+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 4, Issue 12, September 15, 2005. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 12 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: FLASH. 07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 08: JAVASCRIPT. 09: MISCELLANEOUS. 10: PHP. 11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 12: TOOLS. 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. Accessibility and the Value of User Testing By Tina Holmboe. "This article will attempt to sort out some of the issues regarding two fundamentally different methods of evaluating accessibility: automated assessments and user testing. It will also debunk two common myths regarding the former method, and clarify some issues normally overlooked in regard to the latter." http://www.greytower.co.uk/archive/articles/user-testing.html Quiz 5.2.13: Speaking Form Labels By Bob Easton. "Handling form labels has been on one of my back burners for a long time. This week, both Shannon and Becky found an anomaly based on a suggestion in the WCAG 2.0 CSS guide, item 5.5. There, it shows several examples of coding form labels which are hidden from visual display..." http://www.access-matters.com/2005/08/12/quiz-5213-speaking-form-labels/ Braille Displays and Web Forms By David Poehlman. Regarding WAI 10.4: default, place-holding characters in edit boxes and text areas David says, "Yes, filled edit boxes are still necessary because many users are running combinations of technologies that will not provide an indication which is not there. A space simply will not work either because it shows up as nothing much the same as nothing in the field at all." http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2005JulSep/0148.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS Hack By css-discuss Wiki. Links to detailed discussions of many hacks and their possible shortcomings http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=CssHack To Hack Or Not To Hack By css-discuss Wiki. "The topic of whether or not to use CSS hacks is often hotly debated, and could be thought of as a Holy War. Since Holy Wars are by their nature long winded and boring let's keep this one tucked away on its own page where it won't bother anyone who doesn't want to be bothered." http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=ToHackOrNotToHack Good CSS Hack By css-discuss Wiki. This document outlines some qualities of a 'good' CSS hack. http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=GoodCSSHack Avoiding Hacks By css-discuss Wiki. This document suggests workaround methods that avoid true hacks. http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=AvoidingHacks CSS Hacks and Server-Side Code By Stuart Langridge. "Scott Isaacs, one of the Microsoft web chaps, is complaining about CSS hacks. His proposed solution is to, instead of applying CSS hacks to make a browser do what you want, instead have details of the users browser inserted into the HTML element either by server-side or client-side script. So, if you visit a page using IE6.0, it would add class="ie m6 d0 win" to the HTML element; using Firefox 1.06 on Linux it would add class="firefox m1 d06 linux", and so on. Then, in your stylesheet, use these hooks to apply style for specific browsers. I think that this is not a good idea, and hereŐs why." http://www.kryogenix.org/days/2005/08/24/serverside +03: DREAMWEAVER. Latest Macromedia Studio May Not Merit an Upgrade By Dennis O'Reilly. "Macromedia has overhauled its Studio 8 Web suite, but many of the changes are outside the individual applications. Overall, the $999 suite features tighter integration. If you work primarily in just one of the suite's big-name programs (Dreamweaver 8, Flash Professional 8, or Fireworks 8), however, you'll likely find few reasons to upgrade from Studio MX 2004." http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,122262,pg,1,00.asp XML Overview By Marius Zaharia. "Prepare yourself for the new XML and XSL features and tools in Dreamweaver 8." http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/xml_overview.html +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Persona Sketching By D. Keith Robinson. "This is something I wrote a few years back, in September 2003 to be exact. I recently had a lengthy discussion with a few folks about the use of personas in design and figured it was worth republishing. The value of personas in Web design is certainly debatable, but I've found them very useful, if for nothing else then using them to help pull your clients and stakeholders into a discussion about the people what interact with your designs. As well, they can be use for many other things aside from informing Web design and can be a great way to pull business and user goals together. So, to the