of whom the solution is being developed for. Then we 
discussed some different uses of personas, how not to use them, as well 
as how to-chiefly to gain empathy to inform what and how you build so 
that it makes sense for your target audience as well as a valuable 
communication tool to keep team members on the same page, speaking the 
same language, and collaborating in terms of people rather than in terms 
of technical or hierarchical terms."
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/dd569755.aspx

Eye Tracking and Web Usability - A Good Fit?
By Nick Gould and Jesse Zolna.
"Since its inception, eye tracking has been employed by cognitive 
scientists to study reading, learning, attention, and neurology; by 
marketers to examine the effectiveness of ad and package designs; and by 
human factors engineers to guide automotive and airplane cockpit design. 
These and other disciplines have had great success leveraging eye 
tracking as a behavioral research method and to inform the design of 
communications and interactions. Recently, as eye tracking technology 
has become more affordable and accessible, academics, research 
suppliers, and eye tracking equipment makers have been experimenting 
with applying eye tracking to behavioral research in new domains..."
http://uxmag.com/technology/eye-tracking-and-web-usability-a-good-fit

+05: EVENTS.

  FutureMidwest
April 16-17, 2010.
Royal Oak, Michigan, U.S.A.
http://www.futuremidwest.com/

2010 UIC Digital Accessibility Expo
April 19, 2010.
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
http://tinyurl.com/yct36t7

+06: JAVASCRIPT.

JavaScript Variable Scope: Local and Global Variables
By Estelle Weyl.
"In writing JavaScript functions, variable functions can trip you up. A 
common error is overwriting a global variable because the variable in a 
function didn't have local scope. If that last sentence didn't make any 
sense, then this article is for you."
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=4E137

John Resig on Advanced Javascript to Improve your Web App
By Keir Whitaker.
"In February 2010 John Resig, the creator and lead developer of the 
jQuery JavaScript library, spoke at the annual Future of Web Apps Miami 
conference..."
http://tinyurl.com/yll9xcn

Eloquent JavaScript
By Marijn Haverbeke.
"Eloquent JavaScript is a digital book providing a comprehensive 
introduction (tutorial) to the JavaScript programming language. Apart 
from a bookful of text, it contains plenty of example programs, and an 
environment to try them out and play with them..."
http://eloquentjavascript.net/

+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

14 Ways to Be the World's Worst Web Project Manager
By Chris Roane.
"There are a great number of ways to manage website projects, but 
regardless of your management style, there are behaviors that you should 
learn to avoid as much as possible. Steering clear of these pitfalls 
will not only allow you to get through projects on time and on budget, 
but will leave a very good impression on your clients, and win you more 
work in the future..."
http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/14-ways-worst-project-manager

An Interview with Andy Budd
By 52WeeksOfUX.
"This weeks post is an interview with Andy Budd, a founding partner and 
Managing Director of Clearleft. He also goes by the title of User 
Experience Director depending what mood he's in. Andy is the founder of 
the dConstruct and UX London conferences and has always had an interest 
in the way design affects human behavior..."
http://tinyurl.com/yyj6ny4

+08: NAVIGATION.

An Ode to Click Here
By Heidi.
"On most web pages, I scan to see
What might be there that interests me.
Click here, Click there...in every link
It's enough to drive me to drink.

"'Click here' doesn't tell me what the linked page is about
And seeing it there makes me want to shout.
Where are you sending me? Why should I go?
My stress is clearly beginning to grow.

"Thank goodness I am not visually impaired
 From the pain you cause, I am thus spared
Since screen readers don't include the context
I would be left completely perplexed.

"They are nothing more than needless words
Feeling the urge to insert them is absolutely absurd
Does telling me to 'click here' really work?
It actually makes me think of you as a jerk!

"I'm really not as dumb as you might think
It's time to stop telling me how to operate links.
So next time you think click here is a 'win'
Please, I beg you, think again!"
http://liveux.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/an-ode-to-click-here/

+09: PHP.

Getting Started with OOP & PHP5: Part 1
By Lorna Jane Mitchell.
"Since the introduction of PHP 5 in 2004, PHP has had an object model 
worthy of that description and became a truly modern language for use on 
the web. Earlier PHP scripts would have been of the kind where, to quote 
from Alice's Adventures, you would 'Begin at the beginning, and go on 
till you come to the end: then stop'."
http://carsonified.com/blog/dev/getting-started-with-oop-php5/

Getting Started with OOP and PHP5: Part 2
By Lorna Jane Mitchell.
"This time around we'll look at some more advanced concepts and some 
more practical examples of building code, covering use of constructors 
and how to add access modifiers in to control how calling code can 
operate on your objects. We'll also show off how to create static 
methods and properties and, perhaps more importantly, illustrate 
applications of these features."
http://carsonified.com/blog/dev/getting-started-with-oop-php5-part-2/

+10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

HTML5 and the Myth of WAI-ARIA Redundance
By Steve Faulkner.
Will HTML5 make the use of WAI-ARIA in HTML redundant? the short answer 
is definitely not. There are many ARIA roles and properties that are not 
provided by native elements and attributes in HTML5.  Also developers 
still  have the desire to roll their own interactive controls  even 
though they have been available in HTML as native elements for 11 years, 
why would this suddenly change when HTML5 arrives?
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=585

Clean Markup Plea
By Anne van Kesteren.
"Yesterday there was some noise surrounding HTML5 and the myth of 
WAI-ARIA redundancy..."
http://annevankesteren.nl/2010/04/clean-markup-plea

HTML5 Details Element, Built-In and Bolt-On Accessibility
By Bruce Lawson.
"Now that the HTML5 spec is settling down, we're seeing a resurgence of 
people attempting to cut good bits out. One of the latest targets is the 
very useful details element..."
http://tinyurl.com/yl39eqt

Your Questions Answered #6
By Richard Clark.
"Doctor treating a patient illustration We're back with another round of 
patient questions about HTML5. In this article, we'll discuss using 
multiple <h1>s, audio codecs, microformats, post bylines, and the <time> 
element..."
http://html5doctor.com/your-questions-answered-6/

+11: TOOLS.

HTML Validator Extension for Google Chrome
By Robert Nyman.
"Validating HTML is very important to ensure maximum web browser and 
operating system compatibility, and making sure it is ready for CSS and 
JavaScript code to interact with it. Therefore, I have created an HTML 
Validator for Google Chrome..."
http://tinyurl.com/yd3t54x

+12: USABILITY.

Natural User Interfaces Are Not Natural
By Don Norman.
"Gestural interaction is the new excitement in the halls of industry. 
Advances in the size, power, and cost of microprocessors, memory, 
cameras, and other sensing devices now make it possible to control by 
wipes and flicks, hand gestures, and body movements..."
http://jnd.org/dn.mss/natural_user_interfaces_are_not_natural.html

The Research-Practice Gap
By Don Norman.
"There is an immense gap between research and practice. There are 
fundamental differences in the knowledge and skill sets required by 
those who conduct the research and those who attempt to translate those 
results into practical, reliable, and affordable form. Between research 
and practice a new, third discipline must be inserted, one that can 
translate between the abstractions of research and the practicalities of 
practice..."
http://jnd.org/dn.mss/the_research-practice_gap_1.html

Horizontal Attention Leans Left
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Web users spend 69% of their time viewing the left half of the page and
30% viewing the right half. A conventional layout is thus more likely to
make sites profitable."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/horizontal-attention.html

[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.

+ SUBSCRIPTION INFO.

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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.]