+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 8, Issue 50, June 12, 2010. 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: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 03: COLOR. 04: DREAMWEAVER. 05: EVALUATION & TESTING. 06: EVENTS. 07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 08: JAVASCRIPT. 09: PHP. 10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 11: TYPOGRAPHY. 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. Website Accommodation Rules on the Horizon By Jim Evans. "The DOJ's message was clear then, and it's clear now -- the ADA doesn't just apply to the physical world -- it also applies in cyberspace." http://www.zanesvilletimesrecorder.com/article/20100606/OPINION02/6060308 Blind Students Sue Law Schools Over Online Applications By Sophia Li. "...The four law schools-Thomas Jefferson School of Law, Chapman University School of Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law, and Whittier College Law School-highly encourage or require students to apply through the Law School Admission Council's Web site, which blind applicants say they must seek assistance to use. Arguing that the system amounts to discrimination, the group, the National Federation of the Blind, joined the students, Deepa Goraya, Bruce J. Sexton, and Claire Stanley, in suing the schools and the admission council..." http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Blind-Students-Sue-Law-Schools/24648/ The Challenges of Deaf Blind Internet Users By Tom Babinszki. "...Here, Ruby joins us one more time and shows us the challenges faced by deaf blind persons as they use the Internet..." http://www.evengrounds.com/blog/challenges-of-deaf-blind-internet-users Features of a Cognitively Accessible Web Site By John Rochford. "...Dr. Tamor's work mirrors that of my own and of others who specialize in cognitive Web accessibility. The principles she described and/or demonstrated included..." http://clearhelper.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/the-arclink-features-of-a-cognitively-accessible-web-site/ Cognitive Web Accessibility Assessments - Detailed Results By Site By John Rochford. "I published an index of detailed results, by site, of my cognitive Web accessibility assessments." http://clearhelper.wordpress.com/2010/06/03/cognitive-web-accessibility-assessments-detailed-results-by-site/ Web Accessibility Benefits Persons with Disabilities and ... Who Else? By Tom Babinszki. "...I invite you to read on and get to know another important group of people who can benefit from web accessibility..." http://www.evengrounds.com/blog/accessibility-helps-people-with-disabilities-and-you? Writing Text Alternatives for Maps By Dey Alexander. "When you use maps on your website you need to provide text alternatives. These will help people who have problems accessing information using graphical or interactive maps." http://www.deyalexander.com.au/blog/2010/06/writing-text-alternatives-for-maps/ Can Checklist Accessibility be Harmful? By Vlad Alexander. "Accessibility checklists based on WCAG or Section 508 guidelines were intended to help make Web sites accessible. These checklists are meant to ensure that the process of accessibility checking is done consistently and comprehensively. So how can accessibility checklists be harmful?..." http://www.rebuildingtheweb.com/en/checklist-accessibility-harmful/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Showing and Hiding Content with Pure CSS3 By Corey Mwamba. "Modern websites and applications are more dynamic than old style web pages, with several pieces of well-placed JavaScript providing smoother content updates, more intuitive user feedback and more responsive controls. One very common feature is the expanding/collapsing or shown/hidden box, whether this is a tabbed interface, a content "tray" on the side that can be slid out and then put away again, or a complex tree menu with expanding/collapsing sub-menus. Generally, these features are implemented via JavaScript, however using CSS3 it is possible to create such content using only HTML and CSS - no JavaScript required. In this article I'll show you how this works, including a few examples to get you started." http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/css3-show-and-hide/ The CSS white-space Property Explained By Louis Lazaris. "CSS has a pretty useful property called white-space that I'm guessing goes unnoticed among CSS beginners. You can probably live without this property for quite some time, but once you learn how to use it, it will come in very handy and you'll find yourself going back to it over and over again..." http://www.impressivewebs.com/css-white-space/ +03: COLOR. Does Color Impact How Users View a Web Portal Page? By J. Owens and S. Shrestha. "This study investigated the eye movement patterns of users viewing a portal web page. Previous research has shown that web portal pages are scanned by row from top to bottom. In the current study, the color of one channel title was manipulated in two different page locations to see what impact it would have on scan patterns. Results indicate that users fixated on the top-center channel first, irrespective of study condition. Eye movements after the first few fixations appear to be impacted by the color of the channel title, but only when it was located on the left side of the page. Also, increased fixation counts on the channel title did not result in an increased number of fixations on the content of the respective channel. Implications of these results to portal web page design are discussed." http://www.surl.org/usabilitynews/121/portal.asp +04: DREAMWEAVER. Dreamweaver Templates: Customizable Starter Designs for Web Designers, Part 