post..." http://www.7nights.com/asterisk/archives05/2005/08/persona-sketching Persona Non Grata By Dan Saffer. Ever since Alan Cooper's 1999 book The Inmates are Running The Asylum was published, everyone is mad for personas. They've permeated the highest and deepest levels of organizations, and have become a standard interaction design tool. Whole projects are now built around creating them, and there's a feeling that once you get a half dozen or so, your design problems will be solved. Presumably, your personas solve them for you." http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000524.php +05: EVENTS. Macromedia MAX 2005 October 16-19, 2005. Anaheim, California, U.S.A. http://www.macromedia.com/macromedia/events/max/ World Usability Day World Wide Event November 3, 2005. http://worldusabilityday.net/ +06: FLASH. Validity, Accessibility, Flash: Choose Two By Matt May. If you're a Flash developer, and are using the accessibility features of the authoring tool to make your Flash objects directly accessible, you'd probably like to be sure that users of the supported browsers and screen readers can use those features. But common techniques for embedding Flash while still using valid HTML, which is not as easy as it seems, appear to cause trouble when it comes to reaching those users. http://www.accessify.com/2005/08/validity-accessibility-flash-choose.asp +07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Getting IA Done, Part II By Joshua Kaufman. "Back in June, I presented my best advice in Getting IA Done, Part I. At the end of the article, I asked Digital Web Magazine readers to send me their favorite tips to publish in Part II. I've included most of the submissions in this column. A big thanks goes out to everyone who sent me ideasŃyou make this column Information Architecture for the People." http://www.digital-web.com/articles/getting_ia_done_part_ii/ +08: JAVASCRIPT. AJAX and JavaScript - Because You Should, Not Because You Can Garrett Dimon. "Every time I hear someone talking about AJAX, I get a little concerned. I haven't written much about it here because of the fact that I wanted it to mature a little before jumping on board. It's matured enough, and now I'll chime in with my two cents. As soon as I hear the word AJAX, a particular quote from Jurassic Park flashes through my head. "They were so busy worrying about whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." http://tinyurl.com/bcuhw Remote Scripting with AJAX, Part 1 By Cameron Adams. "In this two-part series, Cameron Adams demonstrates the advantages of using remote scripting with the AJAX XMLHttpRequest protocol to create web apps and improve website functionality. Here in part one, he creates an example application that shows how to implement XMLHttpRequest. Stay tuned for part two next week, where he'll show how to create a usable interface for the example app." http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2005/08/19/ajax.html?CMP=OTC-TY3388567169 Remote Scripting with AJAX, Part 2 By Cameron Adams. "In part one of this two-part series, Cameron Adams created an example application that showed how to use remote scripting to implement the AJAX XMLHttpRequest protocol. Now, in part two, he shows how to create a usable interface for the example app." http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2005/08/22/ajax.html?CMP=OTC-TY3388567169 State of Ajax: Progress, Challenges, and Implications for SOAs By Dion Hinchcliffe. "A lot of bits have been pushed around the blogosphere on the topic of Ajax over the last few months..." http://hinchcliffe.org/archive/2005/08/18/1675.aspx The JavaScript Diaries: Part 8 By Lee Underwood. "In this installment we look at the methods that are associated with the window object and how they work. Until now, we've been learning how to build the framework of our scripts but now we'll start to see things happen! Using these methods you'll learn how to implement JavaScript in your Web sites." http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/diaries/8/ +09: MISCELLANEOUS. Web Applications: A Team Effort By Cody Lindley. "This article considers building the 'ideal' web team, explaining both the archetypal roles needed and the requisite people that can best fill those roles. In a future column, I will discuss some of the fundamental processes that help take a web project successfully from planning to launch." http://www.designinflight.com/05July/web_applications_a_team_effort.html +10: PHP. Is the Web's Love Affair With PHP Over? By Gavin Clarke. "If Evans Data Corp (EDC) is to believed, then some big names in enterprise systems have been rash in their support for open source scripting language PHP. This last eight months saw Intel, SAP, Oracle and IBM all support PHP, with investments or product backing through partnerships with PHP king Zend Technologies. However, EDC's survey has found PHP, along with scripting cousins Perl and Python, is seeing drastically reduced adoption among developers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Use of PHP has dropped by a quarter in EMEA during the last 12 months to just under 28 per cent while 40 per cent of developers said they have no plans to evaluate or use PHP." