[webdev] Web Design Update: May 25, 2007

Fri May 25 06:28:49 CDT 2007

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 5, Issue 49, May 25, 2007.

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

++ISSUE 49 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: NAVIGATION.
10: PHP.
11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
12: TOOLS.
13: TYPOGRAPHY.
14: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Call for Review: Updated WCAG 2.0 Working Draft
By Patrick Lauke.
"The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines Working Group (WCAG WG) 
invites you to comment on an updated draft of the Web Content 
Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0), published on 17 May 2007. WCAG 
2.0 addresses accessibility of Web content for people with 
disabilities..."
http://tinyurl.com/yuw5ea

Summary of Issues, Revisions, and Rationales for Changes to WCAG 2.0 
2006 Last Call Draft
By W3C.
"This document provides an overview of the changes made to WCAG 2.0 
since the Last Call Working Draft, and the rationale for making or not 
making suggested changes..."
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/2007/05/change-summary

Overview of WCAG 2.0 Documents
http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag20

WCAG 2.0 Comments
http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/WCAG20/issue-tracking/

Updated Luminosity Colour Contrast Analysers
By Gez Lemon.
"The Juicy Studio Luminosity Contrast Ratio Analyser and the example 
luminosity contrast ratios have been updated to match the latest 
version of the draft Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. The 
draft Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 were updated last 
Thursday, and one of the things that was updated was the algorithm to 
determine whether the contrast between foreground and background 
colours is sufficient. As well as updating the algorithm itself, the 
thresholds have been changed to consider large and bold text (at least 
18 point or 14 point bold). The new thresholds are..."
http://tinyurl.com/223phh

How To Make Your Web Applications Accessible - The Human Way
By Christian Heilmann.
"One of my biggest annoyances when talking about accessibility and web 
development is the argument of some developers that what they develop 
are web applications and not web sites which is why they don't need to 
care about accessibility. The arrogance of that statement aside it also 
does not make any sense whatsoever. If anything, web applications 
should be even more accessible than web sites. A blind or a keyboard 
user not being able to learn about the new sports range of a certain 
brand is less problematic than the same user not being able to do a 
money transfer or apply for council benefits. "
http://www.wait-till-i.com/index.php?p=444

Why We Use Headings
By Grant Broome.
"...The problem with headings is that nobody seems to be able to agree 
on which heading needs to start the page, and whether it's OK to skip a 
heading or not. The problem is further compounded by automated tools 
which will fail you if you use more than one H1 or if you skip a 
heading element (say H2 to H4). I've put something together here to try 
and illustrate how JAWS users use headings and why these main concerns 
may or may not actually be that important..."
http://grantbroome.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-we-use-headings.html

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Backgrounds
By Paul O'Brien.
"In the second part of our series of articles on the basic building 
blocks of web design, we're very lucky to be able to bring you 
SitePoint's resident CSS guru, Paul O'Brien, who takes a detailed look 
at working with CSS backgrounds. There is nothing that Paul doesn't 
know about CSS, so both newbies and experienced developers should be 
sure to bookmark this exhaustive resource."
http://www.digital-web.com/articles/web_design_101_backgrounds/

Rediscovering the Button Element
By Kevin Hale.
"Creating a consistent interface for your users is a constant struggle 
for every application designer. Building consistency on the web is 
especially tough because the visual rendering differences across 
browsers and operating systems are wildly different and almost 
arbitrary in what can and cannot be done. No where does this become 
more apparent than when you're dealing with form elements and the 
biggest loser of them all in the battle for a standardized look is the 
infamous Submit button..."
http://particletree.com/features/rediscovering-the-button-element/

Introducing CMX JumpStart Tahoe
By Sheri German.
If you've been around a while, you may remember the CMX JumpStart Vegas 
that was released in the summer of 2005 by Stephanie Sullivan and Linda 
Rathgeber. As one of our most popular JumpStarts, it inspired some CMX 
subscribers to request a fluid version of this fixed-width design. Zoe 
Gillenwater, one of our great CSS gurus, happily complied with our 
newest CMX JumpStart Tahoe, a JumpStart modification. Tahoe, like 
Vegas, is located in Nevada, and because it shares many of the same 
kinds of entertainment centers, seems like a fitting city for a 
permutation of the Vegas design..."
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=59039

