+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 7, Issue 28, January 8, 2009.

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

++ISSUE 28 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: COLOR.
04: DREAMWEAVER.
05: EVALUATION & TESTING.
06: EVENTS.
07: FLASH.
08: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
09: JAVASCRIPT.
10: MISCELLANEOUS.
11: PHP.
11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
12: USABILITY.
13: XML.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Ableism Online: Analysis of Web Accessibility Policymaking and Implementation in Higher Education
By Amit Schitai.
"Using qualitative research methodologies, this study examined the extent of ableism and social inclusiveness in Web accessibility policy and its implementation in higher education institutions as evidenced in the California Community Colleges..."
http://ableismonline.wordpress.com/category/b-abstract/

Punctuating Text-Equivalents
By Mike Davies.
"When we have an image on a web page and that image conveys content, then we know it is important to provide a text equivalent of the content that image offers. The most typical (but not only) way of doing this is to add the text equivalent content in an alt attribute on that image. The text content of this attribute should convey the equivalent information that the image contains..."
http://tinyurl.com/84p7lf

Video: Denise Stephens on Multiple Sclerosis at Scripting Enabled London
By Christian Heilmann.
"This is the first video of the talks at Scripting Enabled in London last September..."
http://tinyurl.com/9ref3c

Effective Browser Support
By Paul Boag.
"...building websites that are enhanced for more capable browsers - improves accessibility, reduce costs and ensure every user gets the best experience possible within the limitation of their choice of browser."
http://boagworld.com/technology/effective_browser_support/

A Gentle Introduction to Video Encoding, Part 4: Captioning
By Mark Pilgrim.
"The first thing you need to know about captions and subtitles is that captions and subtitles are different. The second thing you need to know about captions and subtitles is that you can safely ignore the differences unless you're creating your own from scratch. I'm going to use the terms interchangeably throughout this article, which will probably drive you crazy if you happen to know and care about the difference..."
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2009/01/07/give-part-4-captioning

Global Assistive Technology Encyclopedia
By AbilityNet Wiki.
"This wiki has been created by AbilityNet, the UK's largest provider of advice and information on all aspects of Access to technology. The purpose of the wiki is to provide live and up to date information on all aspects of Assistive Technology..."
http://abilitynet.wetpaint.com/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Return of the Mobile Style Sheet
By Dominique Hazael-Massieux.
"At least 10% of your visitors access your site over a mobile device. They deserve a good experience (and if you provide one, they'll keep coming back). Converting your multi-column layout to a single, linear flow is a good start. But mobile devices are not created equal, and their disparate handling of CSS is like 1998 all over again. Please your users and tame their devices with handheld style sheets, CSS media queries, and (where necessary) JavaScript or server-side techniques."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/returnofthemobilestylesheet

 5 Techniques to Acquaint You With CSS 3
By Daan Weijers.
"CSS is a well-known, widely used language to style websites. With version three in the works, many time-saving features will be implemented. Although only the most modern browsers currently support these effects, it's still fun to see what's around the corner! In this tutorial I'll show you five techniques..."
http://tinyurl.com/9u23lf


+03: COLOR.

Luminosity Contrast Ratio Main Colour Contrast Analyser
By Gez Lemon.
"The Accessibility Evaluation and Repair Tools (AERT) colour contrast algorithm was never a recommendation. As the luminosity contrast ratio algorithm is recommended with WCAG 2.0, it is not the main method of testing colour contrast on Juicy Studio..."
http://tinyurl.com/8we2h7


+04: DREAMWEAVER.

Best Practices with CSS in Dreamweaver CS4
By Stephanie Sullivan, Greg Rewis.
"...This article discusses best practices for using CSS and highlights specific CSS features in Dreamweaver CS4..."
http://tinyurl.com/97p9yt

Dreamweaver CS4 Missing Manual Excerpts
By David Sawyer McFarlan.
Info on behaviors, site management, and templates.
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/ora_dw_cs4_mm.html


+05: EVALUATION & TESTING.

