+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 4, Issue 02, July 7, 2005. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 02 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: DREAMWEAVER. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: NAVIGATION. 09: PHP. 10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 11: TOOLS. 12: TYPOGRAPHY. 13: USABILITY. 14: XML. SECTION TWO: 15: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Accessible Data Tables By Roger Hudson and Russ Weakley. "At this stage, it appears that id and headers are the most effective way to make complex data tables accessible. Although id and headers are slightly more difficult to code than scope, the apparent poor screen reader support for scope means that this is probably not an effective accessibility option." http://www.usability.com.au/resources/tables.cfm WAI Web Site Redesign Development By Shawn Henry. "The WAI Education and Outreach Working Group (EOWG) is redesigning the WAI Web site following a user-centered design process (UCD)." http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2005AprJun/0501.html Current beta version is at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/ut3/ The Bullhorns and Short-Term Thinking By Mike Davies. "The screen reader developers need to be more involved in the conversation. We web developers need their support and commitment to web standards. Web developers alone cannot deliver on the promise of web standards - we rely on screen reader developers to support those standards too. And we realize that our quality of markup has to improve, and we are reliant on screen reader developers to render that structured markup to the end-user as best they can." http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/access/BullhornsAndShortTermThinking Testing for Accessibility: Techniques, Headaches and The Future By Derek Featherstone. Derek's 'At Media 2005' presentation notes. http://www.boxofchocolates.ca/atmedia2005/ Accessibility: Simple Facts About a Tricky Subject By Joe Clark. "Notes from a presentation given 2005.06.09 at the 'At Media 2005' conference, London." (session 1) http://joeclark.org/atmedia/atmedia-NOTES-1.html 'At Media 2005': Simple facts about accessibility by Joe Clark Report on Joe's presentation by Mike Davies. Mike Davies reports on Joe Clark's 'At Media 2005' presentation. http://tinyurl.com/alf7f Quiz 1.1.5: A picture requires a thousand words By Bob Easton. "How do today's screen readers handle the long description attribute that is associated with the image on this page?" http://tinyurl.com/9hayv Why Accessibility? By Robert Nyman. "Seems like a pretty easy question to answer, doesn't it? Well, it isn't." http://www.robertnyman.com/2005/06/14/why-accessibility/ Screen Reader Users - What Bothers You Most? By Ian Lloyd. "The recently announced WaSP Accessibility Task Force (ATF) needs your help - if you are a screen reader user, be that an every-day user or someone who uses the tool for testing purposes, we want to hear from you...What are your biggest frustrations...What are the biggest problems...What do you find most difficult..." http://tinyurl.com/doyu8 +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Exceptionally Negative By Dan Cederholm. "There are situations when using negative margins on an element can be the easiest way to 'nudge' it out from the rest, treating the exception to the rule in order to simplify code." http://www.simplebits.com/notebook/2005/05/23/negative.html Learn CSS, Selectors By Michael Youssef. "So far in our series covering CSS, we have used only the simplest type of selector. There are many other types of selectors, which give you a lot of power to adjust the styling of your Web documents. In this article, you will learn about the group, universal, class and ID selectors. We have been using the simplest type of selector in CSS, namely the element selector, like p, h4, body and so on, which apply certain style and formatting rules to all occurrences of the element in the document. This is not intuitive. CSS introduces other selector types which we will look at them in this article and the next one. In this article, the fourth in our series, we will discuss the group, universal, class and ID selectors, and in some of the examples we will create an XML file (besides the HTML file) and use CSS with it. So let's begin." http://www.devarticles.com/c/a/Web-Style-Sheets/Learn-CSS-Selectors/ Learn CSS, Selectors, part 2 By Michael Youssef. "In the first article covering selectors, we discussed the CSS group, universal, class and ID selectors. In this article, we continue our discussion of selectors with various attribute selectors." http://tinyurl.com/ahohx Float Minitabs By Alessandro Fulciniti. "The natural