+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 9, Issue 31, January 28, 2011. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 31 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: EVENTS. 04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 05: MISCELLANEOUS. 06: NAVIGATION. 07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 08: TYPOGRAPHY. 09: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Text Alternatives for Images: Some Examples By Dey Alexander. "When writing text alternatives for your images, you need to consider the: role of the image-what are you using the image for? What is it meant to do, say or mean?; context in which it is used-what else is on this page that might affect how you should provide a text alternative for the image?" http://www.deyalexander.com.au/blog/2011/01/text-alternatives-for-images-some-examples-2/ Better for Accessibility By Derek Featherstone. "You may have heard that display:none is bad for accessibility and that you should use off-left positioning instead. It isn't about using display: none; or off-left positioning. It isn't just about screen reader users. It's about making an interface work for everyone with efficient keyboard access for everyone that needs it-sighted or not..." http://simplyaccessible.com/article/better-for-accessibility/ Testing Accessibility of Pre-populated Input Fields By Terrill Thompson. "...It's becoming increasingly common for web pages to include input fields, especially search fields, that prompt the user with placeholder text inside the input field, rather than a separate visible label. The main argument I've heard for doing so is to conserve scarce screen real estate." http://terrillthompson.blogspot.com/2011/01/testing-accessibility-of-pre-populated.html Should the ADA Require WCAG 2.0 Level AA Conformance? By Terrill Thompson. "...In Jim Thatcher's Response, he argues that "level AA is too strong, too complicated, too much." Instead, he recommends that the DOJ require Level A conformance, plus just one Level AA success criterion, 2.4.7 (visible indication of current keyboard focus). He says the DOJ should recommend all of WCAG 2.0, but not require it..." http://terrillthompson.blogspot.com/2011/01/should-ada-require-wcag-20-level-aa.html HTML5 & Annotations for Assistive Technology By Virginia DeBolt. "I was scrounging around in the HTML5 spec on the W3C site looking for something else and found an answer to a question I had asked about earlier on Web Teacher. In the section titled Annotations for assistive technology products (ARIA) I found the answer to my question about aria-level..." http://www.webteacher.ws/2011/01/25/html5-annotations-for-assistive-technology/ Facebook Needs Accessibility Help By Matt May. "That title looks a little confrontational, I know. But no, seriously. They're actually looking for someone with the skills necessary to help make the most popular site on the web a little more accessible to its users. Okay, there's the good news. Here's the bad: while they're looking for that person, they're also busy reinventing my greatest nemesis: the CAPTCHA..." http://www.bestkungfu.com/archive/date/2011/01/facebook-needs-accessibility-help/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Margins and Ems, Outside the Box By Niels Matthijs. "There's more to understanding css than just getting to know the rules or assigning values to a list of properties. The css language was constructed based on a rule set, a series of paradigms that define the way the language is supposed to behave. Once again (remember css proximity) we're going to try and find out how and where the programmer's mind is clashing with the human mind, causing confusion and mishaps in cssland..." http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/box-model-margins-problems Border Imaging By Eric A. Meyer. "...allow me to pose this to you as a challenge. Given the following ideal rendering, how would you arrive at the depicted result using the single 5-pixel-by-5-pixel image shown within the content?..." http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2011/01/24/border-imaging/ Border Imaging Redux By Eric A. Meyer. "To follow up on my border-image post from Monday, it turns out that as currently written, border-image literally cannot take an image of a single symbol and repeat it around the border of an element. Instead, you have to create an image with at least eight copies of the symbol in a 3x3 grid pattern...." http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2011/01/26/border-imaging-redux/ Reset v2.0 By Eric A. Meyer. "Earlier today, I updated the CSS Tools: Reset CSS page to list the final version of Reset v2.0, as well as updated the reset.css file in that directory to be v2.0. (I wonder how many hotlinkers that will surprise.) In other words, it's been shipped. Any subsequent changes