User Interviews - Analysis Simplified
By Alistair Gray.
"You've conducted the interviews - enlightening weren't they? It's now time to put all that information that's in your head down on paper, and pull it all together into a complete picture..."
http://tinyurl.com/8tzqhe


+06: EVENTS.

Accessibility and e-Learning - Mike Paciello
January 9, 2009.
Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A.
http://tinyurl.com/8om85d

EASI Webinars
January 13, 2009, Creating Accessible Forms for the Web
January 20, 2009, Cascading Style Sheets: What they are and How they Affect Accessibility
http://easi.cc/clinic.htm#january

Oxford Geek Nights
January 21, 2009.
Oxford, United Kingdom
http://oxford.geeknights.net/2009/jan-21st/

Presenting Data and Information - Edward Tufte
January 26 or 27, 2009 in Austin, Texas, U.S.A.
January 28, 2009 in Houston, Texas, U.S.A.
January 30, 2009 Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.
https://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses

TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design)
Feburary 3-7, 2009.
Monterey, California, U.S.A.
http://conferences.ted.com/TED2009/

Italian Information Architecture Summit
February 20-21, 2009.
Forli, Italy
http://www.iasummit.it/2008/

VizThink North America '09
February 22-25, 2009.
San Jose, California, U.S.A.
http://tinyurl.com/5vv43g


+07: FLASH.

RE: Flash & AJAX
By Charles McCathieNevile.
"Flash: You have to be sure that your users only rely on a couple of operating systems that actually support flash accessibility. You need to use a bunch of flash features for accessibility (read the manual to find them as a start) and you should avoid using flash for things where there is a simpler and more accessible solution such as HTML. "Ajax": You need to know about ARIA and how to use it, as with flash you should avoid using things that are more complicated when there are simpler ways of doing it (this is not just for accessibility, but for a bunch of reasons to do with portability, reliability, etc), and you need to do the things that WCAG talks about..."
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2009JanMar/0004.html

Beta Testers Needed for BCAT (BarrierBreak Course Authoring Tool)
By Priti Rohra.
"... BCAT is designed and developed to assist teachers/authors in creating accessible Flash based Elearning courses..."
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2009JanMar/0007.html


+08: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Shades of Gray: Wireframes as Thinking Device
By Will Evans.
"...For me, wireframes act as a form of 'thinking device' for the setting and exploration of a given problem space - in this example, a home page for a cruise line operator. To understand the utility of wireframes it is important to understand the nature of designing. I think of 'D'esign as an exploration of the conceivable futures. I use my sketches and wireframes as means to make explorative moves and assess the consequences of those moves. As I explore the problem space, I could relatively easily keep the design models in my head, but I would fail in my primary objective to create a framework for a conversation among the stakeholders, the intended audience, and me..."
http://tinyurl.com/a96x7g


+09: JAVASCRIPT.

Configuring Your Machine For Testing With A Screen Reader
By Todd Kloots.
"When developing using the WAI-ARIA Roles and States, you need to test your code in a screen reader to ensure everything is working as you expect. As a follow up to my presentation on Developing Accessible Widgets with ARIA and in the interest of helping other developers test their code, I thought I would provide some tips on how to configure your development environment for screen reader testing..."
http://yuiblog.com/blog/2008/12/30/configuring-screen-readers/

ARIA Video Project
By Thomas Logan.
http://tinyurl.com/7kw6vg


+10: MISCELLANEOUS.

Predictions for the Mobile Web in 2009
By Bruce Lawson.
"...Using web standards two develop single websites that can be consumed by any device will prove to be the most cost-effective development methodology, just as it is accepted to be the best way to develop sites that are accessible to people with disabilities. The question is whether developers will get that message in 2009..."
http://tinyurl.com/8b55w3


+11: PHP.