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/08/04/php_evans/ Are There Enough Bodies to Satisfy PHP's Love Affair By John Lim. "...PHP will continue to be popular with startups, and small and medium sized companies. But in the corporate world, I think growth will be slower." http://phplens.com/phpeverywhere/?q=node/view/211 The Voice of Reason in PHP By John Lim. "Here's one good reason why I still put my faith in PHP. As a developer with over a million lines of PHP code to maintain, I don't want the headache of keeping up to date with the latest gee-whiz features that break backward compatibility. PHP5 is great because by sticking to a few simple rules, I have code that runs well on both PHP4 and 5. Rasmus Lerdorf was brainstorming the other day and suggested some wholesale changes for PHP6. I presume the post was just to test the waters, but I was frightened to see so many of the brilliant programmers (who design and develop PHP internals) were keen on breaking backward compatibility. Fortunately, I found the biggest voice of reason was Zeev Suraski..." http://phplens.com/phpeverywhere/?q=node/view/212 Writing 'Learning PHP 5' By David Sklar. "Developers often write open source software in public, but what about developers who write about open source software? Do they build tools? How do your favorite books come about? David Sklar explains how he wrote Learning PHP 5." http://tinyurl.com/drsdp +11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Comments to U.S. Copyright Office By Holly Marie Koltz. "Yesterday, Tim Berners Lee (W3C) hand and web delivered formal comments, World Wide Web Consortium Comments on Copyright Office Proposal to Use Single-Vendor Web Service to the United States Copyright Office regarding the proposed pre-registration system." http://www.webstandards.org/buzz/archive/2005_08.html#a000547 +12: TOOLS. Selector Builder Preview Version By Daniel Glazman. "I am releasing a v0.1 standalone version of the CSS3 Selector builder through Disruptive Innovations. It's available here and it allows you to write a CSS3 selector in a human-friendly way. Warnings: 1.) Tristan Nitot reported problems using Deer Park; please use Firefox 1.0.6. 2.) The code is not free, and you're not allowed to copy the code elsewhere w/o prior written authorization. 3.) Yes, I know, some CSS3 simple selectors are missing. 4.) There's no sanity control on the textboxes. Enjoy." http://tinyurl.com/9455f +13: USABILITY. Much Ado About Sex and Web Sites...Or Why It's Still Important to Know Who Your Users Are By Kath Straub. Kath Straub looks at recent research on the effect of designer gender on Web site design. http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/aug05.asp#kath Labeling Buttons Garrett Dimon. "ItŐs a very minor and subtle change, but itŐs a good example of being careful when labeling buttons. Different words can have very subtle implications that could cause confusion or hesitation. Usability is about making sure that your application does what your users expect it to do. When your button tells them exactly whatŐs going on, it helps set that expectation clearly and succinctly." http://tinyurl.com/c7982 Programmers are People, Too By Ken Arnold. "Programming language and API designers can learn a lot from the field of human-factors design." http://acmqueue.com/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=317 Quality, Not Quantity: Delivering Value From Web Content By Gerry McGovern. "Maintaining the quality of your content is critical to the long term success of your website. That involves establishing rigorous pre and post publication editorial processes." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2005/nt-2005-08-22-quality-content.htm +14: XML. A Really, Really, Really Good Introduction to XML By Tom Myer. This is a excerpt from By Tom Myer's new book "No Nonsense XML Web Development with PHP". "In this chapter, we'll cover the basics of XML - essentially, most of the information you'll need to know to get a handle on this exciting technology. After we're done exploring some terminology and examples, we'll jump right in and start working with XML documents. Then, we'll spend some time starting the project we'll develop through the course of this book: building an XML-powered content management system..." http://www.sitepoint.com/article/really-good-introduction-xml [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.]