2 By Chris Converse. This article loosely builds on my previous article, Dreamweaver templates: Customizable starter designs for beginners. http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/articles/dreamweaver_custom_templates_pt2.html +05: EVALUATION & TESTING. Guidelines for Accessible and Usable Web Sites: Observing Users Who Work With Screen Readers By Mary Frances Theofanos and Janice (Ginny) Redish. "...To truly meet the needs of all users, it is not enough to have guidelines that are based on technology. It is also necessary to understand the users and how they work with their tools. For example, just realizing that vision-impaired users do not listen to the entire page is critical for designing usable pages for them. In this paper, we have developed guidelines for bringing accessibility and usability together based on observing, listening to, and talking with blind users as they work with Web sites and their screen readers." http://www.redish.net/content/papers/interactions.html 10 Tips for 'Ambush Guerilla User Testing' By Martin Belam. "Over the last couple of years I've been practicing 'ambush guerilla user testing', which is basically the art of pouncing on lone people in cafes and public spaces, and quickly filming them whilst they use a website for a couple of minutes. It isn't by any means a formal research technique, but you can soon build up a valuable clip library of initial reactions to you and your competitors' products, and tease out interesting anecdotal evidence about the way that people use and feel about your website." http://www.currybet.net/cbet_blog/2010/06/10_tips_for_ambush_guerilla_user_testing.php Overcoming Fear of Moderating UX Research Sessions By Dana Chisnell. "It always happens: Someone asks me about screwing up as an amateur facilitator/moderator for user research and usability testing sessions. This time, I had just given a pep talk to a bunch of user experience professionals about sharing responsibility with the whole team for doing research. 'But what if the (amateur) designer does a bad job of moderating the session?'" http://usabilitytestinghowto.blogspot.com/2010/06/overcoming-fear-of-moderating-ux.html +06: EVENTS. PHP Live with Kevin Yank Starts June 14, 2010. Online. http://www.sitepoint.com/courses/php-live CSS Live with Russ Weakley Starts July 5, 2010. Online. http://www.sitepoint.com/courses/css-live Internet User Experience Conference July 24-28, 2010. Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. http://www.iue2010.com/ CSS Summit July 28 2010. Online. http://environmentsforhumans.com/2010/css-summit/ +07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. User Experience is More Than Wireframes and Prototypes By Gary Barber. "There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment, within developmental circles to just add a few wireframes and develop a prototype or two, and then you can declare you are across the user experience design process. The thing is User Experience is a lot more than just a few simple techniques, it's an entire collaborative design process, in a way it's not just a single methodology at all..." http://manwithnoblog.com/2010/06/07/user-experience-is-more-than-wireframes-and-prototypes/ Globalizing an Information Architecture By Louis Rosenfeld. "So in the interest of resurrecting a six-year old conversation, here are some questions. I plan to use these to get my client to think strategically about the challenge of developing a multi-lingual, multi-cultural, and multi-regional information architecture. Being the information architect that I am, naturally I categorized them." http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/2010/06/globalizing_an_information_arc.html +08: JAVASCRIPT. New Windows with JavaScript and the target Attribute By Roger Johansson. "I've written a few articles about techniques that use JavaScript to open new browser windows, the most recent one being Opening new windows with JavaScript, version 1.2. A very quick summary of my reason for using JavaScript is that it enables me to use strict HTML 4.01 and XHTML doctypes, which do not allow the target attribute..." http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201006/new_windows_with_javascript_and_the_target_attribute/ +09: PHP. 10 Easy Solutions for PHP String Manipulation By W. Jason Gilmore. "... In this article I highlight the ideal solutions to 10 common string manipulation tasks..." http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/Jason_Gilmore060210.php3 9 Magic Methods for PHP By Lorna Jane Mitchell. "Following on from my previous two posts, showing a gentle introduction to OOP in PHP and some slightly more advanced concepts, I'd like to take a dive into the magic methods in PHP. It might be magic, but no wands are required..." http://carsonified.com/blog/dev/9-magic-methods-for-php/ +10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. The dl Element By Mike Robinson. "The

