[webdev] Web Design Update: April 2, 2006

Sun Apr 2 07:41:39 CDT 2006

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 4, Issue 41, April 2, 2006.

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

++ISSUE 41 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: DREAMWEAVER.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: FLASH.
07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
08: JAVASCRIPT.
09: MISCELLANEOUS.
10: NAVIGATION.
11: PHP.
12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
13: TOOLS.
14: TYPOGRAPHY.
15: USABILITY.
16: XML.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Using Combined Expertise to Evaluate Web Accessibility
By W3C.
This document "explores how to conduct higher quality evaluations of 
Web site accessibility by combining diverse kinds of expertise from 
different evaluators."
http://www.w3.org/WAI/eval/reviewteams

Evaluating Website Accessibility: Part 3, Digging Deeper
By Roger Johansson.
"In this final article of the series I will explain some aspects of 
website accessibility that are difficult to test with automated tools 
and require more time and/or experience to evaluate manually. Some of 
the checkpoint descriptions in this article assume you have read the 
first articles, so if you haven't read them, please do so before you 
continue."
http://tinyurl.com/or99v

Public Money on Inaccessible Web Sites
By Derek Featherstone.
"If public sector web sites are required to be accessible, shouldn't we 
be requiring the same of sites that are built with public funding?"
http://tinyurl.com/m3236

Jodi Awards Celebrate Accessible Museum and Library Web Sites
By Chris Hofstater.
"...The concept of the Jodi Award for accessible museum and library web 
sites should grow to something with an International stature. Learning 
about these particular sites in the UK gave me some cool web sites to 
look at but, more so, provides an example for how museums and libraries 
no matter of location can make themselves entirely usable by people 
with disabilities. I recommend that everyone sends this BC article or 
the original to any museum web site they would like to see improved as 
all six can serve as templates for accessibility excellence."
http://tinyurl.com/op4yu

Further Mesh Nonsense
By Joe Clark.
"...And really, the Pied Piper of Ajax, Jason Fried, is principally 
responsible for this mess. I'm getting a bit tired of having to remind 
the leader of the pack and his Opera-style fanboys that accessibility 
isn't an option (add 'anymore' if you wish). Is Basecamp used in Italy, 
the United Kingdom, or Germany or within the U.S. federal government? 
Then I hope your expert witnesses are better than I am, because you're 
going to be facing a human-rights tribunal or a lawsuit..."
http://blog.fawny.org/2006/03/27/mesh2/#Mesh2:p-110

Government Sites Fail Web Tests
By the British Broadcasting Corporation.
"Some 60% of UK government websites contain HTML errors, according to a 
study by the University of Southampton..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4853000.stm

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Create a Teaser Thumbnail List Using CSS: Part 1
By Zoe M. Gillenwater.
"Teaser thumbnail lists are those lists of items made up of a title, 
short description, and thumbnail. They're often used to provide short 
teasers that link to more information about the products, articles, or 
sections of the site being listed. This tutorial will go over one way 
to structure the XHTML and CSS to create such a list that maximizes 
flexibility for the site owner and accessibility for the end user. The 
resulting list will feature a fixed-width, grid-like design, with the 
thumbnails aligned to the left and the title and description for each 
item sitting to the right. All with only 18 lines of CSS!
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=97480

IE7 Improvements and Bug Tracking
By Eric A. Meyer.
"Microsoft's Markus Mielke shares a cutting-edge CSS design in IE7, 
confirms the currently-available beta is 'layout complete', and then 
stuns the crowd with news of a forthcoming public bug database for 
Explorer..."
http://tinyurl.com/s428a

Layout Complete Announced at MIX06
By Markus Mielke.
"...the real goal of this (IE7) demo was to push the envelope of 
standard based design using only the fixed HTML (the images you see on 
the page are actually background images to not change the semantics of 
the HTML) provided by CSS Zen Garden and CSS (no script involved)..."
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2006/03/23/559409.aspx

+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Microformats Extensions
By Drew McLellan.
"Part of the remit of the Dreamweaver Task Force is to work with the 
online Dreamweaver community to encourage and assist in the adoption of 
web standards. Whilst a lot of our effort has been to work alongside 
Macromedia to help shape the support for standards within the 
Dreamweaver product line (after all, there's no point us tell you guys 
to use standards if the tool makes it hard to do so), there are some 
things it's not reasonable to expect the Dreamweaver engineers to 
tackle right away."
http://www.webstandards.org/action/dwtf/microformats/

