+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 6, Issue 42, April 11, 2008. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 42 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 05: JAVASCRIPT. 06: MISCELLANEOUS. 07: NAVIGATION. 08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 09: TYPOGRAPHY. 10: USABILITY. 11: XML. SECTION TWO: 12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Refreshed Accessibility Standards and Guidelines in Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology By Advisory Committee to the Access Board. "This report is a set of recommendations from the Advisory Committee to the Access Board. Any proposed revisions to the Section 508 standards or the Section 255 accessibility guidelines will be made through the Federal rulemaking process. This report is not a regulation." http://www.access-board.gov/sec508/refresh/report/ Presentation of the TEITAC report to the U.S. Access Board By Peter Korn. "...the Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee (or TEITAC for short) presented their final report to the United States Access Board. It was the culmination of more than 18 months of very hard work by a very talented group of 41 representatives and their alternates who were representing their respective companies, disability organizations, government agencies, and countries." http://blogs.sun.com/korn/entry/presentation_of_the_teitac_report Accessible Data Visualization with Web Standards By Wilson Miner. "When designing interfaces for browsing data-driven sites, creating navigation elements that are also visualization tools helps the user make better decisions. Wilson Miner demonstrates three techniques for incorporating data visualization into standards-based navigation patterns." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/accessibledatavisualization Is Your Moodle Accessible? By John E. Brandt. "The following information was presented at a workshop in October 2007 at the MainEducation Conference of ACTEM." http://www.jebswebs.com/index.php/articles-and-resources Moodle Accessibility WebAIM Thread By Jan Heck. "...What is the good (and not so good) word about Moodle's accessibility?..." http://www.webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=3522 Common Issues By Alastair Campbell. "NomensaÕs director of user experience, Alastair Campbell, reviews the past year of accessibility checks and tackles the most common issues..." http://www.netmag.co.uk/zine/home/common-issues +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Top-Down Approach to Simplify Your CSS Code By Antonio Lupetti. "Today I want to return to talk about a topic very popular on my blog about which I already dedicated two popular post (optimize your CSS files to improve code readability and write a well structured CSS file without becoming crazy). Now I want to try to reply to this question I often receive from some readers of this blog: What is the correct approach to design a CSS file?..." http://tinyurl.com/5cysa8 Most Useful 50 CSS Tips And Tools For Webmasters By Emma Alvarez. "...Here you are a list of the 50 most useful tips and tools for customizing your website easily with CSS..." http://tinyurl.com/5dsoce Nice Drop Caps with CSS By Fabian van Luyn. "There are a lot of websites using a extra -tag for the drop cap. But using the :first-letter pseudo-element, you can easily create nice drop caps with CSS. :first-letter will - how surprising - target the first letter of an element. This pseudo element is included in CSS 1, so the browser support is very good. ItÕs supported by IE5+, LetÕs design some nice drop caps with CSS..." http://www.onyx-design.net/weblog2/css/nice-drop-caps-with-css/ Tomorrow's CSS Today: 8 Techniques They Don't Want You To Know By Tim Wright. "Sick of hearing about great CSS features you can't use? Find yourself playing it safe with CSS when building web sites? Wondering where went yesterday's promise of a bright future with CSS? Future CSS support is closer than you think! Tim shows 8 advanced CSS features you can use to add some pizazz to your web pages today." http://www.sitepoint.com/article/tomorrows-css-today Project Gmail Grimace - And Story of Neglected Developers By Russ Weakley. "The Email Standards Project has heard from designers all over the world how frustrating it is that Gmail, the otherwise excellent webmail client, does such a disappointing job rendering HTML email. I had no idea how hard it was for developers until I saw this movie - which moved me with its raw emotion..." http://www.maxdesign.com.au/2008/04/09/gmail-grimace/ +03: EVENTS. Web Form Design Best Practices June 14, 2008. Sunnyvale, California, U.S.A. http://involutionstudios.com/?p=113&cat=8 +04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. The Fine Art of Wireframes By T. Scott Stromberg. "One of the greatest advantages of sketching is that it can become a foundational tool which can easily be used to more fully explore your design treatments and architectural studies. The ability to hand-craft wireframes might take some practice, but the benefits gained from their use in client presentations can be priceless. High-fidelity, computer-generated deliverables can be a perfectly adequate way to present your ideas, but there is something liberating about being able to break out a pen and paper and clearly record creative ideas without the use of a computer. Likewise, there is also a special credibility gained with clients when your deliverables are handcrafted and uniqueÑespecially when they excite and empower your audience to participate in the creative process." http://geniantsandbox.com/2008/02/28/the-fine-art-of-wireframes +05: JAVASCRIPT. A Short History of the Development of JavaScript By Brendan Eich. "It seems (according to one guru, but coming from this source, it's a left-handed compliment) that JavaScript is finally popular..." http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/roadmap/archives/2008/04/popularity.html Advanced JavaScript Debugging Techniques By Mike Wilcox. "The purpose of this article is to provide a list of advanced debugging techniques that are not easily found elsewhere on the web. Using Google to search for JavaScript debugging just gives you hundreds of articles about using alerts and how Firebug works. We all worship at the altar of Firebug, but there are things that can go beyond a console.log(). The following is a list of methods that every developer should have in their toolbox..." http://tinyurl.com/35hsvb Take Control of Your Maps By Paul Smith. "It is now possible to replicate Google MapsÕ functionality with open source software and produce high-quality mapping applications tailored to your design goals. Paul Smith shows how." