+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 9, Issue 14, October 2, 2010. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 14 CONTENTS. SECTION ONE: New references. What's new at the Web Design Reference site? http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/ New links in these categories: 01: ACCESSIBILITY. 02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 03: EVALUATION & TESTING. 04: EVENTS. 05: JAVASCRIPT. 06: MISCELLANEOUS. 07: PHP. 08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 09: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Accessibility for Web Writers, Part 1: Introduction By Dey Alexander. "...This is the introduction to a series of articles on accessibility for web writers. IÕll be using the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 as the basis of these articles, since they are the standards Australian websites must meet..." http://www.deyalexander.com.au/blog/2010/09/accessibility-for-web-writers-introduction/ Accessibility Testing Tools By Steve Faulkner. "Here at The Paciello Group (TPG) we have a technical accessibility testing process which does not involve the use of automated tools. The technical audit results we provide to our clients are based solely on manual testing of a web site, web application or desktop application..." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=680 An Offer to the HTML5 Team to Save longdesc By Vlad Alexander. "To the dismay of many accessibility experts and advocates, the longdesc attribute has been dropped from the HTML5 spec because this feature is not popular. Despite its lack of use, this feature has the potential to improve Web accessibility if used and used correctly. So in the interest of making the Web more accessible, I would like to make an offer to the HTML5 team to save longdesc..." http://rebuildingtheweb.com/en/offer-to-save-longdesc/ WCAG 2.0 AAA - A Journey Not a Destination By Mike Gifford. "It is great when folks are aware enough about accessibility issues that they can state of of their goals is to achieve the highest level of accessibility for their site. Really, who wouldn't want to have their website be universally accessible to their users? However, it isn't an achievable goal for the majority of websites. Nobody should be claiming WCAG 2.0 AAA..." http://openconcept.ca/blog/mgifford/wcag_20_aaa_a_journey_not_a_destination A Super Simple Way to Make Images Accessible: Alt Text versus Title Explained By Glenda Watson Hyatt. "What does a photo of my cat have to do with blog accessibility? More than you might expect. Allow me to explain..." http://blogaccessibility.com/a-super-simple-way-to-make-images-accessible-alt-text-versus-title-explained/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. An (Almost) Complete Guide to CSS3 Multi-column Layouts By Joshua Kelly. "One of the defining features of print design is the ubiquity of multi-column layouts. And there are a couple of good reasons why this is the case..." http://www.kmsm.ca/2010/an-almost-complete-guide-to-css3-multi-column-layouts/ CSS3 and HTML5 are Awesomazing - Part One By Kevin DuCommun. "...I wanted to take some time in this post to go into more detail about what CSS3 elements we have been using, what browsers support them, and how we plan to take advantage of these web specs in future projects..." http://www.rockettheme.com/blog/coding/903-css-and-html5-are-awesomazing-part-one clearfix Reloaded + overflow:hidden Demystified By Thierry Koblentz. "...This short article is about enhancing the first method and shedding some light on the real meaning of the second..." http://www.yuiblog.com/blog/2010/09/27/clearfix-reloaded-overflowhidden-demystified/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING.. User Testing Can Save Your Life By 52 Weeks of UX. "Okay, so maybe it wonÕt save your life. But it certainly can keep you out of the ER due to the stress-induced heart attack you were about to have because you have no idea whether or not your customers can actually use the thing you just poured your life into building. Usability testing is one of the best things you can do to understand whether or not people can use the product as you intended, and from there make informed iterative improvements." http://52weeksofux.com/post/1166915234/user-testing-can-save-your-life +04: EVENTS. Accessible Forms October 26 to November 23, 2010. Online Class. http://formsonline.cita.illinois.edu/ +05: JAVASCRIPT. An Introduction to Using WAI-ARIA to Enable Web 2.0 Accessibility By Richard Schwerdtfegger and Becky Gibson. "...This article explains how to use WAI-ARIA to overcome the following accessibility issues for Web 2.0 applications..." http://www-03.ibm.com/able/resources/wai_aria_intro.html String Replace JavaScript Bad Design By Gareth Heyes. "After using JavaScript for a while one of the worst parts I found was the String.replace function. When I realized itÕs behaviour I thought to myself someone is going to use this wrong. The function itself is excellent, I use it all the time as you could probably tell with my code. It is far better than some other languages with the ability to use strings/regexes and provide a function callback for the replacement..." http://www.thespanner.co.uk/2010/09/27/string-replace-javascript-bad-design/ +06: MISCELLANEOUS. Molly Holzschlag Interview (Video) By Mehu. "Mehul talks with Molly Holzschlag from the recent Heartland DeveloperÕs Conference 2010 in Omaha, Nebraska. Molly is a well-known Web standards advocate, instructor, and author." http://tv.devexpress.com/#MollyHolzschlag +07: PHP. Maintainable CSS3 Using PHP By Louis Lazaris. "Some of the maintenance issues that arise can be avoided if you use PHP to generate your CSS, and use PHPÕs capabilities to abstract multiple lines of CSS3 into a single line." http://www.impressivewebs.com/dynamic-css3/ +09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. HTML5: The Facts And The Myths By Bruce Lawson, Remy Sharp. "You canÕt escape it. EveryoneÕs talking about HTML5. itÕs perhaps the most hyped technology since people started putting rounded corners on everything and using unnecessary gradients. In fact, a lot of what people call HTML5 is actually just old-fashioned DHTML or AJAX. Mixed in with all the information is a lot of misinformation, so here, JavaScript expert Remy Sharp and OperaÕs Bruce Lawson look at some of the myths and sort the truth from the common misconceptions." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/09/23/html5-the-facts-and-the-myths/ Your Questions #13 By Richard Clark. "The clinic is getting busy with more HTML5 ailments. This week, weÕll cover server-side validation, immutable images with