+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 8, Issue 07, August 14, 2009.

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

++ISSUE 07 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: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: NAVIGATION.
10: PHP.
11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
12: TOOLS.
13: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

University of Wisconsin Researchers Develop Tool to Prevent Seizures
By Erica Hendry.
"For some people, the quick flashes or bright colors of online advertisements can set off seizures in a matter of seconds. Now researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have designed the Photosensitive Epilepsy Analysis Tool-or PEAT-a free software tool that will help Web developers design safer Web pages and advertisements..."
http://chronicle.com/blogPost/U-of-Wisconsin-Researchers/7606/

CVS.com To Meet Web Accessibility Standards
By Mel Pedley.
"CVS/pharmacy, the United State's largest retail pharmacy, recently announced that it will enhance web accessibility on its site..."
http://tinyurl.com/noujo5


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Best CSS Editors for Beginners
By Lorraine Nepomuceno.
"I recently helped someone new to CSS get started, and we looked through several CSS editorsÉ the best of which I bring to you here.."
http://www.devlounge.net/code/best-css-editors-for-beginners

Mastering CSS, Part 1: Styling Design Elements
By Cameron Chapman.
"...Below are fresh tips and techniques for creating and styling design elements with CSS. They're a good place to start if you're new to CSS but are valuable even if you're a veteran designer. Not all the techniques are strictly CSS; some include integration with JavaScript or XHTML to extend the functionality of your site..."
http://tinyurl.com/ld6uat

Mastering CSS, Part 2: Advanced Techniques and Tools
By Cameron Chapman.
"...In Part 2 we're offering up some more advanced techniques and effects you can achieve with CSS. Everything from creating your own online apps (like calendars) to styling web pages for use with the iPhone to some basics of working with CSS3 is covered here..."
http://tinyurl.com/laxphk


+03: COLOR.

Color and Accessibility
By merttol.
"In the United States, about 7 percent of the male population - or about 10.5 million men - and 0.4 percent of the female population either cannot distinguish red from green, or see red and green differently (Howard Hughes Medical Institute, 2006). And, more than 10% of the male population is color-blind in all over the world. There are various forms of color-blindness: red-green, green-brown, and so on. Of course, we cannot possibly avoid all of the colors that could be misinterpreted by all visitors with color vision impairment..."
http://www.merttol.com/articles/web/color-and-accessibility.html


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Margins of Error in Usability Tests
By Jeff Sauro. 
"How many users will complete the task and how long will it take them? If you need to benchmark an interface, then a summative usability test is one way to answer these questions. Summative tests are the gold-standard for usability measurement. But just how precise are the metrics?..."
http://www.measuringusability.com/time-margin.php

Persona Format
By Fluid Project Wiki.
"This persona format was created to organize information in the Fluid Personas. The format chosen was based on the competitive analysis of many persona examples..." 
http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Persona+Format


+05: EVENTS.

Webinar Series
Online Videos 360: How to Create Better, Viral, and ADA-Compliant Web Videos
September 15, 16 & 17, 2009.
http://tinyurl.com/nodprt

Thriving on Diversity - Information Opportunities in a Pluralistic World
November 6-11, 2009.
Vancouver, Canada
http://www.asis.org/Conferences/AM09/

World Usability Day
November 13, 2009.
Everywhere.
http://worldusabilityday.org/


+06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

How I Draft an Information Architecture
By Donna Spencer.
When I teach information architecture, the most common questions aren't about the principles, but about the process. Just how do you decide on a particular method, how do you choose categories, how do you know what you've come up with is right.
http://tinyurl.com/nrbdrg


+07: JAVASCRIPT.

YUI Theater - Douglas Crockford: 'The JSON Saga'
By Eric Miraglia.
"At the July 27 meeting of the Bayjax group, hosted here at Yahoo!, we had a lineup of terrific speakers. The first of the Bayjax talks - Douglas Crockford's 'The JSON Saga' - is now available on YUI Theater, embedded below and available in high definition with a full transcript on the YUI Theater site..."
http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2009/08/11/video-crockford-json/


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

Dialogue in the Dark: A Journey into a World without Sight (podcast)
By Teresa Brazen.
"In this podcast, I'll take you with me on a journey into a world of darknessÉwhere people use their hands, hearing and sense of smell to discover where they are. We'll explore an immersive exhibition called Dialogue in the Dark, were blind guides help visitors move through multiple environments, experiencing the world without sight..."
http://tinyurl.com/pzz7k5

Scott Berkun: Growing Ideas In The Garden Of Innovation
By Namahn interviews.
"...In this upbeat interview, Scott explains what drove him to write his book on innovation: after many years working in an innovation-obsessed software industry, he wanted to dispel the myths advocated in so much literature on the subject, or what he describes as the 'fantasy' that there is only one simple way to go about innovation and creative thinking..."
http://www.namahn.com/resources/interview/scott-berkun-growing-ideas


+09: NAVIGATION.

