[webdev] Web Design Update: October 29, 2010

Fri Oct 29 06:53:11 CDT 2010

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 9, Issue 18, October 29, 2010.

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

++ISSUE 18 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: COLOR.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: FLASH.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: PHP.
10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
11: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Blind Woman Challenges Government Web Access
By Canadian Broadcasting Corporation News.
"A blind Toronto woman is in Federal Court to launch a constitutional
challenge, claiming some government websites are inaccessible to the
visually impaired..."
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/09/21/blind-websites.html

Blind Woman Says Federal Websites Discriminate Against the Visually Impaired
By Laurie Monsebraaten.
"...Despite her considerable technical expertise - she has won four
accessibility design awards from IBM - Jodhan couldn’t get Ottawa’s
online job application to work, even after repeated calls to the
government helpline..."
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/863379--blind-woman-says-federal-websites-discriminate-against-the-visually-impaired

British Standard 8878 on Web Accessibility- Complementary Guidance
By Tristan Parker.
"It's certainly taken a while, but next month should finally see the
long-awaited arrival of BS 8878 – a British Standard on web
accessibility..."
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=498

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Adobe MAX Slides and Resources
By Zoe Mickley Gillenwater.
"Download the slides for my presentation on Designing with CSS3
Effectively and Efficiently for Adobe MAX, as well as get links to
related resources on CSS3 effects, benefits, and media queries."
http://zomigi.com/blog/adobe-max/

+03: COLOR.

Color Blindness Myths and Misunderstandings
By Joe Dolson.
"...here are a few quick comments about color blindness..."
http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2010/10/color-blindness-myths-and-misunderstandings

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Old Survey Methods are Broken
By Gerry McGovern.
"...The main point you should take away from this article is the value
that usability testing can give you in helping you optimize your
sites, helping you deal with difficult clients, helping you create
more usable designs, and ultimately through all of these points giving
you much more satisfied clients at the end of your design process..."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2010/nt-2010-10-25-Old-methods-broken.htm

A/B Testing: Usability From A to B
By: Jacob Creech.
...From the beginning of the design process, and the original
thumbnail sketches that we draw, to wireframes as the process
develops, and on to the final designs as we get further down the
track, A/B testing for usability on these designs can really help show
us what's what..."
http://www.onextrapixel.com/2010/10/18/ab-testing-usability-from-a-to-b/

What Really Happens in the Usability Lab?
By Jeff Sauro.
"The analysis reviewed audio and video from 14 different usability
testing sessions from seven different companies in Denmark. Around
half the labs were for in-house usability teams (IT or product
development) and the others were from consulting firms who are hired
to conduct usability tests."
http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/usability-lab.php

+05: EVENTS.

Web 2.0 Summit
November 15-17, 2010.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://www.web2summit.com/web2010

Usability Week Boston
November 15-17, 2010.
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
http://www.nngroup.com/events/boston/agenda.html

Usability Week Las Vegas
December 5-10, 2010.
Las Vegas, Nevada U.S.A.
http://www.nngroup.com/events/las_vegas/agenda.html

Interagency Disability Educational Awareness Showcase (IDEAS)
December 13-14, 2010.
Washington, DC., U.S.A.
http://section508.gov/ideas/

Web 2.0 Expo
March 28-31, 2011.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://www.web2expo.com/webexsf2011

+06: FLASH.

Apple Takes Adobe Flash off Macs
By Spencer Dalziel.
"...Apple has thrown the baby out with the bathwater by not
pre-installing Flash on Macs..."
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1810866/apple-takes-adobe-flash-macs

+07: JAVASCRIPT.

Using WAI ARIA Landmark Roles - updated
By Steve Faulkner.
"The WAI ARIA specification defines a set of specialised 'landmark'
roles. These roles provide a method to programmatically identify
commonly found sections of web page content in a consistent way. they
can be used now in whatever flavour of (X)HTML you prefer. This allows
assistive technologies to provide users with features which they can
use to identify and navigate to sections of page content..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/?p=106

Unobtrusive Ajax eBook
By Jesse Skinner.
"...O'Reilly has been kind enough to let me distribute my eBook
Unobtrusive Ajax to readers of my blog, so now you can download and
read it..."
http://www.thefutureoftheweb.com/blog/free-book-unobtrusive-ajax

+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

On Ecosystems
By Tristan Louis.
"...Open, at the end of the day, favors the development world but
integrated (and, as a result, often more closed) favors the end user.
Where you stand ultimately defines how you would view either."
http://www.tnl.net/blog/2010/10/23/on-ecosystems/

+09: PHP.

Speed Up Your Website With PHP Buffer Flushing
By Craig Buckler.
"PHP output buffering is normally enabled by default. In older
versions of PHP, a string would be sent to your browser every time the
interpreter encountered an echo statement or text outside the PHP
delimiters."
http://blogs.sitepoint.com/2010/10/29/faster-web-pages-php-buffer-flush/

+10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Eight HTML5 Drafts Updated
By W3C.
"The HTML Working Group published eight documents..."
http://www.w3.org/News/2010.html#entry-8937

HTML5 Basics: Articles, Sections, and Asides
By Keir Whitaker.
A video tutorial.
http://thinkvitamin.com/code/html5-basics-articles-sections-and-asides

Why Video, Audio, Canvas Aren't Self-Closing Tags
Tuesday 26 October 2010By Bruce Lawson.
"I was having a chat with htmlboy about why some elements aren't
self-closing in HTML5, specifically <audio> and <video>..."
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2010/why-video-audio-canvas-arent-self-closing-tags/

Adobe Releases Own HTML5 Video Player
By Michael Calore.
"Adobe has released an embeddable video player that plays HTML5 native
video in browsers that support it, and falls back to Flash in browsers
that don't."
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-10/25/adobe-releases-html5-player

+11: USABILITY.

The UX Design Education Scam
By Andy Rutledge.
"If you emerge from university today with a web design degree, chances
are rather slim that you're employable as a user experience or web
designer. Maybe you learned a lot of stuff; it's just probably the
wrong stuff. Congratulations, you've been defrauded. Hope it didn't
cost you or your parents too much..."
http://www.andyrutledge.com/the-ux-design-education-scam.php

++ SECTION TWO:

+12: 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.

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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.]