follow-up to Inline Minitabs is Float Minitabs. In this article we'll see a variation on minitabs that uses background. Nothing really new: Dan Cederholm, the creator of the original Minitabs, also worked on a Minitabs version with background, but the version I'm going to present is quite different and perhaps some of you could find some useful tips from this entry..." http://web-graphics.com/mtarchive/001573.php Building a Page Template - A Step by Step Tutorial By Russ Weakley. "A quick step-by-step demonstration of how the Web Essentials template was built using CSS. Created for a presentation to students of Blue Mountains College of TAFE." http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/wentworth/ +03: DREAMWEAVER. Customizing and Extending Dreamweaver MX 2004 By Danilo Celic. "Learn how to modify Macromedia Dreamweaver preferences and appearance, as well as how to add new functionality to Dreamweaver so that it works best for you and your projects." http://tinyurl.com/9o9pl Dreamweaver Crashes When Performing a Task Related to Site Definitions By Macromedia. "Dreamweaver TechNote...Dreamweaver crashes when performing a task related to site definitions..." http://tinyurl.com/clzar +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Persona-led Heuristic Inspection is Here By Caroline Jarrett. "...if you need to get a lot of data quickly, then this is one way to get a start on it..." http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article2477.asp Archiving Usability Reports By Jakob Nielsen. "Most usability practitioners don't derive full value from their user tests because they don't systematically archive the reports. An intranet-based usability archive offers four substantial benefits. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20050613.html +05: EVENTS. WebAIM Webcast: Constructing a POUR Web Site July 14, 2005 at 2:00 PM Central Time. "WebAIM is pleased to announce a free, audio Webcast titled, 'Constructing a POUR Web Site (POUR = Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust)' on Thursday, July 14, 2005. Join Paul Bohman, of WebAIM, for this one-hour live event. The topic is on the next generation of Web accessibility work in which principles, rather than techniques, take the center stage. It takes some effort to switch from a techniques-centered mind set to a principle-centered mind set, but the end result is a site that is more usable by people with disabilities and not just "standards-compliant. The Webcast will begin at 1 PM Mountain Daylight Savings Time (12:00 PM Pacific; 2:00 PM Central; 3:00 PM Eastern)...You will be able to tune in to the audio broadcast free of charge beginning 10 minutes before the audio broadcast using either Windows Media Player or Quicktime. The audio broadcast will be simultaneously captioned for the Deaf and hard of hearing and archives will be available shortly after the conclusion of the audio broadcast." http://www.webaim.org/events/2005/pour/ Practical Accessibility in eLearning: Decisions, Dilemmas and Discussions for Educators and Developers August 23, 2005 Dundee, Scotland http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/index.cfm?wpid=4147 WOW Web Design and Project Management Conference September 16-18, 2005 Silicon Valley, California U.S.A. http://www.webprofessionals.org/community/events/websummit1/ +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Getting IA Done: Part I By Joshua Kaufman. "People are crazy about Getting Things Done these days. First there was 43 Folders, then Lifehacker. Now there's To-Done and LifeHack. I thought it was about time information architects had a turn. Let me explain." http://digital-web.com/articles/getting_ia_done_part_1/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. More Ajax Mistakes By Alex Bosworth. "Last Month I posted a list of common Ajax mistakes, I got a lot of feedback on what I left out..." http://sourcelabs.com/ajb/archives/2005/06/more_ajax_mista.html Ajax (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) By Meryl Evans. "You may have been hearing the term 'Ajax' appearing out of the blue. If not the term, you've most likely seen it in action through Google Suggest, Google Maps, Amazon's A9.com search feature and some of the features on Flickr.." http://www.informit.com/guides/content.asp?g=webdesign&seqNum=212&rl=1 Ajax on Rails By Curt Hibbs. "XMLHttpRequest and Ruby on Rails are two hot topics in web development. As you ought to expect by now, they work really well together. Curt Hibbs explains the minimal Ajax you need to know and the minimal Ruby you need to write to Ajax-ify your Rails applications." http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/onlamp/2005/06/09/rails_ajax.html Designing for the Subtlety of Ajax By