XHTML Validation with the W3C validator and PHP
By Pascal Opitz.
"Amongst other changes, I am working on getting this blog over to use application/xhtml+xml as the content type. Of course this calls for a much stricter validation before content can be put live, otherwise users will be confronted with a broken page. The W3C validator and Zend_Http_Client make validation in PHP easy..."
http://tinyurl.com/9ptf9p

PHP Frameworks: Comparing CakePHP and symfony
By Mike Davies.
"I've futzed with PHP for a fair number of years, but never really seriously looked at PHP frameworks. Some of the applications I write are fairly simple, but have to deal with a metric truckload of data. I like data, it's like plasticine, you can mould it in a variety of different ways..."
http://tinyurl.com/7atyv2

PHP for Beginners: Building Your First Simple CMS
By Jason Lengstorf.
"It's safe to say that nearly every website that's up-to-date these days is using some form of content management system (CMS). While there are a ton of great free options that provide us with a CMS to power a website (Wordpress, Drupal, etc.), it doesn't hurt to peek under the hood and get a feel for how these systems work..."
http://css-tricks.com/php-for-beginners-building-your-first-simple-cms/


+11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Thanks for Volunteering!
By Sam Ruby.
"I don't yet fully know what I can accomplish as co-chair of the HTML working group, but I do intend to approach every raised issue with a disarmingly simple question: Is this something you intend to work on?"
http://intertwingly.net/blog/2008/12/31/Thanks-for-Volunteering

The HTML 5 Hype Machine - Big Web Video Lie
By Brooks Andrus.
"No mention of the 800 lbs. gorilla-codec licensing and royalties. Who is paying for all of this plugin killing? Are we relying on 'proprietary' OS vendors such as Apple and Microsoft to provide a common set of codecs and foot the bill (where's the gain in that)?..."
http://tinyurl.com/aynvsj

Semantics in HTML 5
By John Allsopp.
"The BBC's dropping of hCalendar because of accessibility and usability concerns demonstrates that we have pushed the semantic capability of HTML far beyond what it can handle. The need to clearly and unambiguously add rich, meaningful semantics to markup is a driving goal of the HTML 5 project. Yet HTML 5 has two problems: it is not backward compatible because its semantic elements will not work in 75% of our browsers; and it is not forward compatible because its semantics are not extensible. If "making up new elements" isn't the solution, what is?..."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/semanticsinhtml5

An Event Apart and HTML 5
By Eric A Meyer.
"...I get the distinct impression that use of HTML 5 is going to cause equal parts of comfort (for the familiar parts) and eye-watering rage (for the apparently idiotic differences). Thus it would seem the HTML 5 Working Group is succeeding quite nicely at capturing the current state of browser behavior...."
http://tinyurl.com/9lpup2

The Rise of HTML5
By Jeremy Keith.
"...On the markup side of things, we decided to write the site in HTML5...From a semantic perspective, the most important additions to the markup language are the structural elements such as header, article, section and so on..."
http://adactio.com/journal/1540

Preparing for HTML5 with Semantic Class Names
By Jon Tan.
"...This is a brief introduction to the new structural elements in the HTML 5 Working Draft, and how to use semantic class names in HTML 4.01 or XHTML 1.0 markup that correspond to the names of those structural elements..."
http://tinyurl.com/2tyc29

Is HTML5 Ready Yet?
http://ishtml5readyyet.com/

Supporting New Elements in IE
By Lachlan Hunt.
"Internet Explorer poses a small challenge when it comes to making use of the new elements introduced in HTML5. Among others, these include elements like section, article, header and footer..."
http://blog.whatwg.org/supporting-new-elements-in-ie



+12: USABILITY.

Comment Form Design
By Dmitry Fadeyev.
"...the ideal comment form has the labels placed close to the input field, preferably above it. But what about the actual order of the fields. Most forms start with name, followed by email, followed by website, followed by comment. Pretty much all blogs and sites implement this same setup for their comment form. I'd like to question whether this is the right approach..."
http://www.usabilitypost.com/2009/01/06/comment-form-design/

A Client-Focused Copy Style Guide
By Andy Clarke.
"Let's be fair, few customers are professional writers and few hire one when making a web site. That is why I now include professional copywriting into every estimate as a non-removable item. When customers are adding their own copy to a site, I give them ten simple tips to follow..."
http://tinyurl.com/7sq3t3

Why Products Fail
By Mike Elgan.
"...consistency, usability, simplicity, stability, performance and even the successful completion of tasks..."
http://tinyurl.com/9zrbey


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+16: 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.

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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.]