+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 3, Issue 38, February 23, 2005. 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: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 03: COLOR. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: NAVIGATION. 10: PHP. 11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 12: TOOLS. 13: TYPOGRAPHY. 14: USABILITY. 15: XML. SECTION TWO: 16: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. 2004 Survey on Access Technology in Higher Education Prepared By Terry Thompson "This report gathers and consolidates the practices, experiences, and professional development needs of people supporting assistive technology and information technology accessibility on college campuses." http://staff.washington.edu/tft/athen/index.html Accessibility Features in Adobe Reader 7 By Jon Whiting "Not everyone creates PDF (Portable Document Format) files, but almost everyone who uses the Web has used Adobe Acrobat Reader to read PDFs. Unfortunately, PDF files have not always been as accessible as they are now. In the past, Adobe PDF files could be very inaccessible, especially to people using screen readers. This began to change with Acrobat 5, when Adobe introduced the ability to tag PDF files for accessibility. With the advent of Acrobat Reader 6 (full version), Adobe embedded a scaled-down screen reader into the Reader software itself. Adobe Reader 7 continues to improve the user's accessibility to PDF files by making it much easier to customize user preferences and accessibility settings. This article will provide a step-by-step overview of most prominent accessibility features of Adobe Reader 7." http://www.webaim.org/techniques/acrobat/reader.php Website Accessibility - UK and US Developments By David Naylor "Website owners in the UK and the US now face increased risk of reputational damage and legal liability if they do not address website accessibility issues effectively. With no prescribed standards in place, it would be advisable to attain at least Single-A conformity with the W3C guidelines. In the UK, website owners may face legal action under Part 3 of the DDA and the threat of unlimited compensation payments if they fail to make websites accessible for people with disabilities. In the US, while there is currently less clarity on the extent of disabled usersŐ legal rights, it appears increasingly likely that regulatory authorities and the courts will seek out opportunities to develop and strengthen those rights, and impose more stringent accessibility obligations on website owners. Companies that engage web developers would be well-advised to satisfy themselves that the developers have the experience and skills necessary to ensure that the sites they design meet appropriate levels of accessibility in relevant jurisdictions. In turn, if clients insist on designs that fall below the minimum W3C or other relevant standards, web developers should address this in the development agreement to minimize the risk of liability for failure to meet relevant accessibility requirements. " http://www.mofo.com/news/general.cfm?MCatID=&concentrationID=25&ID=1348 +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Bulleted Lists: Multi-Layered Fudge By Nandini Doreswamy "A passion for web standards can become a broken heart when effects that are easy to achieve with fat, nonsemantic table layouts seem to defy the earnest CSS- and markup-conscious designer. Fortunately, new ALA author Nandini Doreswamy loves a challenge. Here she shows how to create two columns of bulleted lists in the flow of text." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/layeredfudge/ CSS 3 Kick - Automatic Numbering By James Jackson "One of the biggest buzz words for CSS3 is, 'Content'. Dynamic, generated content with CSS. I'm sure at first, many will scoff at the very idea. CSS is meant to stylize content, not create it, right? Well, if thatŐs your viewpoint, then this post is really gonna chap your hide." http://css.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000703032079/ Discussing CSS Management and Optimization By Mike Papageorge "As more large scale sites are migrating towards CSS, it is becoming apparent that the management of complex CSS documents is somewhat of an issue. What follows is the first post in a two post 'series'. Here in the first post we look at some of the ideas being used to manage stylesheets and the results of these tradeoffs. The second post will look at the balances that we can use to keep those results in check." http://tinyurl.com/4orvd Applied CSS Management and Optimization By Mike Papageorge "In Discussing CSS Management and Optimization we looked at some of the methods used to code and manage CSS, and saw that taken together they could result in a lot of code spread across several stylesheets. In this post we will look at some methods for dealing with that extra code and those extra http requests." http://tinyurl.com/4hgr3 Template: