+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 9, Issue 35, February 25, 2011.

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

++ISSUE 35 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: EVALUATION & TESTING.
03: EVENTS.
04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
05: JAVASCRIPT.
06: PHP.
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.

Accessible Video and Transcripts
By Adrian Roselli.
"With HTML5 on the horizon, it is becoming far easier to embed video on a web page than it has been. Sure, you can drop some code copied from YouTube, but you have little control over the HTML or the video output. Once you do have your video, you also need to bear in mind that not only are video (and audio) transcripts good practice, they are required by law for many organizations..."
http://evolt.org/AccessibleVideo

Dickensian Disney: Not Down With the Kids
By Henny Swan.
"...So Disney, rather than exploit disabled characters in your films such as Tiny Tim, the Hunchback of Notra Dame, Hook, Nemo, the 7 dwarfs and and many more) to make money why don't you actually practice what you preach?"
http://www.iheni.com/dickensian-disney/

Mature Age ICT Users Online Survey Results
By Roger Hudson.
"During December 2010 and January 2011, we conducted an online survey of information and communication technology (ICT) users over the age of 60. We have completed the initial collating of these results and they provide a snapshot of internet and mobile phone usage by those older members of the population who are able and willing to participate in an online survey. We are making the result of the online Mature Age ICT Users survey available in an Excel file for other researchers to download and use as they wish."
http://www.dingoaccess.com/accessibility/mature-age-ict-users-online-survey-results/ 

London Web Standards Presentation
By Leonie Watson.
"Screen readers come in many different forms, for most different platforms, and with wildly different price tags. When it comes to the web, most screen readers are more capable now than they've ever been. The question is whether they're keeping pace with emerging technologies like HTML5?..."
http://tink.co.uk/2011/02/london-web-standards-presentation/

Hiding Content for Accessibility
By Jonathan Snook.
"For years now, we've used a number of techniques for hiding content offscreen for accessibility purposes. We do this because the content is still accessible to screenreaders while being removed from the interface for sighted users. An article over at Adaptive Themes reviews a number of techniques for hiding content that were considered for inclusion on a Drupal 7 project (but certainly applicable to any project). Here is a summary of those techniques and the pitfalls of each technique..."
http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/hiding-content-for-accessibility


+02: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Usability Testing Is Qualitative Only If You Can't Count
By Jon Innes.
"I've recently found myself in a lot of discussions over the value of traditional user research methods. In particular, the value of that staple of user research we know as the usability test and its relevance in today's world of Google Analytics and A/B and multivariate testing..."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2011/02/usability-testing-is-qualitative-only-if-you-cant-count.php

Are You Doing A/B Testing?
By Paul Boag.
"Its easy, its cheap and it could increase the conversion rate on your website significantly. Why then are we not all doing A/B testing?"
http://boagworld.com/technology/are-you-doing-ab-testing/

Groups Are Swayed By a Dominant Personality
By Susan Weinschenk.
"...This is one reason why I am skeptical about focus groups for user research (as opposed to one-on-one interviews or user testing)..."
http://www.whatmakesthemclick.net/2011/02/24/100-things-you-should-know-about-people-64-groups-are-swayed-by-a-dominant-personality/


+03: EVENTS.

Interlink Web Design Conference
June 2-4, 2011.
Vancouver, Canada
http://interlinkconference.com/ 

Internet Week
June 6-13, 2011.
New York, New York, U.S.A.
http://www.internetweekny.com/

Ampersand - The Web Typography Conference
June 17, 2011.
Brighton, United Kingdom
http://ampersandconf.com/

HOW Design Live
June 22-27, 2011.
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
http://www.howconference.com/

Future of Web Apps
June 27-29, 2011.
Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.
http://futureofwebapps.com/las-vegas-2011/

Front-End Design Conference
July 23, 2011.
Saint Petersburg, Florida, U.S.A.
http://frontenddesignconference.com/

re:build Conference
July 29, 2011.
Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.A.
http://rebuildconf.com/


+04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

From Wireframes to Code, Part II
By Bill Schmidt.
"...In Part II, I'll first explore what it would be like to instead go from code to wireframes. Then, for those of you who want to try employing a process flow that progresses from wireframes to code, I'll discuss what types of prototyping tools would be best for your projects and how their use would impact your product development process..."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2011/02/from-wireframes-to-code-part-ii.php

Rapid Prototyping with Sinatra
By Al Shaw.
"If you're a web designer or developer, you're well acquainted with prototyping. From raw wireframing to creating interfaces in Photoshop, designers map out how sites will work before they create them. Over the past few years, the protoyping process has changed significantly. With browser makers generally agreeing on web standards and the rise of tools such as Firebug and WebKit's web inspector, we can sometimes skip Photoshop and go straight to the browser. Plus, JavaScript frameworks like jQuery let us play with browser events with only a few lines of code. But what if we need to do even more? As websites increasingly become web apps, we now need to prototype backend functionality, too. Learn how Sinatra, a so-called 'micro' web framework, helps you create real (albeit simple) web apps extremely fast, letting you prototype flows and behavior you may want to integrate into a final product..."
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/rapid-prototyping-with-sinatra/


+05: JAVASCRIPT.