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/takecontrolofyourmaps +06: MISCELLANEOUS. The Principles of Project Management By Meri Williams. "...we'll talk about the work that comes before the project life cycle -- finding possible projects, working out which projects are worth pursuing, and getting to know the different groups of people who will be involved in any project. Finally, we'll discuss the process of actually initiating a project..." http://www.sitepoint.com/article/principles-project-management Interviews at the CHI 2008 Conference "Luca Chittaro, a professor at the University of Udine, covers the CHI 2008 conference in Florence for Nova, the innovation supplement of Il Sole 24 Ore, ItalyÕs business newspaper. He is already at the pre-conference workshops where he is publishing interviews faster than we can read them..." http://www.experientia.com/blog/interviews-at-the-chi-2008-conference/ +07: NAVIGATION. Screen Readers and Source Ordering By Eric Tribou. "...Anyways, the point here is that source-ordered layouts might not be the most accessible thing in the world..." http://weblog.bridgew.edu/ruthsarian/archives/000497.htm Source Order WebAIM Thread By Mike Bleasdale. "am paralyzed from the neck down and use a head wand for my computer. i am studying web devel. i had thought that main content should be place before nav in source order. since i tab through a site, i must tab through the webaims nav menu to reach the main content. the webaim site, and also the wai site, have its source ordered like this, may i ask why..." http://www.webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=3523 Linked Data Principles Revisited By Michael Hausenblas. "The linked data principles formulated by Tim Berners-Lee read quite straight-forward: 1. Use URIs as names for things 2. Use HTTP URIs so that people can look up those names. 3. When someone looks up a URI, provide useful information..." http://tinyurl.com/3ntquh +08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. HTML5: the Foreign lands (mathematics and graphics) By Anne Van Kesteren. The last few weeks there has substantive discussion on the HTML WG mailing list (public-html) and the Math WG public discussion mailing list (www-math) regarding embedding non-HTML languages in the text/html serialization of HTML focusing mostly on MathML and SVG. (Sidenote: the amount of e-mails totaled over the yearly average of the www-math list.)..." http://annevankesteren.nl/2008/04/html5-foreign HTML5: Custom Data By Anne Van Kesteren. "Sometimes HTML is not enough and you need a mechanism to include some custom data into the document...." http://annevankesteren.nl/2008/04/custom-data Why Use Semantic HTML? - part 2 By Joe Dolson. "This guide only deals with elements which have a specific, human-readable meaning. The semantics of elements such as link, which are not seen in normal browsing, have been left out, as have replacement elements like img or object. In some cases, I've also addressed specific attributes which are critical to providing semantic value to an element. This is not a guide which demonstrates the opinion of the W3C as represented in the HTML, XHTML, or HTML 5 specifications. This is a practical-use guide which indicates my reasoned opinion concerning the best use of each element..." http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2008/04/why-use-semantic-html/ Design Coding "The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) is back with another marketing rap. This time he describes how web standards and proper design can affect the ranking and conversion of pages on your site." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0qMe7Z3EYg&eurl=http://www.bloglines.com/myblogs_display?sub=4615261&site=309078 +09: TYPOGRAPHY. Smoothing Out the Creases in Web Fonts By Jon Tan. "Designers often choose one of the core Web fonts for body text because they are widely available, but like all typefaces, they render differently on different operating systems..." http://tinyurl.com/3oubxs http://jontangerine.com/log/2007/10/smoothing-out-the-creases-in-web-fonts On Choosing Type By John Boardley. "Typography is not a science. Typography is an art..." http://ilovetypography.com/2008/04/04/on-choosing-type/ +10: USABILITY. Usability or User Experience? What's the Difference? By Tom Stewart. "The term 'user experience' is now widely used, with its exponents claiming that it goes beyond mere usability by including such attributes as usefulness, desirability, credibility and accessibility. By contrast, 'usability' is often depicted as a narrower concept focusing on systems being easy to use..." http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article4636.asp +11: XML. XML and Government Schizophrenia By Michael C. Daconta. "The U.S. Government has a love/hate relationship with XML..." http://tinyurl.com/3jugvt http://www.oreillynet.com/xml/blog/2008/04/xml_and_government_schizophren.html [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +12: 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.]