Jeff Veen. "As I've been incorporating more and more Ajax techniques into the interaction design work I do, I've started to realize the importance of subtle clues to indicate change -- a design challenge I really haven't had to worry about much before." http://www.veen.com/jeff/archives/000739.html Increasing the Strength of Ajax By Eric A. Meyer. "In other words, Web design is going to need to grow up, and become more HCI-oriented than it has been. The usability of a Web site will become as much about how you let the user know they've done something as it is about getting them to the thing they want to do. In addition to getting the page to look inviting and present the information well, it will be necessary to obsess over the small details, implement highlights and animations and pointersÑnot to wow the user, but to help them. " http://tinyurl.com/dwbk8 AJAX: Your Take By D. Keith Robinson. "...Bottom line? AJAX offers us some nice options when it comes to user interface...However, as with any technology it should be used only when itÕs needed. Well, unless you're just messing around with it of course. Start with the problem, then apply the solution and all that..." http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/archives05/2005/07/ajax-your-take +08: NAVIGATION. Using Skip Nav Links By Zoe Gillenwater. "Have you ever been to a web site and noticed a mysterious link at the very top that says "skip navigation" or "skip to main content"? Perhaps not - most web developers don't use skip nav links to improve the accessibility of their pages. Skip nav links, also known as skip navigation or jump to content links, allow many different types of users to get right to the content on your site that they are looking for. This article will explain why you ought to be in the minority of web developers who do include skip nav links in their web pages and how to do it. If you are already committed to creating accessible web pages, read this article to learn about one of your tools to do so." http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=B96B1 +09: PHP. Simple Templating By Dave Shea. "I use a very lightweight Templating system of my own devising on this site that strikes me as something that might be of value to someone, somewhere. No database required, although you could certainly use one in conjunction with this method if you feel so inclined." http://www.mezzoblue.com/archives/2005/06/08/simple_templ/index.php Using the Manual at PHP.net By Jeffery Vaska. "It might seem ridiculous to write about something as simple as how to use the online manual at PHP.net, but for two reasons I believe it's not really so absurd..." http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/vaska20050610.php3 XMLHttpRequest and AJAX for PHP Programmers, Part 1 By James Kassemi. "Although the concept isn't entirely new, XMLHttpRequest technology is implemented on more sites now than ever. Compatibility is no longer an issue (IE, Mozilla and Opera all support it), and the benefits to using it are amazing. There are too many PHP programmers avoiding any work with javascript beyond simple form validation, and for good reason. It's difficult to keep several languages proficiently under your belt. But using the XMLHttpRequest object is not as hard as everybody thinks, and you don't need to buy and memorize another reference manual." http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/kassemi20050606.php3 XMLHttpRequest and AJAX for PHP programmers, Part 2 By James Kassemi. "This week's article takes off where last week's tutorial left off--we're about to jump into the creation of the PHP backend! If you haven't read the previous article, we recommend that you begin there before moving forward so you don't miss anything." http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/kassemi20050613.php3 +10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. WaSP to Collaborate with Microsoft to Promote Web Standards By Molly E. Holzschlag and Microsoft. "The Web Standards Project forms task force to promote industry support for Web Standards; WaSP to collaborate with Microsoft to promote Web standards and help developers build standards conformant Web applications." http://webstandards.org/press/releases/archive/2005/07/05/ 'At Media 2005': Zeldman's keynote Report on Jeffery's presentation by Mike Davies. "I asked the question where we would be in two years: Web standards would be a best practice, like usability. It can and will be used as a competitive advantage, and as a point of difference. There already is an expectation that freelancers understand IA, and clients will expect the incorporation of web standards as a way of doing business. Flash experts will be expected to be conversant with CSS. Gone are