+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 13, September 20, 2007.

An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development.

++ISSUE 13 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: EVENTS.
04: MISCELLANEOUS.
05: NAVIGATION.
06: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
07: TYPOGRAPHY.

SECTION TWO:
08: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Working with Legacy Websites
By Joe Dolson.
"This is a task which comes up over and over again for many developers. There are a lot of jobs in maintaining web sites. Our work doesn't always come with the dream experience of a brand-new web site. Even if a new web site is a major goal, there will inevitably be large quantities of legacy content which will need to be worked into the new accessible design. Working on legacy web sites can pose a number of subtle challenges..."
http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2007/09/working-with-legacy-websites/

How to Make Your Blog Accessible to Blind Readers
By American Foundation for the Blind.
"So you have a blog, and you're worried that it might not be accessible to people with disabilities? Don't worry! A few simple changes can increase your blog's potential readership."
http://www.afb.org/Section.asp?SectionID=57&TopicID=167&DocumentID=2757

The longdesc Lottery
By Mark Pilgrim.
"...I'm not saying there isn't a real problem to be solved here. There is. People can publish complex images that require complex text alternatives. Charts, graphs, detailed photographs. Whatever. 'A picture is worth 1000 words,' and all that. The longdesc attribute is, theoretically, a solution to this problem. But that doesn't mean it's a good solution, and it's certainly not the only solution. We've been living with longdesc for 10 years now, and let me tell you, it's not working out..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/the-longdesc-lottery

The longdesc Lottery Comment
By Steve Faulkner.
"While I agree that the longdesc attribute has not been successful in providing a solution to the problem, it has been removed from the draft spec without the spec providing an alternative mechanism. In the spec it is not acknowledged that there is a real problem to be solved. It should at least be stated in the spec that there is a need for a mechanism to explicitly associate an extended description of an image. whether that be the longdesc or some other mechanism is open for debate..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/the-longdesc-lottery#comment-8912

Parroting Pareto
By Jeremy Keith.
"...I'm concerned by Mark Pilgrim's dismissal of the longdesc attribute. It's a well-reasoned dismissal founded almost entirely on existing behavior: most people aren't publishing images using longdesc, therefore it should be dropped. Similar research has been used to justify the non-requirement of the alt attribute and, God help us all, the reintroduction of the font element. It's all very well-reasoned and logical. It's also, in my opinion, wrong. We know that most Web pages are crapÑSturgeon's Law is a relative of the Pareto principle. If existing behavior is given such importance in the development of HTML5, then the format will only end up codifying what most people are publishing: crap, in other words. The longdesc situation is a classic case in point. Here's an attribute that is actually supported in assistive technology; an unusual situation, given Freedom Scientific's usual glacial pace. That's not the problem. The problem is that not many people are implementing longdesc. The solution is either: 1. educate publishers or 2. provide an alternative and lobby screen-reader manufacturers to implement it..."
http://adactio.com/journal/1343


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

CSS: Flashy Links
By Mike Cherim.
"This Flashy Links experiment takes some of the effects of Flash Ñ put in a GIF animation Ñ and combines them with CSS for better accessibility. And more purity for those who deem that important..."
http://mikecherim.com/gbcms_xml/news_page.php?id=25

Using Persistent Styles with Multiple Style Sheets
By Alejandro Gervasio.
"Welcome to the second tutorial of the series that began with "Working with Multiple Style Sheets." As the title suggests, this instructive series shows you how to use several style sheets attached to a given web document, and provides examples of the most common cases, ranging from working with alternate style sheets to using persistent style sheets..."
http://tinyurl.com/yp2jjs


+03: EVENTS.

Computer, Information, and Systems Sciences, and Engineering (CISSE 2007)
December 3-12, 2007.
International Conference held entirely on-line.
http://www.cisse2007online.org/


+04: MISCELLANEOUS.

How to be an Empathic Web Designer
By Joshua Porter.
"Part of being a web designer is trying to understand and make sense of how people are using your design. Therefore, being empathic, or having the ability to share and understand the feelings of another, is a valuable trait to have. The more empathic you are, the more you can understand how people are using your design, how they think and feel about it, and what you need to do to make it great. But how do you become empathic? What if you're not naturally an empathic person? Here are a few things I try to keep in mind when I feel like I'm getting too far away from the people I design for..."
http://bokardo.com/archives/how-to-be-an-empathic-web-designer/

Contract Killers
By Andy Budd.
"It's the sticky moment in any negotiation with a potential new 
client?no matter how great your proposal, you're still going to 
have to deliver The Quote. But how do you arrive at that magic 
figure, taking into account the unpredictability of developing for 
the next generation of the web? Andy Budd, no stranger to client 
work, takes a look at a new way to cost out your projects."
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/contract_killers/

Listen to Me!: Interview with Eric Meyer (Podcast)
By Tommy Olsson and Sara Smith.
"This summer I got an offer I couldn't refuse: would I like to co-host an interview with Eric Meyer? You bet I do! It was Sara Smith who asked me to help her with a pod cast interview with Eric Meyer for
Search-This..."
http://www.autisticcuckoo.net/archive.php?id=2007/09/18/listen-to-me


+05: NAVIGATION.

Tabs, Used Right
By Jakob Nielsen.
"13 design guidelines for tab controls are all followed by Yahoo Finance, but usability suffers somewhat due to AJAX overkill and difficult customization."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/tabs.html

Click Here Links
By Free Usability Advice.
"Question: My company's site has links that say Òclick hereÓ or Òclick here for more infoÓ. I think our links should be more specific, but other people here say it's OK because they see it on other websites. What do you think?..."
http://freeusabilityadvice.com/archive/43/click-here-links


+06: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Feedback on Accessibility Concerns in HTML5
By Cathrine Roy.
"In an effort to get some user feedback and to jump start discussions in the French community concerning what has been proposed by HTML5 with regards to accessibility, namely the alt, longdesc and headers attributes, I started a thread over at the French mailing list Accessiweb a few days ago...This is obviously not a scientific survey (nor a scientific report) but an attempt to get user feedback and to get discussions started in my community about what is being proposed for accessibility and what the impact may be on users. However, I hope it can be of use to this group and to the issues at large."
http://www.catherine-roy.net/html5_feedback.html

W3C GRDDL Recommendation Bridges HTML/Microformats and the Semantic Web
By Robin Cover.
"The World Wide Web Consortium has announced the publication of Gleaning Resource Descriptions from Dialects of Languages (GRDDL) as a W3C Recommendation, together with a separate GRDDL Test Cases Recommendation. The GRDDL specification represents "an important link between Semantic Web and microformats communities. With GRDDL (pronounced 'griddle'), software can automatically extract information from structured Web pages to make it part of the Semantic Web. Those accustomed to expressing structured data with microformats in XHTML can thus increase the value of their existing data by porting it to the Semantic Web, at very low cost..."
http://xml.coverpages.org/ni2007-09-13-a.html


+07: TYPOGRAPHY.

Teach a Man to Fish (or How to Resize Text)
By Ian Lloyd.
"My esteemed colleague Patrick Lauke is a firm believer in not providing widgets on individual web pages to do things such as resizing text on a page - on the basis that it's site-specific and doesn't teach the user how to change the font size for other web sites that don't provide these controls. This issue pops up time and time again, and it has done again on another forum where the phrase Ôteach a man to fish' has appeared once more. It got me thinking, maybe it would be best to show the user how to change the font size rather than simply describe it. With that in mind, I put together some video clips, joined them together in iMovie and did a voice-over to explain how it's possible. Here's the end result..."
http://tinyurl.com/yns4x6


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+08: 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.]