[webdev] Web Design Update: November 25, 2009

Wed Nov 25 06:22:08 CST 2009

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 8, Issue 22, November 25, 2009.

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

++ISSUE 22 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: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
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.

Creating Accessible iTunes U Content
By Mary Watkins.
"The National Center for Accessible Media at WGBH has written 
guidelines for content providers who would like to create accessible 
iTunes U media via captions, subtitles and audio descriptions. These 
guidelines provide step-by-step documentation on creating fully 
accessible media, including..."
http://ncam.wgbh.org/news/itunesu.html

Automatic Captions in YouTube
By Google.
"Since we first announced captions in Google Video and YouTube, we've 
introduced multiple caption tracks, improved search functionality and 
even automatic translation. Each of these features has had great 
personal significance to me, not only because I helped to design them, 
but also because I'm deaf. Today, I'm in Washington, D.C. to announce 
what I consider the most important and exciting milestone yet: 
machine-generated automatic captions..."
http://tinyurl.com/ykzj44a

YouTube Will Automatically Caption Your Video
By Adrian A. Roselli.
"Three years ago YouTube/Google added the ability for video authors to 
add captions to videos. Over time support for multiple caption tracks 
was included, the expansion of search to consider text in captions, and 
even machine translation support for the captions..."
http://tinyurl.com/y86sbd9

YouTube Introduces Automatic Captions for Deaf Viewers
By BBC.
YouTube's parent company Google has announced on its blog that 
automatic captions are to begin to roll out across the site. The 
machine-generated captions will initially be generated in English. At 
first they will only be found on 13 channels. Six channels run by 
universities are also involved in the initial launch..."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8369941.stm

12 Accessibility Pitfalls to Avoid
By Joshua Johnson.
"...Here's our list of twelve accessibility pitfalls to avoid along 
with some examples showcasing sites that either excel or fail miserably 
in these areas..."
http://tinyurl.com/ygybhux

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Ordered Lists and the 'START' Attribute
By Russ Weakley.
"...The W3C determined that the attributes 'type' and 'start' were 
purely presentational and should be removed from markup - to be 
replaced with CSS counters..."
http://www.maxdesign.com.au/2009/11/24/ordered-lists/

How to Attach External Stylesheets
By Ken Stout.
"If you incorporate all of your CSS into your HTML, your web design it 
becomes bloated which causes the files size to increase, which causes 
your page to load slower, which causes people to leave your website in 
a mad fit to opt for a faster loading site. Plus it just makes your 
code look better in my opinion."
http://tinyurl.com/y9rnr2j

Designing CSS Buttons: Techniques and Resources
By Janko Jovanovic.
"Buttons, whatever their purpose, are important design elements. They 
could be the end point of a Web form or a call to action. Designers 
have many reasons to style buttons, including to make them more 
attractive and to enhance usability. One of the most important reasons, 
though, is that standard buttons can easily be missed by users because 
they often look similar to elements in their operating system. Here, we 
present you several techniques and tutorials to help you learn how to 
style buttons using CSS. We'll also address usability."
http://tinyurl.com/yznnmh4

+03: DREAMWEAVER.

The optgroup in HTML Select Forms in Dreamweaver
By Virginia DeBolt.
"I recently showed how to use optgroup in HTML select forms. Those 
instructions were for hand coders. Today's instructions show you how to 
make a small select form with optgroups in Dreamweaver. This is what 
the finished form element looks like in the browser..."
http://tinyurl.com/y9dcfk6

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Real or Imaginary: The Effectiveness of Using Personas in Product Design
By frontend.
"The use of personas as a method for communicating user requirements in 
collaborative design environments is well established. However, very 
little research has been conducted to quantify the benefits of using 
this technique. The aim of this study was to investigate the 
effectiveness of using personas."
http://tinyurl.com/pe9qfv

+05: EVENTS.

HTML5 Workshop
December 4, 2009.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://html5-sf.eventbrite.com/

Real World Accessibility for Ajax and Web Apps
January 26, 2010.
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
http://furtherahead.com/workshops/ottawa-2010/

WebAIM Training
February 17-18, 2010.
Logan, Utah, U.S.A.
http://www.webaim.org/training/

An Event Apart - Seattle
April 5-7, 2010.
Seattle Washington, U.S.A.
http://aneventapart.com/2010/seattle/

A Day Apart
April 7, 2010.
Seattle Washington, U.S.A.
http://aneventapart.com/news/2009/11/02/a-day-apart/

CHI '10 Conference
April 10-15, 2010.
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.
http://www.chi2010.org

W4A (Web4All) 2010
April 26-27, 2010.
Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.A.
http://www.w4a.info/2010/

+06: JAVASCRIPT.