element existed in HTML 4, but it's been repurposed in HTML5. Let the Doctor explain what's changed and how it can be used..." http://html5doctor.com/the-dl-element/? dl-dd-dt Sounds Like Stammering to Me By Niels Matthijs. "... This structural weakness carries over to styling, something most people who've tried to properly style a dl should have experienced already. It's doable as long as the couples are displayed as a typical list, but try anything fancier and you're dead out of luck. The new definition of the element further underlines its structural weakness. Should you use the dl for meta data, there is no proper way to add extra semantic value .." http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/dl-dd-dt HTML 5 has Cool Stuff - New Input Types! By Joe Dolson. "Even though many elements of HTML 5 have only limited application at this time due to lacking browser support, there's little reason not to make use of them. The design of the markup language is intended to minimize dependence on user agents, failing invisibly if the browser doesn't offer that feature, which helps encourage early use of new elements..." http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2010/06/html-5-has-cool-stuff-new-input-types/ The W3C Bites Back? By Shelley Powers. "This has been a long time coming, and not sure where it will go. It started innocuously enough: remove a paragraph associated with the alt attribute, about user agents using some form of heuristics to determine replacement text. It wasn't associated with a bug-it predated the current decision process. It did have an issue, though, Issue 66. Consensus was: remove the text. Simple, easy, and absolutely no impact on HTML5. Except..." http://burningbird.net/node/106 +11: TYPOGRAPHY. @font-face Hurdles and Tips By Estelle Weyl. "Web site design has been hampered by the limited number of fonts available to most clients. Designers have been using image replacement and methods such as sIFR and Cufon to make up for limited choices in typography. Not anymore. With basically universal support of embedded fonts, we now have more options. This article discusses hurdles and tips to embedding fonts with @font-face." http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=D14E0 Drop Cap - The Next Generation By James Edwards. "Recently I wrote about the drop-cap technique we've used in the blogs redesign: A Simple CSS Drop Cap. One comment really caught my interest, because it was asking about a situation I'd never even considered..." http://articles.sitepoint.com/article/next-gen-drop-cap Free Will for Typeface Selection - Myth or Reality? By D. Fox. "Typeface appropriateness is important to consider when creating a document so that the typeface persona does not conflict with the intent/content. Unfortunately, the design of many typeface choice sets (e.g. Microsoft Word) are not optimal. The size and organization of most typeface choice sets may cause users to avoid the decision of selecting a typeface different from the default. This reliance on the status quo typeface (e.g. Arial, Calibri, Cambria, and Times New Roman) may lead users to use less appropriate typefaces for their document type. This study examined whether there is evidence to support the hypothesis that the status quo bias is exhibited when selecting a typeface. It also examined whether there are limitations to which typeface is accepted as the status quo. Results of this study lend support to the hypothesis that users exhibit the status quo bias for typeface selection, and also show that there are limitations to which typeface will be accepted as the status quo." http://www.surl.org/usabilitynews/121/status_quo.asp Web Fonts at the Crossing By Richard Fink. "Everything you wanted to know about web fonts but were afraid to ask. Richard Fink summarizes the latest news in web fonts, examining formats, rules, licenses, and tools. He creates a checklist for evaluating font hosting and obfuscation services like Typekit; looks at what's coming down the road (from problems of advanced typography being pursued by the CSS3 Fonts Module group, to the implications of Google-hosted fonts); and wraps up with a how-to on making web fonts work today." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fonts-at-the-crossing/ +12: USABILITY. About Pages: Good, Bad, and Missing By John Hyde. "Users rarely begin their relationship with a company though its about page. More often than not, they learn about us based on what we do; the product or service that we offer. Why, then, should they want to learn more? About pages help users discover who lives behind the websites we create." http://www.uxbooth.com/blog/about-pages-good-bad-and-missing/ People Make Mistakes By Susan Weinschenk. "...People make mistakes. Whether the user makes a mistake in working with a computer, or a company that makes a mistake by releasing software that has too many errors, or a designer designs something that is unusable because he or she doesn't understand what the user needs to do. Everyone makes mistakes. So here is my list of important things to consider about people making mistakes..." http://www.whatmakesthemclick.net/2010/06/08/100-things-you-should-know-about-people-35-people-make-mistakes/ Design for Readability First By Scott Gilbertson. "...'You shouldn't be optimizing for iPads,' Cook writes. 'Or iPhones. Or iPhone 4Gs. Or Nexus Ones. Or 30-inch 90ppi screens, or 30-inch 300ppi screens. You should be optimizing for reading experience, and you should be using the best techniques available to do so.'" http://www.webmonkey.com/2010/06/design-for-readability-first/ +13: XML. MIME and the Web By Larry Masinter. "MIME was invented originally for email, based on general principles of 'messaging', foundational architecture. The role of MIME was to extend Internet messaging from ASCII-only plain text (other character sets, images, rich documents, etc.) The basic architecture of complex content messaging is..." http://masinter.blogspot.com/2010/06/mime-and-web.html Future Web Accessibility - SVG By Aaron Andersen. "This is the fifth in a multipost series about the immediate and likely future of web accessibility. Each week or so I'll discuss a different upcoming technology, tag, platform, or system from an accessibility perspective. Additions, corrections, or further thoughts are welcome in the comments..." http://webaim.org/blog/future-web-accessibility-svg/ [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.]