CSS By Mediando Communications "Template:css collects many css formatted page templates, developed and distributed by different designers. Our aim is to provide an easy to use, comprehensive repository where people can find what they need. These tools help both experienced professionals, who want to speed up their developing process by using tested templates, and css newbies. CSS templates provide a fully commented page layout, which turns out to be a great learning tool." http://tools.i-use.it/ display: table; By James Jackson "IE doesn't know how to use the, ŇdisplayÓ property to itŐs fullest extent. Sure, you can display: block, display: none, heck, even display: inline, but thatŐsÉ whereÉ itÉ ends. There are almost 20 different types that can be set with the display property, but IE only understands a small handful. Want a full list of what other display types you're missing out on?... I used to get mad at CSS. I used to say, 'You want us to quit using tables, but all you give us is a lot of positioning, floating and a bunch of hacks?' It was frustratingÉ until I realized it wasn't CSS that was holding us back. CSS gave us more than we needed to make the new layout system work. ItŐs not itŐs fault that MSIE refuses to recognize the display: table-cell function." http://css.weblogsinc.com/entry/1234000150032270/ +03: COLOR. Understanding Color and Accessibility By Thom Haslam "We all know that color can make or break a site. But beyond eye candy appeal, color choices also impact usability and accessibility. Even if it looks great at a glance, the color scheme doesn't work if many visitors can't easily find crucial information, use whatever services are offered, and effectively navigate the site. This could be up to 1 in 12 people, roughly 8% of the site's audience. Fear not. We don't need to use only boring colors or limit our designs to imitations of Jakob Nielsen's UseIt. Once the problem is better defined, talented designers can come up with their creative solutions. So with that goal in mind, let's review the research on color and accessibilityŃfrom theory and practice to testing and solutions." http://evolt.org/article/rdf/4090/60472/index.html +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Using Eye-tracking Data to Understand First Impressions of a Website By M. Russell "This study discusses the contributions of eye-tracking data to traditional usability test measures for first-time usage of websites. Participants viewed the homepages of three different websites. Results showed that eye-movement data supplemented what users verbally reported in their reactions to a site. In particular, the eye-tracking data revealed which aspects of the website received more visual attention and in what order they were viewed." http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/71/usability_news.html Attentional Spotlighting in User Interfaces By Mike Rundle This article discusses some interesting theories about eyetracking usability tests. http://tinyurl.com/6s8fk Seven Common Usability Testing Mistakes By Jared M. Spool "What's the easiest way to conduct a usability test? Well, you could just sit a person down (it doesn't matter who) in front of your design and ask them to do something (it doesn't matter what). If this is so easy, why does a standard usability test contain all that other rigmarole? Because that rigmarole goes a long way to ensure that the test will produce quality results." http://tinyurl.com/5k99z +05: EVENTS. PHP Tropics 2005 May 11-15, 2005 Cancun, Mexico http://phparch.com/tropics/ Computing, Communications and Control Technologies (CCCT '05) The 3rd International Conference July 24-27, 2005 Austin, Texas U.S.A. http://www.iiisconfer.org/ccct05/website/default.asp +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Information Architecture as an Extension of Web Design By Joshua Kaufman "Both information architects and Web designers can be too presumptuous about what the other does. They're continually putting each other into little boxes, trying to define each otherŐs role..." http://digital-web.com/articles/ia_as_an_extension_of_web_design/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. Unobtrusive Javascript By Christian Heilmann "On the following pages we will discuss and see how we can use Javascript, but still maintain accessibility. The technique to completely separate Javascript from the other two layers of web development has become commonly named "unobtrusive Javascript", as "accessible Javascript" does not quite cut it. You can have a perfectly separated Javascript and still be totally inaccessible." http://www.onlinetools.org/articles/unobtrusivejavascript/index.html Debugging in Javascript By Chris Root "Despite its widespread use, there is little support for debugging in Javascript. When scripts get complicated, the debugging process can cause even the most patient programmer to pull out their hair in frustration. Chris Root offers several tools