Creating Bulletproof Graphic Link Buttons with CSS
By Roger Johansson.
"A CSS problem I have been wrestling with lately is how to create a 
bulletproof shrink wrapping graphic button. By that I mean an 
image-based button that will expand and contract to fit the amount of 
text it contains. It is a very useful technique for CMS-driven sites 
that allow the client to change the text that is displayed on buttons, 
as well as for multilingual sites..."
http://tinyurl.com/24cva7

+03: DREAMWEAVER.

Feed Tools in Dreamweaver CS3: RSS and XSL
By Tom Muck.
"Adding an RSS feed to a web page is a piece of cake with the new XSL 
features of Dreamweaver CS3. This article will show the new features of 
XSL transformation using the freely available Community MX RSS feed, or 
any other of your choice. The tutorial will require PHP, ColdFusion, or 
another of the available server models in Dreamweaver CS3, as the XSL 
functionality uses a server-side file to parse and transform the XML 
news feed."
http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=B0F45

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Why 'How Many Users' Is Just The Wrong Question - Rethinking The 
Requirements For Valid Usability Tests
By Kath Straub.
"...other things being equal (e.g., quality of recruiting), the better 
predictor of the productivity of usability testing is the number of 
tasks participants (try to) complete, not the number of participants 
who try to complete them."
http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/may07.asp#kath

Three Important Benefits of Personas
By Jared M. Spool.
"...Personas are becoming a regular staple in many of the development 
teams we talk to. The method helps teams make a smooth transition 
between requirements and design, resulting with much cleaner designs. 
The benefits of preventing grounding, encouraging story telling, and 
enhancing role playing are rarely discussed, yet very present when you 
see the method in full force. It's these benefits that guide our belief 
that personas will be a trusted method for many years to come."
http://www.uie.com/events/uiconf/2007/articles/benefits_of_personas/

+05: EVENTS.

WebJam
June 7, 2007.
Sydney, Australia.
http://webjam.com.au/

WebTech 2007
June 29-30, 2007.
Varna, Bulgaria.
http://www.wtconferences.com/2007/?q=node/1

An Event Apart Chicago
August 27-28, 2007.
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
http://www.aneventapart.com/events/chicago07/

d.Construct
September 7, 2007.
Brighton, United Kingdom.
http://2007.dconstruct.org/

Information Architecture Summit
September 21-22, 2007.
Barcelona, Spain.
http://www.euroia.org/

Design Research Conference
September 21-22, 2007.
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
http://www.id.iit.edu/events/drc/2007/index.html

Oz-IA/2007
September 22-23, 2007.
Sydney, Australia.
http://oz-ia.org/2007/

+06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

IA One Sheeters
By Leah Buley.
"One-Sheeters are quick and easy marketing tools for information 
architects. They're like mini brochures to advertise IA deliverables 
and promote the IA practice in your company. One-Sheeters help people 
envision what deliverables you produce and where they fit into a 
project. They're quick to produce and easy for anyone to understand..."
http://www.iaonesheeters.com/iaonesheeters.asp

+07: JAVASCRIPT.

JavaScript, Accessibility, Microformats
By Bruce Lawson.
"Last Wednesday I was down in the Big Smoke, so went to the Web 
Standards Group JavaScript Meetup to see Steve Faulkner talk on 
De-Mystifying Screen readers. I've admired Steve's work for a while, 
because he actually tests real examples on real screenreaders (which is 
a horrible job). Here's what I learned..."
http://tinyurl.com/2gh6l4

+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

An Interview with Mike Kuniavsky
By Tamara Adlin.
"Today I am speaking with Mike Kuniavsky. He is a founding partner of 
Adaptive Path. Mike left Adaptive Path in 2004 to follow other 
pursuits, including designing experience of tangible technology-which 
sounds very cool and I'm looking forward to hearing more about it. Mike 
has been developing commercial websites since 1994 for lots of 
different people. He is also the author of Observing the User 
Experience: A Practitioner's Guide to User Research, published by 
Morgan Kaufmann. Mike's book is one of my personal favorites. When John 
and I were writing our book, we referred to your book a lot..."
http://www.adlininc.com/uxpioneers/new_pioneers/interview_mike_kuniavsky

+09: NAVIGATION.