will trigger version number changes..." http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2011/01/26/reset-v2-0/ CSS Validation Will Soon Be More Realistic By Jens O. Meiert. "A brief update on making use of vendor-specific CSS extensions warnings, not errors: the development version of the CSS validator contains an update that doesn't penalize for use of such extensions. (To try the update customize the 'Options' by setting 'Vendor Extensions' to 'Warnings'.)" http://meiert.com/en/blog/20110125/realistic-css-validation/ +03: EVENTS. Breaking Development 2011: Design and Development for the Mobile Web April 11-12, 2011. Dallas, Texas, U.S.A. http://www.breakingdc.com +04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Developing a Site Structure By Karl Dawson. "The information architecture (IA) work for the current website project I'm involved in has been chunked into four phases with the intention of redesigning the website from a 'content out' point of view..." http://www.thatstandardsguy.co.uk/2011/01/developing-a-site-structure/ +05: MISCELLANEOUS. Five Questions with Zoe Mickley Gillenwater By Chris Coyier. "Zoe is a hero of the modern web. I first heard of her from her book Flexible Web Design, which is a super comprehensive and sensible look at building fluid width websites (and other techniques to make websites take advantage of a variable width browser window). At the time, 'media queries' weren't really a thing. While it's a different concept, it's related in spirit. Zoe tackles that, and a slew of other CSS3 techniques in her new book, Stunning CSS3: a project-based guide to the latest in CSS. I met Zoe once at ConvergeSE and heard her talk. She knows her stuff! I thought I'd catch up with her and get the what's what." http://css-tricks.com/five-questions-with-zoe-mickley-gillenwater/ The Art of the Design Critique By Aarron Walter. "...Despite its value to the outcome of the design process, it's far too often avoided like a trip to the dentist because we subconsciously feel criticism of our work is not just a reflection on our design, but is a spotlight upon our personal shortcomings. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Proper design criticism focus on goals, outcomes, and the needs of the users..." http://thinkvitamin.com/design/the-art-of-the-design-critique +06: NAVIGATION. Best Menu Option Ever: See Fewer Choices By Jared Spool. "Online banking is notorious for poorly thought-through interactive experiences. Chase Online is no exception. Their mortgage screen contains this list of menu options, with one of my most favorite menu options ever..." http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2011/01/26/best-menu-option-ever-see-fewer-choices/ +07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. HTML - The Standard that Failed? By Neil McAllister. "HTML is a standard dictated by browser vendors -- not an independent body..." http://www.infoworld.com/print/149585 HTML5 Accessibility By Steve Faulkner. January/February 2011 update. http://www.html5accessibility.com/ The HTML5 CSS Starter Page Series By Sheri German. "Unless you have been impersonating Rip Van Winkle and have been sleeping the past year, I am sure most of you are aware of the tsunami of CSS3 and HTML5 techniques that are flooding the web tutorial and blog sites. Adobe released its Dreamweaver CS5 11.03 updater with new HTML5 and CSS3 capabilities, as well as two HTML5 CSS Starter Pages. With two mainstream CSS Starter Page series behind us, I hope you are ready to embark on a freewheeling look into the future-is-now through this new HTML5 CSS Starter Page series." http://www.communitymx.com/abstract.cfm?cid=0990C HTML Beyond HTML5 By Roger Johansson. "...Thankfully the W3C has not moved to a living standards model. For browser vendors the 'living standards model' may be desirable, but to me as a developer continuing to refer to the latest HTML specification from the W3C makes much more sense since it provides stability. I suppose that means you can have it both ways, which is probably not a bad idea. That still leaves us with the problem that there is no version indicator in HTML5, which isÉ well, let's just say that it's not exactly my favourite HTML5 feature." http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201101/html_beyond_html5/ The Zen of HTML5 - London Web Presentation By Bruce Lawson. "Last week, 120 Londoners were locked in a room and made to listen to me talk about HTML5, specifically its origins and design principles..." http://my.opera.com/ODIN/blog/2011/01/26/the-zen-of-html5-london-web-presentation HTML(5) and Text-Level Semantics By Harry Roberts. "As an absolute type nut and militant web standards advocate, one of the most exciting things that HTML5 brings for me is not the new structural elements like
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