Musings on ARIA role="application"
By Terrill Thompson.
"Despite my being critical in this blog post, I don't necessarily think 
role="application" is a bad idea. However, all stakeholders need to 
carefully consider what to do with it..."
http://terrillthompson.com/2009/11/musings-on-aria-roleapplication.html

+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

Tech Closeup - Ken Harrenstein and TV Raman (captioned video)
"Google engineers work to make technology accessible to all. TV Raman 
is developing cell phone software on Google's Android operating system 
and Ken Harrenstien is developing closed captioning for online videos. 
Segment appeared in Tech Closeup program April 2009."
http://tinyurl.com/yk3meam

Bauhaus Ideology and the Future of Web Design
By Simon Collison.
"What follows is a frankly massive essay in note form. These are the 
notes I made to justify the aims of Bauhaus Ideology and the Future of 
Web Design - a presentation I did for the FOWD Tour in Leeds, September 
2009. Thus, there is a vast array of ideas, conclusions and 
speculations with regard to the future of our industry. Take it with a 
pinch of salt, and think of this as a conversation, and not a 
manifesto..."
http://tinyurl.com/y8uohdf

A Design Apart: Q&A with Jeffrey Zeldman
By Dan Levy.
"Author, blogger and lecturer Jeffrey Zeldman is a living legend in the 
Web design world. We spoke to him about client relationships, brand 
identity and the 'inseparable' connection between content and design..."
http://sparksheet.com/a-design-apart-qa-with-jeffrey-zeldman/

Results of State of the University Web Department Survey
By Nick DeNardis.
"For each question I included a mix graphs, tables and some commentary 
about the results or question. If you want more information about a 
particular question or clarification just ask. In addition the 
questions that required a little cleaning up to be grouped I included 
the download for that cleaned up information. Also at the bottom of the 
post is a link to the complete cleaned up results in case you are 
interested..."
http://tinyurl.com/yfrxlln

+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Is HTML5 Based on False Assumptions?
By Vlad Alexander.
The transition from existing to future Web technology needs to be 
smooth or the Web could break. When HTML5 was conceived, it was taken 
for granted that the future specification (i.e. the language itself) 
needs to be backwards and forwards compatible. All design decisions in 
HTML5 are influenced by these two assumptions. If these assumptions are 
false and there are better alternatives for a smooth transition of the 
technology, is HTML5 a big design mistake?
http://rebuildingtheweb.com/en/html5-false-assumptions/

HTML5 Doctor Glossary
By Jack Osborne.
"The purpose of the glossary is simple: we're going to give you a 
breakdown of all the elements within the spec in clear, bite-sized 
chunks..."
http://html5doctor.com/html5-doctor-glossary/

Full Frontal '09: Stuart Langridge on HTML5 Features
By Michael Mahemoff.
"Stuart Langridge introduces us to some of the up-and-coming features 
we're getting with current and future browsers, a nice complement to 
Robert Nyman's talk, which covered the advanced features of 
"mainstream" (IE6-compatible) Javascript. After introducing the 
features that are there today, he also talks about how we can deal with 
the browser many of us are still having to support."
http://tinyurl.com/ylcw6hj

The Model of a Time-Linear Media resource for HTML5
By Silvia Pfeiffer.
"HTML5 has been criticized for not having a timing model of the media 
resource in its new media elements. This article spells it out and 
builds a framework of how we should think about HTML5 media resources. 
Note: these are my thoughts and nothing official from HTML5 - just 
conclusions I have drawn from the specs and from discussions I had..."
http://tinyurl.com/ydotb8m

+09: USABILITY.

Government Websites Should Meet Basic Usability Criteria
By Adam Bailin.
"...The usability review found that there were many basic issues with 
the sites they looked at. Over 150 individual usability problems were 
identified including..."
http://tinyurl.com/y87qvxj

Make Complete Button Surface Active and Enhance Usability
By UXPassion.
"Buttons are everywhere - both on web and on desktop applications. 
Being so widespread and known to end-users they should be as usable as 
possible. However, there are lot of mistakes when designing buttons and 
they kill the usability. One of the biggest mistakes is making just 
part of the button active. Even MySpace fails in this case."
http://tinyurl.com/l36wv4

How to Design Buttons to Help Improve Usability
By Tom Kenny.
"Buttons can play a big part in how visitors interact with a website. 
They come in varying shapes, sizes and styles but there are a few 
things to consider when designing buttons..."
http://tinyurl.com/ktv58q

Velocity of Media Consumption: TV vs. the Web
By Jakob Nielsen.
"The granularity of user decisions is much finer on the Web, which is 
dominated by the instant gratification of the user's needs in any given 
instant. Content must cater to this rapid pace."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/media-velocity.html

Usability Engineering 10 Years Later
By W Craig Tomlin.
"It's been 10 years since Mayhew wrote 'The Usability Engineering 
Lifecycle,' How far has usability come since then?..."
http://tinyurl.com/qssofa

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+10: 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.

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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.]