Are Sitemaps a Thing of the Past?
By Jonathan Christopher.
"The goal of many Web professionals is to produce high quality work 
that makes the most of their medium. Products are designed to be both 
aesthetically pleasing as well as elegantly useful. There are many 
tools and techniques that can be used to make using any website that 
much easier to use. One thing I don't find myself running across very 
often any more are sitemaps. Have sitemaps become a thing of the 
past?..."
http://mondaybynoon.com/2007/05/21/are-sitemaps-a-thing-of-the-past/

+10: PHP.

Getting PHP to Talk to MySQL
By Michele Davis and Jon Phillips.
"In this first part of a three-part series. you will begin learning how 
to use PHP to display and modify data from a MySQL database."
http://www.devshed.com/c/a/MySQL/Getting-PHP-to-Talk-to-MySQL/

Failover Database Connection with PHP + mySQL
By Stephen Belue.
You want to connect to a mySQL database? Well, then it's likely you 
already know how. But how about connecting a second database if the 
first one fails? No? This could be a life saver.
http://evolt.org/failover-database-connection-with-php-mysql

+11: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

What Are Web Standards?
By Robert Nyman.
"The term Web Standards is featured prominently all over the web, in 
meetings with customers and amongst web developers in general. However, 
the problem is that people have different views on what it actually 
means and encompasses. Therefore, I will try to explain my views on it 
and what most people actually mean when they refer to Web Standards..."
http://tinyurl.com/26f2bu

24sata.hr Goes Non-Standards
By Marko Dugonjic.
"24sata, the first Croatian news portal ever designed with web 
standards was moved from carefully structured, web standards compliant 
to a non-valid inaccessible web site. Unfortunately, it does happen..."
http://tinyurl.com/2ds7a6

What I Want From a New Markup Spec
By Ben Buchanan.
"So it has come to pass that the W3C has decided to take the WHATWG's 
HTML5 on board. It will form the basis of the W3C's HTML5. The goal is 
to have a public draft by June - yes, this year. Given that the spec 
now has to endure the full process of the W3C we'll see how that goes. 
Anyway, this got me to thinking..."
http://weblog.200ok.com.au/2007/05/what-i-want-from-new-markup-spec.html

Wasting Resources
By Anne Van Kesteren.
"One of the reasons it takes browser vendors a long time to implement 
new specifications is that they have to invest lots of resources into 
reverse engineering behavior the web depends on..."
http://annevankesteren.nl/2007/05/wasting-resources

+12: TOOLS.

Contrast Analyser 2.0
By Paciello Group.
"It is primarily a tool for checking foreground & background color 
combinations to determine if they provide good color visibility. It 
also contains functionality to create simulations of certain visual 
conditions such as color blindness..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/resources/contrast-analyser.html

+13: TYPOGRAPHY.

Top Ten Tips for Web Typography
By Richard Rutter.
"The latest issue of Design Edge Canada magazine - a publication for 
Canada's graphic design industry ? was a web typography special for 
which I contributed the following top ten tips for web typography..."
http://www.clagnut.com/blog/1949/

+14: USABILITY.

The Effects of Line Length on Reading Online News
By A. Dawn Shaikh.
"...This study examined the effects of line length on reading 
performance. Reading rates were found to be fastest at 95 cpl. Readers 
reported either liking or disliking the extreme line lengths (35 cpl, 
95 cpl). Those that liked the 35 cpl indicated that the short line 
length facilitated faster reading and was easier because it required 
less eye movement. Those that liked the 95 cpl stated that they liked 
having more information on a page at one time. Although some 
participants reported that they felt like they were reading faster at 
35 cpl, this condition actually resulted in the slowest reading 
speed..."
http://tinyurl.com/295tuh

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+15: 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 at d.umn.edu

[Issue ends.]