Building Your First Page in Macromedia Dreamweaver 8
By Tom Negrino and Dori Smith.
"After you've set up your local site, you can begin filling the site 
with pages. To do that, you'll need to create a page, give it a title, 
add some content to the page, and save it. To check your work, you 
should view the page in one or more Web browsers before you upload it 
to your Web server. Luckily, Dreamweaver makes it easy to view your 
work in different browsers. This chapter will help you get started 
building your website in Dreamweaver."
http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=455360&rl=1

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Eye Tracking Web Usability
By Dan Farber.
"User interface guru Jakob Nielsen of the Nielsen Norman Group is on 
the road, giving seminars based on a recently completed an eye-tracking 
study that indicates how users consume Web pages?such as where people 
start browsing on a page, whether they have banner and text link 
blindness, where users look for navigation, how they react to different 
text types, relative attention allocated to text vs. pictures and more. 
I caught up with Nielsen via phone in New York to talk about the 
eyetracking research..."
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=2776

+05: EVENTS.

Engage
The 20th BCS HCI Group conference in co-operation with ACM
September 11-15, 2006.
London, United Kingdom
http://www.bcs-hci.org.uk/hci2006/

+06: FLASH.

Flash, DHTML Menus and Accessibility
By Stephanie Sullivan.
"It's not uncommon to hear developers complaining that their DHTML 
menus, when triggered, have dropped behind the Flash movie below 
them..."
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=E5141

+07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

IA Summit Presentation: We Are Not Alone
By Jared Spool.
Jared shares the details of his presentation.
http://tinyurl.com/zge6u

Team Size and Individual Responsibilities
By Mike Rundle.
"So in closing, I think that information architecture is a skill, not a 
profession. However I also think that design, usability knowledge, 
XHTML/CSS coding, backend development, and the rest of them are all 
skills and not professions, so I'm not singling anyone out."
http://tinyurl.com/jbg24

Information Architecture Research Agenda
By Keith Instone.
"Here is an overview of my points, with links to background information 
I compiled in preparation for the panel, as well as some of my notes."
http://instone.org/iasummit2006researchagenda

A Forgotten Prototype Technique: Comics
By Jared Spool.
"Comic strips, even poorly drawn ones ( the only kind I can do), allow 
us to focus on the experience the user has with the design and get 
feedback during the early concept and discovery stages, where the broad 
brush strokes are being worked out. Teams can evaluate the strips with 
real users and collect rich information which will guide every 
subsequent of the design process. It's a powerful technique that I'm 
surprised we don't see used more often."
http://tinyurl.com/g3yam

+08: JAVASCRIPT.

The JavaScript Diaries: Part 13 - Array Properties and Methods
By Lee Underwood.
"Now that we know about the different types of arrays, we'll learn how 
to manipulate them in order to make them more functional. This week 
we'll look at the properties and methods that are commonly used for 
most coding situations."
http://www.webreference.com/programming/javascript/diaries/13/

 From DHTML to DOM Scripting
By Christian Heilmann.
"I just published a new longer article (40 pages) trying to explain the 
differences between DHTML and DOM scripting. The article explains what 
DHTML, the DOM  and DOM scripting is and shows how to create a web page 
with dynamic elements like tabs, a slide show and a big product shot in 
both ways."
http://tinyurl.com/ks3an

My New Favorite Loop
By Jim Rutherford.
"I recently discovered a new way to loop through an array in JavaScript 
that doesn't use the standby Array.length property to determine the 
number of iterations..."
http://www.digitalmediaminute.com/article/2098/my-new-favorite-loop

+09: MISCELLANEOUS.

Cascading Style Sheets Doctoral Thesis
By Hakon Wium Lie.
For those who love historical information or wonder why certain CSS 
decisions were made, here is Hakon Wium Lie's doctoral thesis. He is 
one of the original authors of CSS 1.0 and the current CTO of Opera.
http://people.opera.com/howcome/2006/phd/

Robert Nyman, Jonathan Snook and Dustin Diaz - A Triple Interview
By Johan Van Den Rym.
"What binds the three together? Professional web developers running a 
weblog about webdesign, coding tips related to client-side scripting 
and server-side programming (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, MYSQL, AJAX, ASP, 
PHP, etcetera), usability, webstandards, accessibility and web trends."
http://www.aspiramedia.com/fadtastic/?p=82

+10: NAVIGATION.

Red Route Usability
David Travis.
"Important roads in London are known as 'red routes' and Transport for 
London do everything in their power to make sure passenger journeys on 
these routes are completed as smoothly and quickly as possible. Define 
the red routes for your web site and you'll be able to identify and 
eliminate any usability obstacles on the key user journeys."
http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/redroutes.html

+11: PHP.