Skip Links: Chrome, Safari and Added WAI-ARIA
By Paul Ratcliffe.
"...creating a skiplink that works across a number of browsers and is actually usable to the end user is not a simple task. Spurred on by new functionality in some later browsers, the launch of Google's Chrome browser and some feedback we had regarding using skip links on a Mac, we thought we would re-examine skiplinks and present you with our latest thoughts..."
http://tinyurl.com/p4ohcb

SEO and Accessibility Overlap
By Liam McGee.
"...The skills we had developed in the field of web accessibility were, it seemed, directly applicable to many of the search engine optimization (SEO) challenges that face search specialists every day..."
http://www.communis.co.uk/blog/2009-08-06-seo-and-accessibility-overlap

Front End Concerns When Implementing Faceted Search
By Jared Spool.
"Faceted search brings us to the next level for easily finding some types of information. We can find cameras within a price range from specific manufacturers. We can quickly locate flights that leave in the afternoon on the airlines we're collecting miles with. We can easily discover jobs within driving distance that are for companies that we are enamored with..."
http://tinyurl.com/nzeo7n


+10: PHP.

5 Regular Expressions Every Web Programmer Should Know
By Mike Malone.
"I'm going to assume you have a basic understanding of regular expressions at this point. If you're a regex n00b (or /n0{2}b/, as I like to call them), or if you need a quick refresher, check out my previous post on the absolute bare minimum that every programmer should know about regular expressions. You won't be disappointed. So, without further adu, here are the five regular expressions that I have found the most useful for day-to-day web programming tasks"
http://tinyurl.com/2ss83t

Are PHP Namespaces Really So Bad?
By Craig Buckler.
"PHP developers have been demanding namespaces for some time. As PHP applications have grown larger and more complex, namespaces have become essential to prevent code clashes. My recent tutorials received a number of comments complaining about namespace implementation in PHP. The main issues were the syntax and the backslash character. Before I tackle those issues, let's take a quick look back at the history of PHP..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/08/13/are-php-namespaces-bad/


+11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

A First Look at HTML 5 
By Marc Plotz.
"Officially, HTML 4.1 was supposed to be the last word on HTML..."
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/marc_plotz008112009.php3

A Little More Conversation with Dialog
By Mike Robinson.
"Less action, more conversation. That's how that Elvis song went, right? OK, perhaps not. Regardless, the new dialog element introduced in HTML 5 is all about marking up the conversation, and it uses a couple of elements you may have already heard of. Sure, it's a little less action than something like audio, but it is still a useful element to semantically mark up many forms of dialogue..."
http://html5doctor.com/a-little-more-conversation-with-dialog/

Mountain, Mohammed; Mohammed, Mountain; Please Talk
By Sam Ruby.
"...And just to complete the insanity, I can get the relevant members of the PF WG to attend tomorrow's call, but not Ian."
http://tinyurl.com/qjubat


+12: TOOLS.

CSS Redundancy Checker
By Mike Malone.
"Use this tool to find CSS selectors that aren't used by any of your HTML files and may be redundant."
http://services.immike.net/css-checker/


+13: USABILITY.

Refreshing Three HCI Laws: Fitts' Law, Hick's Law, and the Power Law of Practice
By Gerd Waloszek.
"...I would like to offer a short refresher of Fitts' law and include two other 'classics,' Hick's law and the power law of practice...
http://www.sapdesignguild.org/community/design/laws.asp

Examples of Poor Responsiveness
By Gerd Waloszek.
"...In this article, I presented examples of poor responsiveness in three categories: (1) Systems that block user input, (2) systems that cannot keep up with user input, and (3) systems that impede the user by being too slow or by causing unnecessary delays. Tackling any of these issues will definitely make users happier and more satisfied, allowing them to feel in control and work at their own pace, thus being more productive."
http://www.sapdesignguild.org/community/design/response_examples.asp

Human-Computer Dialog: How Good Does 'Good Enough' Need to Be to Appear 'Perfect'?
By Gerd Waloszek.
"...If designers take the design rules listed above into consideration, which may require them to invest more time and care in their work, users should become more tolerant to computer systems and may be more willing to accept one or two imperfections in the human-computer dialog. With enough care, "good enough" may require some effort, but need not necessarily mean that the human-computer dialog has to be perfect - 'good enough' will already be 'perfect' for human users."
http://www.sapdesignguild.org/community/design/good_enough.asp

Compliancy vs. Usability
By Jeff Singleton.
"Many times great effort and resource is put into making sure that a site is compliant with Section 508 or the WCAG requirements. All the ALT text is in place, input fields have labels, headings and page titles are used, etc. Everything is set and ready to goÉat least from a technical standpoint. What often gets overlooked is the usability of the site. No matter how 'compliant' your site is it can still be unusable or at least not as easy to use as you may think. How so?..."
http://theaccesspond.com/2009/08/11/compliancy-vs-usability/

Study: Expected Versus Experienced Usability
By Jasper van Kuijk.
"In this paper. we explore why consumers do not seem to have a very distinct preference for usable products, even though these make satisfy them more after purchase. We wanted to explore the hypothesis that this might be due to the fact that it might be to hard for consumers to judge before use whether a product is usable or not. We call the pre-use assumptions that people have about the usability of a product expected usability. Experienced usability is the opinion people have about usability after use. We wanted to explore what product properties influence expected usability, and whether and when there is a difference between expected and experienced usability. And what the consequences of that are."
http://www.uselog.com/2009/08/study-expected-versus-experienced.html


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+14: 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.]