+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 8, Issue 06, August 7, 2009. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 06 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: PHP. 09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 10: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Overview of WebAIM Cognitive Research By WebAIM. "This article provides a brief overview of the findings and observations of a cognitive accessibility survey. More detailed findings will be available later in a detailed report." http://webaim.org/projects/steppingstones/cognitiveresearch Free Tools for Captioning YouTube Videos By Terrill Thompson. "We at the University of Washington are working toward documenting a workflow that would support student interns in adding captions to the university's growing collection of YouTube videos. There are now a dozen or more tools that support the authoring and editing of captions, and over the last couple of weeks I've been exploring several of them. This is a semi-organized set of notes based on my experience with each tool..." http://tinyurl.com/mb2dgd Visit to Yahoo Accessibility Testing Lab By Dennis Lembree. "I was fortunate enough to get invited for a visit to Yahoo! Accessibility Testing Lab (in Sunnyvale, California). Victor Tsaran (@vick08) and Alan Brightman (@abrightman) were kind enough to spend about an hour and a half with me and several other computer professionals. Here are some notes from the meeting..." http://tinyurl.com/m378dg +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Diagnostic Styling Reloaded By Jens Meiert. Eric cultivated the concept of 'diagnostic styling,' meaning using CSS to reveal specific problems within an HTML document. I myself have been working with diagnostic style sheets for quite a while, be it for general quality assurance or to track down specific semantics or maintainability problems É http://meiert.com/en/blog/20090801/diagnostic-styling-reloaded/ CSS3 Quick Reference Guide By css3.info. "Chris Hanscom over at Veign.com has been busy this week bringing his CSS3 Quick Reference Guide up to date in line with the latest CSS3 specifications. The CSS 3 reference guide features one of the most complete and up-to-date cheat sheets on the new CSS 3 specification. See the new properties, selectors and allowed values that are being introduced in the CSS3 standard..." http://www.css3.info/css3-quick-reference-guide/ Away With Widths - Use and Abuse By Niels Matthijs. "... This article explains why using as little widths as possible helps to maintain a flexible layout and might save you (or some fellow csser) a lot of time in the future..." http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/away-with-widths-use-and-abuse +03: EVENTS. 6th Annual AIGA Design Legends Gala September 17, 2009. New York, New York, U.S.A. http://www.aiga.org/events-gala Make/Think AIGA Design Conference October 8-11, 2009. Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.A. http://www.designconference.aiga.org Web 2.0 Expo November 16-19, 2009. New York, New York, U.S.A. http://www.web2expo.com/webexny2009/ Handcrafted Bulletproof CSS November 23, 2009. London, United Kingdom http://carsonworkshops.com/2009/dancederholm/index.html OZCHI '09 Conference November 23-27, 2009. Melbourne, Australia http://www.ozchi.org +04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Card Sorting By Holger Maassen. "The following article belongs to an upcoming series - A series on developing approaches to problem solutions with systematic use of creative techniques. I want to comply with this article and series to wishes and requests of friends and colleagues....Card sorting is a categorization technique where users sort cards describing and giving their picture, their understanding and their mental picture of concepts, workflows and information and knowledge." http://ux4dotcom.blogspot.com/2009/08/card-sorting.html +05: JAVASCRIPT. JavaScript 2.0: A Sneak Preview By Rob Gravelle. "The JavaScript 2.0 / EMCAScript 4.0 proposal isn't due to be finalized until the end of the fall of 2009, but it's already garnering lots of strong reactions - both good and bad. Today, we'll be taking a look at some of the proposed specifications and you can decide for yourself whether they constitute improvements in the language or merely unnecessary standardization..." http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/rg38/ String Objects and Regular Expressions in JavaScript By Chrysanthus Forcha. "Welcome to the fifth article in a five-part series on JavaScript regular expressions. In this article we begin the second and final phase of the series. In this phase we shall deal more with the properties and methods of the regexp object. We shall also deal with some properties and methods of the string object that are related to regular expressions...." http://tinyurl.com/mfw5el +06: MISCELLANEOUS. Interview with Zoe M. Gillenwater (podcast) By Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel. Web designer and developer Zoe M. Gillenwater speaks with publisher Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel about her new book, Flexible Web Design. She discusses the difference between liquid and elastic layouts, examples of great flexible sites, and much more. http://tinyurl.com/m8dpva Web Squared - Web 