and techniques that just might keep you from going prematurely bald during the debugging process." http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/JavaScript/Debugging-in-Javascript/ JavaScript Triggers - wrapping it up By Peter-Paul Koch "My JavaScript triggers article and J. David Eisenberg's accompanying Validating a Custom DTD article, have caused quite a few comments, both on and off the ALA forums. Some of these comments are interesting enough to repeat and to discuss further in a rather long entry. First I'd like to clear up two misunderstandings..." http://tinyurl.com/6q84h +08: MISCELLANEOUS. How to Manage Smart People By Scott Berkun "After spending nine years at Microsoft managing some of the smartest people in the world, Scott has a few tips to share on the art of managing the best." http://www.changethis.com/13.SmartPeople Information Technology (IT) is From Mars; Web Content is from Venus By Gerry McGovern "The information technology (IT) industry fundamentally doesn't understand the true value of web content. This lack of understanding is just one more reason why IT will continue to decline in influence over the next five years." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2005/nt_2005_02_21_IT.htm +09: NAVIGATION. Why Search Engine Marketing Has A Passion for Web Site Usability By Kim Krause Berg "Believe it or not, search engines and user centered web design have a common goal. They want to provide the best experience for their web site visitor. Even better, they want that experience to be productive, satisfying and memorable." http://www.usabilityeffect.com/article_whyseouse.html +10: PHP. Conflict PHP By Ian Felton "Why is PHP become more like Java, when the PHP developer community seems to want anything but that to happen? What is Zend thinking?" http://www.devshed.com/c/a/PHP/Conflict-PHP/ +11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Usability and Standards - Who Cares? By Stephanie Sullivan "...why confuse them (clients) with lingo that only people in the business care about? Show them the benefits, especially the ways they'll save money, and you're that much closer to landing that account for your company." http://www.communitymx.com/blog/index.cfm?newsid=399 +12: TOOLS. Colour Contrast Analyser 0.9 By National Information and Library Service (NILS) Here is a tool for checking foreground and background color combinations to determine if they provide good colour visibility. Determining color visibility is based on algorithms suggested by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C): "Two colours are considered to provide good colour visibility if the brightness difference and the colour difference between the two colours are greater than a set range." The range suggested by the W3C is > 125 for colour brightness and > 500 for colour difference. http://www.nils.org.au/ais/web/resources/contrast_analyser/index.html +13: TYPOGRAPHY. Screenfont.ca By Joe Clark, Antonio Cavedoni, Kris Thivessen and Anne van Kesteren. "Screenfont.ca is part of an upcoming project to research and develop a set of standards for captioning, audio description, subtitling, and dubbing." http://screenfont.ca/ +14: USABILITY. Reading Online Text with a Poor Layout: Is Performance Worse? By Barbara S. Chaparro, A. Dawn Shaikh, and J. Ryan Baker "This study examined the effects of enhanced layout (headers, indentation, and figure placement) on reading performance, comprehension, and satisfaction. Participants read text passages with and without enhanced layout. Results showed that reading speed and comprehension were not affected by layout, however, participants were more satisfied with the enhanced layout and reported it to be less fatiguing to read." http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/71/page_setting.html +15: XML. Top 10 XForms Engines By Micah Dubinko "In my book XForms Essentials, I originally intended to include some information on running XForms engines. It turned out that progress on XForms technology was happening so rapidly anything in print would have been quickly outdated. An online approach seemed more sensible..." http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2005/02/09/xforms.html Fight over 'forms' clouds future of Net applications By Paul Festa "As Net heavyweights vie to define the next generation of Web applications, the Web's main standards body is facing a revolt within its own ranks over electronic forms, a cornerstone of interactive documents." http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5581106.html?tag=st.num [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +16: 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). As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) guidelines. Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier. For TEN guideline information please visit: http://www.headstar.com/ten + 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@d.umn.edu [Issue ends.]