Using XML: A PHP Developer's Primer, Part 2
By Adam Delves.
"In the first part of this series, we took a look at how PHP 5 can be 
used to manipulate and parse XML files. In this installment, we are 
going to focus on Ajax, one of the most useful and topical applications 
of XML. Initially, we are going to introduce Ajax and learn how to use 
the XMLHTTP object provided by most modern web browsers to create a 
live email validation form. Then we will pick up where we left off with 
the theme of XML and introduce XSLT, which we will use to transform our 
library XML from the previous article into valid XHTML code."
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/adam_delves20060224.php3

Using XML: A PHP Developer's Primer, Part 3
By Adam Delves.
"In our last article, we touched the surface of Ajax by developing a 
simple email validation application. In this article we are going to 
delve deeper into Ajax and explore how XSL can be used on both the 
client side (using Javascript) and on the server (using PHP) to 
transform XML data into XHTML."
http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/adam_delves20060322.php3

+12: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

IE7: Details
By Dave Shea.
"...I had a chance to sit down with Markus Mielke of the IE team and 
find out what precisely we can expect of rendering updates in IE7. It's 
likely that any praise of Internet Explorer will still be controversial 
for now, but it's well-earned. Hear me out..."
http://mezzoblue.com/archives/2006/03/23/ie7_details/

Acid2 Supported in Opera One Year Later
By Molly E. Holzschlag.
"Opera 9 passes Acid2, next step for Opera is mobile, and preliminary 
mumblings about Acid3 have begun."
http://tinyurl.com/ko4qa

Supporting Web Standards
By Heidi Voltmer.
"...Considering the success of the Web Standards Project, it is now 
time for all designers and developers to implement standards fully such 
as HTML, XHTML, XML, and CSS when building websites. Building pages 
with these standards will ensure that sites are accessible to those 
with disabilities, display properly in the next version of web browsers 
like Internet Explorer 7.0, and are easier to develop and maintain..."
http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/logged_in/hvoltmer_standards.html

Why Size Doesn't Matter in Setting Web Standards
By Daniel Champion.
"Better Connected is a significant report for local authority web 
managers and their teams. With its key findings based on real user 
testing and expert input from the RNIB, it provides a unique 
opportunity for us to gauge the progress of our sites relative to those 
of other authorities..."
http://society.guardian.co.uk/e-public/story/0,,1741315,00.html

+13: TOOLS.

Background Image Maker
By ab.rails2u.com.
http://lab.rails2u.com/bgmaker/

+14: TYPOGRAPHY.

Typography and the Web [Update 2]
By Paul Bader.
"What I'm talking about is 'Justified Text on Webpages' and I tell you 
why I think it needs to be banned from the web..."
http://hukl.smyck.org/2006/01/26/typography-and-the-web-update-2

+15: USABILITY.

Improve Usability for Older Users
By Tim Fidgeon.
"A growing portion of the population is over 60 -- and online! Tim 
reveals his first-hand research into the ways people aged 60+ use the 
Internet, and what it means for designers and developers."
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/improve-usability-older-users

Heart Surgery for Dummies
By Gerry McGovern.
"...Most websites still don't treat their content seriously. They often 
give the role of 'putting up' content to junior staff. If they do hire 
content professionals, they rarely give them the appropriate support 
and authority. These professionals often end up in needless and 
counterproductive conversations with egoistic authors.  It's time to 
put content professionals (editors) in charge of running websites. The 
dictatorship of the author leads to vanity publishing and filler 
content. The organizations that succeed on the Web will be those who 
recognize that quality writing and
editing are specialist skills."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2006/nt-2006-03-27-heart-surgery.htm

Is Ugly the new Black?
By Jared Spool.
"Basically, the argument is simple: look at PlentyOfFish.com, 
MySpace.com, and Craigslist.com and you find examples of how 'ugly 
sites' can succeed while many pretty sites have failed. Therefore, the 
argument continues, ugly is the new black..."
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2006/03/27/is-ugly-the-new-black/

Ugly Design Getting Too Much Credit
By Paul Scrivens.
"...It never was about the ugliness of a site, it was about its 
usability, community and a couple of other things..."
http://9rules.com/whitespace/ugly_design_getting_too_much_credit.php

The Role of Aesthetics in Design
By Tom Chi.
"...So simply put, ugly!=good, but ugly doesn't hurt that much until 
your market is mature enough for people have choices by which to 
exercise their aesthetic and user experience preferences..."
http://tinyurl.com/jonc6

+16: XML.

Understanding XForms: The Model
By Kurt Cagle.
"This is the second in a series of articles I'm writing about the 
ongoing XForms implementation in Mozilla Firefox..."
http://www.understandingxml.com/archives/2006/03/understanding_x.html

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+17: 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 
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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 at d.umn.edu

[Issue ends.]