2.0 Five Years On By Tim O'Reilly and John Battelle. "Five years ago, we launched a conference based on a simple idea, and that idea grew into a movement. The original Web 2.0 Conference ( now the Web 2.0 Summit ) was designed to restore confidence in an industry that had lost its way after the dotcom bust. The Web was far from done, we argued. In fact, it was on its way to becoming a robust platform for a culture-changing generation of computer applications and services..." http://www.web2summit.com/web2009/public/schedule/detail/10194 Re: Did CERN Try To Sell the Web? By Tim Berners-Lee. "...Hey, if they had been MIT they might have encouraged me to spin it out as a startup, with the help of some experienced people who had done it before, and well, maybe the world would have just waited 17 years as it did for RSA. I am sure in fact a bunch of competing systems would have ended up without a single interoperable space..." http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2009Aug/0014.html +07: NAVIGATION. Web Site Navigation Menu Placement By Mike Cherim. "I was asked in an email recently what my feelings were regarding the placement of a navigation menu on a web site. The person asking wanted to know the latest scoop on the advantages or disadvantages of various menu placements. Is a right-hand vertical menu better somehow than a left-hand vertical menu? How about a horizontal navigation menu at the top of the page? Over the years I've made them all at one time or another, though lately most have been vertical right-hand menus. I responded with all I knew about the subject, then admitted the info may be dated. Here's basically what I offered.." http://green-beast.com/blog/?p=341 Using CSS to Hide a Portion of the Link Text WebAIM Thread. "...I am investigating using CSS to hide a portion of link text. If anyone has strong, or medium, feelings about this method I'd love to hear them..." http://webaim.org/discussion/mail_thread.php?thread=3932 +08: PHP. 17 PHP Practices That Should Be Banished Forever By Samuel Folkes. "The following is a list of 17 PHP programming practices that in my opinion should be banished into oblivion. Forever and ever. Amen. Please note that this list is in no particular order. So, without further ado..." http://tinyurl.com/nahthd +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. The Different Aspects of Video Accessibility By Silvia Pfeiffer. "In the last week, I have received many emails replying to my request for feedback on the video accessibility demo. Thanks very much to everyone who took the time..." http://blog.gingertech.net/2009/08/03/aspects-of-video-accessibility/ My August Plans By Shelley Powers. "...I do not think that HTML 5, as currently written, is a good document. I think there is much that is good in it, but the good is overshadowed by the bad: bad practices, bad decisions, even bad organization..." http://burningbird.net/node/38 The HTML5 Equilibrium By Jeremy Keith. "HTML5 is a strange character with what appears to be a split personality. Hardly surprising then that something so divided would appear to be so divisive..." http://adactio.com/journal/1600/ Behold Leviathan, Confused By Kyle Weems. "Sooner or later HTML5 will not be the most interesting topic to wax poetic about. This is not that day..." http://www.cssquirrel.com/2009/08/03/behold-leviathan-confused/ Talismans, Active Listening, and a Half-Time Show By John Foliot. "First of all, I would like to suggest that today the @summary debate has digressed to something of a fight over a Talisman..." http://john.foliot.ca/talismans-active-listening-and-a-half-time-show/ Disappearing Silverware By Sam Ruby. "...In general, blocking the work of others is something I plan to discourage. If that ends up making HTML5 more like Perl than Python, so be it. After all, those that prefer rigid alternatives still have that option..." http://intertwingly.net/blog/2009/08/06/Disappearing-Silverware +10: USABILITY. When Security Gets in the Way By Don Norman. "...Does more security necessarily translate into less usability? No, a more secure lock is no more difficult to operate than a cheap, insecure one. With appropriate technology we can make some of these systems even easier to use while simultaneously enhancing security..." http://jnd.org/dn.mss/when_security_gets_in_the_way.html Content Analysis: A Practical Approach By Colleen Jones. "In this column, I'll walk you through a content analysis--and offer tips and tricks along the way that will help make your next content analysis more effective." http://tinyurl.com/lnv7m5 The Content Conundrum By Christopher Detzi. "...Sure, we have a sense of what content is available, and we've likely considered it to some extent when creating flows, wireframes, and prototypes. But the design artifacts that we create represent only part of the overall user experience that we're designing. The content that sits inside of our design framework is often the final arbiter of success, yet we sometimes diminish its importance and separate ourselves from it. The more we separate our design activities from content development, the greater the risk of design failure..." http://www.boxesandarrows.com/view/the-content [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +11: 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.]