+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 6, Issue 50, June 6, 2008.

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

++ISSUE 50 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: DREAMWEAVER.
03: EVALUATION & TESTING.
04: JAVASCRIPT.
05: MISCELLANEOUS.
06: NAVIGATION.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
08: TOOLS.
09: USABILITY.


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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Migrating from WCAG 1.0 to WCAG 2.0
By Roger Hudson.
"This document has been prepared to help HTML developers and others who are familiar with the Web Content Accessibility Version 1.0 (WCAG 1.0) to map their current knowledge and practices with the WCAG 2.0 W3C Candidate Recommendation of 30 April 2008..."
http://wipa.org.au/papers/wcag-migration.htm

Beyond CAPTCHA: No Bots Allowed!
By James Edwards.
"I'm sure you've seen them many times -- those wild squiggles that need to be deciphered and typed into a text box before you can buy concert tickets online or access a comment form..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/captcha-problems-alternatives

Accessibility for Older Users: Part 1 of 3 - Introduction
By Jack Pickard.
"On the 14th May 2008, the W3C produced a document called Web Accessibility for Older Users: A Literature Review. Well, what can I say to that..."
http://tinyurl.com/42382h

Accessibility for Older Users: Part 2 of 3 - Limitations and Prejudice
By Jack Pickard.
"Getting older can result in..."
http://tinyurl.com/3wkxev

Accessibility for Older Users: Part 3 of 3 - Guidelines and Involvement
By Jack Pickard.
"And then they look at previous guidelines designed for older people..."
http://tinyurl.com/3j9nlp


+02: DREAMWEAVER.

Dreamweaver CS4 Public Beta: Subversion Integration
By Tom Muck.
"Dreamweaver is 10 years old, and Dreamweaver 10 (CS4) has been released as a public beta. Among the many new features is the integration with the Subversion source control and version control system. This has been a much requested feature over the years. With 10 releases in 10 years, it is hard to get major features into a program?the limited time spent on development and testing between releases leaves little room for transformations in functionality, but this is one good step towards turning Dreamweaver into a valid and productive coding environment..."
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=9C6DA


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Web Site Tune-up: 8 Quick Checkups
By Joe Dolson.
"Perfecting a web site is a long and involved process. There's no getting around the fact that if you want every aspect of your site to be right - accessibility, search optimization, and just all-around pizzazz, you've probably got some significant work to do..."
http://tinyurl.com/3q33p8

Look Composed. How Visuals Can Draw and Drive Attention.
By Kath Straub.
"...Eyetracking studies capture where people look, how they move (visually) through a page, and how long they linger on the various spots. (For websites studies, they can also capture mouse movement and clicks.) Results are often conveyed in "heatmaps" overlaid on the original image. Hotspots (the red ones) on the heatmap define where people looked most, lingered and looked most often..."
http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/may08.asp#kath


+04: JAVASCRIPT.

WAI-ARIA, It's Easy - @media 2008
By Steve Faulkner.
Steve's presentations slides are now available.
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=72

ARIA Slider, Part 1
By Hans Hillen.
"...In this article, I will be providing an example for the slider role..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=68

Overview of ARIA Live Regions
Peter Thiessen.
"Currently the WAI-ARIA guidelines address the problem of dynamic Web content by embedding accessible roles and states into HTML documents. Using ARIA, Web authors can create custom widgets such as a slider or grid and make them accessible by marking them up with WAI-ARIA. The markup allows a mapping for behavior and settings that AT can interpret and speak to the user. I wrote a paper, Ajax Live Regions: Chat as a Case Example (pdf) for the W4A 2007 conference that covers Live Regions in more detail..."
http://blog.overscore.com/?p=10

ARIA in HTML5 - Video Discussion
By Steve Faulkner.
"ARIA in HTML5 part 1 & ARIA in HTML5 part 2 - videos of Anne van Kesteren discussing ARIA and issues surrounding its implementation with Marcos Caceres."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=70


+05: MISCELLANEOUS.

Saving the Spark: Developing Creative Ideas
By Mark Boulton.
"Ideas are at the heart of every creative process. However, coming up with them can be hard work. Mark Boulton arms us with tools to meet this challenge."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/savingthespark

Why We Skip Photoshop   
By Jason Fried.
"When designing a UI we usually go right from a quick paper sketch to HTML/CSS. We skip the static Photoshop mockup. Here are a few reasons why we skip photoshop..."
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1061-why-we-skip-photoshop


+06: NAVIGATION.

Don't Design 'What If' Navigation
By Gerry McGovern.
"Every time you add navigation options you add confusion and complexity. Too much choice is the bane of web navigation..."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2008/nt-2008-06-02-navigation.htm


+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

The Missing Link
By Eric Meyer.
"One of the few things I think XHTML2 got absolutely, totally, 125% right was freeing the href attribute from the few elements that accepted it and spreading it all over the language. It saddens me that this isn't happening in HTML5, especially since at least 1.5 of the four reasons given seem off base..."
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2008/06/02/the-missing-link/

Offline Web Applications
By Anne van Kesteren.
"HTML 5 contains several features that address the challenge of building Web applications that work while offline. This document highlights these features (SQL, offline application caching APIs as well as online/offline events, status, and the localStorage API) from HTML 5 and provides brief tutorials on how these features might be used to create Web applications that work offline. [HTML5]..."
http://www.w3.org/TR/offline-webapps/


+08: TOOLS.

IETester
"IETester is a free WebBrowser that allows you to have the rendering and javascript engines of IE8 beta 1, IE7 IE 6 and IE5.5 on Vista and XP, as well as the installed IE in the same process."
http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage


+09: USABILITY.

Expectations and Usability: Consistency
By Peter J. Meyers.
"Recently, I've talked about why expectations drive usability and how industry standards and habits create expectations. Once a visitor reaches your website, though, you also start to set your own expectations. You would think that the expectations you set yourself would be the easiest to meet, but sadly, that doesn't seem to be the case. Many of the most common website usability problems I come across boil down to violating internal consistency. Below are some common consistency problems and how to avoid them..."
http://www.usereffect.com/topic/expectations-and-usability-consistency

Web Form Design: Labels Within Inputs
By Luke Wroblewski.
"I've written extensively about the differences between top, right, and left aligned labels on Web forms. While these considerations account for the majority of form layout options, they don't cover all the possible ways form labels could be presented on a page. One alternative I get asked about quite regularly is labels within input fields..."
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?687

Web Design: 10 Additional Research Findings You Should Know
By Jens Meiert.
"Following up on last year's post on web design research, here's a new collection of research results, this time featuring further reading as well..."
http://tinyurl.com/4d3yye


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+10: 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
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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:
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+ 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.]