the days where Flash was positioned to take over from HTML...Molly affirmed that Dreamweaver will continue its support of standards...On using AJAX to extend browsers, browsers are powerful enough to create desktop-like applications. However we need to be careful not to break with the assumptions of how a web page works when dynamically changing a document. We must be mindful of usability and accessibility, AJAX applications breaking the back button creates the same range of problems as frames...On the Acid 2 test, Molly response by saying its going really well. David Hyatt - working on Safari - has fixed all his bugs. Chris Kaminski reports that Konqueror and iCab pass the test. Opera is making good progress. We don't expect Microsoft to pass this test, since there is so much work to be done... BrowseHappy.com was given away to facilitate working with Microsoft." http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/standards/AtMedia2005ZeldmanKeynote +11: TOOLS. Readability Test By Gez Lemon. "Gunning Fog, Flesch Reading Ease, and Flesch-Kincaid are reading level algorithms that can be helpful in determining how readable your content is. Reading level algorithms only provide a rough guide, as they tend to reward short sentences made up of short words. Whilst they're rough guides, they can give a useful indication as to whether you've pitched your content at the right level for your intended audience." http://juicystudio.com/services/readability.php +12: TYPOGRAPHY. Zoom the Web: The Problem of Giant Fonts By Joe Clark. "Notes from a presentation given 2005.06.09 at the 'At Media 2005' conference, London." (session 2) http://joeclark.org/atmedia/atmedia-NOTES-2.html 'At Media 2005': Zoom the Web by Joe Clark Report on Joe's presentation by Mike Davies. "Joe Clark's session titled Zoom for the Web, subtitled 'The Problem of Giant fonts' takes a look at what we can do to make content accessible to people with visual impairments..." http://www.isolani.co.uk/blog/access/AtMedia2005ZoomTheWebJoeClark Zoom for Low Vision By Gez Lemon. "Joe Clark set everyone who attended this year's 'At Media' conference an assignment to provide an alternative style sheet for people with low vision. This is my attempt..." http://juicystudio.com/article/zoom-low-vision.php Zoom Layout By Doug Bowman. "Another means of giving your visitors control over the content on your website. If a site already takes advantage of CSS for layout, offering a Zoom layout option is trivial. Case in point: While Joe was giving his presentation in London, I thought, 'Implementing a single-column layout with larger sans-serif type isn't rocket science. Why donÕt I already have one? I'll just create one right now.'..." http://www.stopdesign.com/log/2005/06/24/zoom-layout.html +13: USABILITY. When What They See Is What You Get - But Satisficing Isn't Enough By Kath Straub. "This study (and others in the works) clearly demonstrate that presentation design not only can, but does influence respondents' choice behavior. The choice of response format in Web surveys can influence the response distribution. If a respondent is picking a known response from a long list (e.g., their state or salutation title), dropdowns may be fine. However, when the respondent is comparing selection options, hiding data options can shift response patterns. In this case, the behavioral tendency of designers to use dropdowns to save space can be problematic." http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/may05.asp#kath Website Content and Usability By Trenton Moss. "Writing for the web is totally different to writing for printed matter. We tend to scan content on the web hunting for the information we're after, as opposed to reading word-for-word. As a result of this, there are certain guidelines you should be sure to follow when writing copy for your website..." http://tinyurl.com/bb6sw Choosing to Give Choices By Kevin Cheng. "In my mind, when you're faced with a dilemma of how something should be done, 'letting the user choose' is often a cop-out. Giving people the option to do everything is like designing by focus group; you assume people actually know what they want." http://tinyurl.com/8wuak +14: XML. Redefining Tag Soup By Faruk Ates. "Want to do it right? Add the words 'treated as', whenever you say that a valid document with a wrong MIME type 'is tag soup'. They're not tag soup, they came through a validator and if you saved them to your harddrive (as .xhtml in the case of XHTML documents) they would get a proper MIME type when loaded up again and their contents would still be exactly the same." http://annevankesteren.nl/2004/08/tag-soup [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +15: 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.]