+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 2, Issue 23, November 28, 2003. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 23 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: EVALUATION & TESTING. 04: EVENTS. 05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 06: JAVASCRIPT. 07: NAVIGATION. 08: PHP. 09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 10: TOOLS. 11: USABILITY. 12: XML. SECTION TWO: 13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Make HTML pages created from MS Word more accessible By Jim Byrne "Many HTML pages are still being created using Words in-built 'Export to HTML' function, so in this weeks tip I explore some simple ways to make the resulting web pages a little more accessible (than they would otherwise be). Using Word to create HTML pages is not ideal, as the program has a tendency to add a lot of extra 'junk' to the resulting markup; the extra markup is used to try to make the Web page look similar to the original Word document..." http://www.mcu.org.uk/show.php?contentid=72 +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Advanced CSS Ornamentation By Literary Moose "This article is focused on techniques exploring the potential for web page decoration. To this end, I advocate the widespread use of generated content - in my opinion the strongest and most precise tool for controlling the display where the accessible, semantic, and pure markup leaves little room for maneuverability. The most advanced techniques rely on the browser's ability to apply generated content in the form of pseudo-elements, then to apply generated content for an arbitrary element, and finally to control its flow and positioning." http://nemesis1.f2o.org/articles CSS Rounded Tabs with Submenus By Jemima Pereira http://www.ficml.org/jemimap/style/tabs/tab1.php CSS Beginner's Guide By html dog http://www.htmldog.com/guides/cssbeginner/ CSS Intermediate Guide By html dog http://www.htmldog.com/guides/cssintermediate/ CSS Advanced Guide By html dog http://www.htmldog.com/guides/cssadvanced/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Two Sigma: Usability and Six Sigma Quality Assurance By Jakob Nielsen "On average across many test tasks, users fail 35% of the time when using websites. This is 100,000 times worse than six sigma's requirement, but Web usability can still benefit from a six sigma quality approach." http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20031124.html +04: EVENTS. Practical CSS Page Layout December 12, 2004 Sydney, Australia http://www.westciv.com/courses/workshops/ CUMREC May 16-19, 2004 The University of Texas at Austin Austin, Texas, U.S.A. http://www.cumrec.org/cumrec2004/ EDUCAUSE 2004 October 19-22, 2004 Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. http://www.educause.edu/conference/annual/2004/ +05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. The CAA: A Wicked Good Design Technique By Jared M. Spool "CAA (Category Agreement Analysis), like its big brother, card sorting, helps determine what the top-level categories for a site should be. Also like card sorting, CAA tells us what category structure is most natural to users." http://www.uieroadshow.com/articles/caa.html +06: JAVASCRIPT. JavaScript Image Replacement By Christian Heilmann "By using JavaScript, we have an opportunity none of these solutions give us: the markup can be plain vanilla XHTML, with no need for any special IDs or CSS tricks in it." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/javascriptreplacement/ Why ALA's "JavaScript Image Replacement" Sucks By Peter-Paul Koch Over on A List Apart Christian Heilmann butchers my ideas. It hurts, so I struck back. http://www.quirksmode.org/oddsandends/again_fir.html +07: NAVIGATION. Top Five Search Engine Optimization Myths By Shari Thurow "Strategies for ranking well in "natural," or "organic," search engine listings are quite different from those used in paid search engine advertising. Search engine optimization (SEO) specifically concerns natural search results..." http://www.clickz.com/search/results/article.php/3110091 +08: PHP. On User-Defined Timezones in PHP By David Whittington and Luke Ehresman "PHP provides some nice date manipulation functions that work very well in combination with each other. However, they only handle dealing with the server's timezone. Adding the feature for shifting dates to a user-defined timezone can be a very unpleasant..." http://phpbuilder.com/columns/ehresman20030911.php3 +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Retooling Slashdot with Web Standards By Daniel M. Frommel "In this article we will show how an engine overhaul could take place by converting a single Slashdot page from their current HTML 3.2 code, nested tables, and invalid, nonsemantic markup, to a finely tuned web standards racing engine. The goal is not to change Slashdot, but to rebuild it with web standards and show the benefits of the transition." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/slashdot/ +10: TOOLS. Color contrast verification tool By Hewlett-Packard "To evaluate the color contrast characteristics of your desired colors, try out this tool." http://h10014.www1.hp.com/accessibility/color_tool.html Through the eye of a Mac browser By Daniel Vine "Preview your site in Safari" For those of you Mac-less, here is a new site that will take a screen shot for you using Safari in OSX. It is free. http://www.danvine.com/capture/ +11: USABILITY. Don't force new windows on users By Jesper Tverskov http://www.smackthemouse.com/20030831 Big Three Automakers in Online Slow Lane By Andy King this article examines Ford, GM, and Chrysler's web sites. It turns out that performance may be in the cars and trucks, but it is certainly not in their web sites. http://www.optimizationweek.com/reviews/automakers/ Website Redesign - a Case Study By Gerry Gaffney and Philipp Pagendarm "This document describes the redesign process for the Information & Design website." http://tinyurl.com/wmmr +12: XML. News feeds explained By Matthom http://www.matthom.com/index.php?cp=archive/current#110503_01 Explanation of RSS, How You Can Use it, and Finding RSS Feeds By faganfinder.com "This page is about using RSS, from a non-technical standpoint." http://www.faganfinder.com/search/rss.shtml [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. WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription only. 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) STANDARD. As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) Standard. Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier. For TEN Standard information please visit: http://www.headstar.com/ten + SIGNATURE. Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN 55812-3009 mailto:lcarlson@d.umn.edu [Issue ends.]