+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 2, Issue 38, March 12, 2004. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 38 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: DREAMWEAVER. 05: EVALUATION & TESTING. 06: EVENTS. 07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 08: NAVIGATION. 09: PHP. 10: TOOLS. 11: TYPOGRAPHY. 12: USABILITY. 13: XML. SECTION TWO: 14: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Online Learning Management Systems: Accessibility Of Tools For Synchronous Communication By Dagmar Amtmann, Debbie Cook, Kurt Johnson "Guidelines are available for developing accessible learning applications to aid those who develop online learning tools (IMS guidelines, 2001). However, the guidelines do not necessarily help educators and policy makers understand the experiences of users with disabilities and evaluate accessibility of different tools. The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief overview of the issues selected tools present to users with disabilities..." http://www.csun.edu/cod/conf/2003/proceedings/168.htm Web Accessibility - Captioning with MAGpie 2 By The University of Wisconsin-Madison "MAGpie creates files that can be payed back as captions in the three major online video players: QuickTime, Windows Media, and Real. MAGpie is a free tool available for download from the National Center for Accessible Media's website...At the end of this tutorial you will be able to produce a captioned video in all three major formats..." http://streaming.wisconsin.edu/magpie_tutorial/index.html +02: BOOKS. Cederholm, Dan. Web Standards Solutions: The Markup and Style, Apress, 2004. +03: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS Design: Creating Custom Corners Borders Part II By Soren Madsen "Part I showed how to create fluid, dynamic CSS layouts with customized borders and corners. Part II advances to the next level, extending the technique to work with more complicated backgrounds such as gradients and patterns." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/customcorners2/ CSS Your Way to Learner Control By Thomas Welsh and Fred Condo "How do you create a single Webpage that's completely standards-based and allows complete learner control over what they view and how they view it? Cascading Style sheets, of course. Learn how cascading style sheets can empower both training developers and learners." http://www.learningcircuits.org/2004/feb2004/welsh.htm Positioning and the Cascade By Dave Shea "Two quick CSS tricks that I've been relying on more and more lately..." http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2004/03/04/positioning_/index.php CSS Sprites: Image Slicing's Kiss of Death By Dave Shea "Say goodbye to old-school slicing and dicing when creating image maps, buttons, and navigation menus. Instead, say hello to a deceptively simple yet powerful sprite-based CSS solution..." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sprites/ Zebra Tables By David F. Miller "While misused tables are becoming increasingly rare, the table retains a legitimate role in data formatting. A little CSS and JavaScript magic can make tables better at what they do best: displaying tabular data..." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/zebratables/ RE: compliance 'scorecard'? By Eric A. Meyer Eric explains why browser support charts are so tricky. http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2004Mar/0022.html +04: DREAMWEAVER. Dreamweaver MX: Advanced PHP Web Development By Bruno Mairlot et al. "This is an excerpt from the Introduction and Chapter 1 of 'Dreamweaver MX: Advanced PHP Web Development'...It introduces the book and its contents, and then in Chapter 1, gives you a basic primer on PHP syntax." http://www.glasshaus.com/samplechapters/1191/default.asp +05: EVALUATION & TESTING. A Response to Nielsen's The Risk of Quantitative Studies By Jeff Sauro "The discerning usability analyst should employ a mix of both qualitative and quantitative methods when discovering usability problems. The risks of relying heavily on a qualitative approach can lead to a severe misdiagnosis especially when usability problems are difficult to..." http://www.measuringusability.com/qualitative_risks.htm You Don't Need to Test a lot of Users to Obtain Meaningful Data: More Than 5 but Less Than Hundreds By Jeff Sauro Part1: Calculating Sample Size for Task Completion (Discrete-Binary Method) http://www.measuringusability.com/sample.htm Part 2: Calculating Sample Size for Task Times (Continuous Method) http://www.measuringusability.com/sample_continuous.htm The Importance of Task Order Randomizing during a Usability Test By Jeff Sauro "The order in which a task is administered during a usability test can have an effect on the user's performance especially as measured by task time. By randomizing task order the effects of this lurking variable can be mitigated." http://www.measuringusability.com/random.htm 13 common objections against user requirements analysis, and why you should not believe them By Sim D'Hertefelt http://www.interactionarchitect.com/articles/article20000609b.htm +06: EVENTS. User Experience Week 2004 August 16-20, 2004. Washington, D.C. U.S.A. http://www.adaptivepath.com/events/2004/wdc/ +07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. IA Summit 2004 Presentation Handouts Handouts from the Fifth Annual ASIS&T Information Architecture Summit: Breaking New Ground. http://www.iasummit.org/conference.html +08: NAVIGATION. Intranet search reports By James Robertson "Search engine reports are one of the most effective tools for gathering user information and improving an intranet." http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/cmb_searchreports/index.html How to make links work for your website By Gerry McGovern "Quality links from external websites will help get more of the right people to your website. Well written links within your website will ensure your readers can act in a way you want them to. Linking is about driving action. It is about getting the right people to the right content as quickly as possible." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2004/nt_2004_03_08_links.htm +09: PHP. Do You PHP? By Rasmus Lerdorf "PHP's creator offers his thoughts on the PHP phenomenon, what has shaped and motivated the language, and where the PHP movement is heading." http://otn.oracle.com/pub/articles/php_experts/rasmus_php.html Notes on PHP Session Security By Harry Fuecks http://www.sitepoint.com/blog-post-view.php?id=156260 +10: TOOLS. Cascade DTP By Price Media This is a free windows CSS web page editing tool that uses absolute positioning. http://www.price-media.demon.co.uk/cascade.html +11: TYPOGRAPHY. Code Style font sampler By Code Style This is "a reference point to the most common fonts available on Web users' computers. Select your platform to try the samples and participate in the font survey." http://www.codestyle.org/css/font-family/ +12: USABILITY. 10 new ways to speed up download time By Trenton Moss "Stop people waiting for your pages! This article presents some old tricks and some new ones too, many CSS-related. See how many you already know and learn something new!..." http://evolt.org/article/rdf/20/60294/index.html An introduction to personas and how to create them By Tina Calabria "Creating personas is an effective way to understand the needs of your users, prioritize features and functionality, and direct the design of your intranet or website." http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_personas/index.html +13: XML. XML Basics Part 3: An Example of Well-Formed and Valid XML By P.G. Daly "If you've been following along with Part I and Part II of XML Basics, you're ready for Part III, where you put the pieces together and experiment with hands-on with XML." http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200402/ij_02_10_04a.html [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +14: 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) 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.]