JavaScript array 'extras' in Detail
By Dmitry A. Soshnikov.
"In this article we'll look at the functionality made available by the new methods of array objects standardized in ECMA-262 5th edition (aka ES5). Most of the methods dicussed below are higher-order (we'll clarify this term shortly below), and related to functional programming. In addition, most of them have been added to different JavaScript implementations since version 1.6 (SpiderMonkey), although these were only standardised in ES5..."
http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/javascript-array-extras-in-detail/

Comparison of ARIA Roles Exposed Via MSAA and UI Automation in IE9
By Steve Faulkner.
"The Microsoft MSAA API cannot provide mapping for all ARIA roles as it does not have defined roles and properties for all those defined by The ARIA specification, the Microsoft UI Automation API can. UI automation provides exposure of all WAI-ARIA roles and properties via the ControlType and AriaRole properties."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2011/02/comparison-of-aria-roles-exposed-via-msaa-and-ui-automation-in-ie9/


+06: PHP.

Why You're a Bad PHP Programmer
By Jason Lengstorf.
"We all have our bad habits. In this article, we'll go over a list of bad practices that are worth examining, reevaluating, and correcting immediately."
http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/php/why-youre-a-bad-php-programmer/


+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

The False Dichotomy of Native vs. Web Apps
By Kristofer Layon.
"It seems like I have been coming across a lot of blog posts and tweets lately that either explicitly or indirectly critique the notion of designing native apps for mobile devices. In particular, these comments come from the HTML5 and web design camps..."
http://blog.lib.umn.edu/layo0002/work/2011/02/the-false-dichotomy-of-native.html

Sacrificing the Open Web with H.264
By Mike Davies.
"The openness of the Web is under a direct attack. Apple and Microsoft have found an antidote to competing against free open-source software. Their solution is ingenious - force free software to charge their customers, and then drive them out of business by undercutting on price (funding that loss-leading with revenue generated from the sales of their Operating Systems)."
http://isolani.co.uk/blog/standards/SacrificingTheOpenWebWithH264

HTML 5 Compliance: the Next Step
By Bruce Lawson and Stig Halvorsen.
"...The HTML5 specification defines a set of parsing rules for all markup, whether valid or invalid. Once all browsers have HTML5 parsers, the same markup will produce the same DOM across all conforming browsers..."
http://labs.opera.com/news/2011/02/22/

HTML5 Tutorials and Techniques That Will Keep You Busy
By Aquil Akhter.
"Ever since the latest revision of HTML has launched, internet marketers have switched to HTML5 due to its several new features which facilitate Web development distinctly. It has opened new doors to designers and developers and as you may have already noticed, the use of Flash in Web and internet applications has significantly dropped. In today's post, we've gathered some very useful tutorials that will help you achieve a good command of HTML5. Please feel free to share with us other useful tutorials that have kept you busy!"
http://www.noupe.com/tutorial/html5-tutorials-and-techniques-that-will-keep-you-busy.html

HTML5 for Web Developers 
By Oli Studholme. 
"While they're essential reading material for our job, the W3C specifications are not exactly George R. R. Martin-level reading material. To make matters worse, the often dry text (written for implementors not authors) and É colourful illustrations come wrapped in a design straight out of 1999...I think these specs all have their place..."
http://html5doctor.com/html5-for-web-developers/

+08: TYPOGRAPHY.

Which Are More Legible: Serif or Sans Serif Typefaces?
By Alex Poole.
"Back in 1998 when Times New Roman was still widely used on the web, my then boss made sure we always designed our web sites with Arial, as she hated the look of serif fonts on the web. Was it the case that sans serif fonts were more legible, or was it just a matter of taste? In an effort to get at the truth, I reviewed over 50 empirical studies in typography and found a definitive answer."
http://alexpoole.info/which-are-more-legible-serif-or-sans-serif-typefaces


+09: USABILITY.

Simplicity - It's Complicated
By Michael Harris.
"...The most important thing to remember is that simplicity (and complexity) do not sell themselves. What sells is functionality and convenience- what you can do and how you can do it. How you choose to present these things is up to you, and may be determined by your user characteristics. If you choose simplicity, make sure the key selling points are still recognised by customers. If you choose complexity, expect a lot of calls to customer service! N.B. Simplicity does not strictly mean minimalism; fewer controls etc. Although it is correlated, there are other factors such as functions per control/button, number of states, number of things needed to be explained or remembered, the logic and consistency of the layout etc."
http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2011/simplicity-its-complicated/

Capitalize Headlines and Titles Consistently
By Rachel McAlpine.
"The trend worldwide is to use fewer initial capital letters in headlines and titles. The two prevalent styles are both correct..."
http://contented.com/contented/2011/writing-tip-capitalize-headlines-and-titles-consistently/

Top Tasks and Council Websites
By Gerry McGovern.
"The new Liverpool city council website is one of the best examples of a top task focused website I have come across."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2011/nt-2011-02-21-Top-council.htm


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

Accessibility Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/accessibility.html

Association Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/associations.html

Book Listings.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/books.html

Cascading Style Sheets Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/css.html

Color Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/color.html

Dreamweaver Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/dreamweaver.html

Evaluation & Testing Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/testing.html

Event Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/events.html

Flash Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/flash.html

Information Architecture Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/architecture.html

JavaScript Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/javascript.html

Miscellaneous Web Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html

Navigation Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/navigation.html

PHP Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/php.html

Sites & Blogs Listing.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/sites.html

Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/standards.html

Tool Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/tools.html

Typography Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/type.html

Usability Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/usability.html

XML Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/xml.html

[Section two ends.]


++END NOTES.


+ SUBSCRIPTION INFO.

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+ 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.]