Who You Calling A Jesse?

With only a week off I figured I wouldn’t miss that much. As it turns out my email was near silent – except for the mail lists – and my phone was too. Just my RSS reader has me playing catch up. So here is a round up of what was interesting because the little box on the side of interesting links just won’t cut it.

• The Accessibility Chronicles gets listed first because it probably the best post in the bunch. Great look at the state of thinks from Mike Davidson’s point of view.
• OS X update
• AJAX remote – the buzz just keeps coming, interesting though.
• DOM Scripting Task Force announced. Ok that was today, but still news to me! Very cool.
• Easy PHP is a really good intro to PHP, now with a part 2.
• Widget for Backback updated – oh I love that site.
• SLC reports on a JobMine hack that is really worth looking at for all Firefox users.
• WCAG 2.0 work draft is available.
• ….and the ipod is looking to take down MTV with the sale of music videos. I think that is a really cool idea!

Ok, that is all for now… and if you want to see photos of my trip, they will all be on Flickr by tomorrow. For now, check out Wales.

I spent too much time today trying to update my version of textpattern on the latest version and failed. What I have now is a site limping along, but it seems to work. On with links (or I will never post them):

• How would you like your site? Fixed, fluid, or elastic?
• Ideal web team size – how about we start with a web team.
• More corners that I like much better… just not as easy.
• Mighty Essential links
• Copywriting is interface design sort of supports what Jen is talking about. Good content makes a good web site.

What else have I been doing? Well trying to get organized with the help of Basecamp and my nifty Backpack. The more I learn about Backpack, the more I can’t believe how useful this will become. Web based productivity tools that are simple, cheap, and effective. The email/cell phone integration alone… amazing and it makes me want to spend time with Ruby on Rails even more.

Oh, I have been playing with Tiger too. What an amazing OS.

Web pages that suck looks at the biggest mistakes of 2004. I think the template still needs a bit of tweak.. especially after this. But you have to stop tinkering at some point. Version 1.0 of the template will be a good start.

…and here are a bunch of usability related links (I have yet to read them all myself).

• Double O Negative Usability Testing
• My first user test!
• Usability: Subliminal U-Turns
• Roman UI Design II – said user will then try to find more examples of this “shoddy workmanship” and before you know it, the nearly-beautiful UI which you slaved over for months is a laughing stock. Brilliant.
• Packaging an Interface Design
• Usability of Websites for Teenagers – this shouldn’t be a surprise to folks around here… but it re-enforces some things. The chart is funny though.. teens don’t enjoy anything.
• Usability in E-Learning
• Cultural importance of usability testing – I think this applies to multi-cultural Universities as well. When doing usability testing try to ensure you have a diverse group.

Focus on design this first Friday of 2005. On what is becoming my favorite design blog of the moment, All that Malarkey has a great post on CSS:Mark-up guides. It even motivated me to do more with my Fireworks sketch up of the template I have been working on. So stay tuned for that – at the very least it will explain the template a lot better than words.

Navigation blindness looks at people missing the navigation because what they are looking for is not in the content. I too find myself missing links on a page because my focus is on the content in my attempt to ignore any and all advertisements. Especially those tricky Google ads.

Accessibility is only for blind users? Oh no, how about designing web content for people with learning disabilities. Learning disability design is very difficult to test for, if not impossible. That site looks to have a good starting point of tips and tricks that may seem obvious but I bet they aren’t on your check list.

…looking for what else you can do for those struggling after the tsunami in the Indian Ocean? How about Blog Aid?

I have been doing a little testing of the sIFR with Jaws to see if I could catch a bug that has been reported. The way it was reported is that Jaws says the headline twice – reading the text, then reading the flash replacement – but from what I read of the report it was reading the font type as well. Really annoying when you think about it.

So off I go to the ATC downstairs in the ODP in NH (Acronyms rule).. and guess what, it reads it twice but in different context and it does it on non-sIFR pages too. “That is silly” you say? Yup it is.

I need to look into in some more because 20 min on Jaws really isn’t ‘extensive’ testing now is it? Shall update this post when I do. UPDATE: I created two pages, one sIFR one not but identically simple in the content otherwise. No repeating of headers even with links. That was on win98, IE 6, and JAWS 5.0 in demo mode. For my next trick I am going to make a little more complex page and see… if I get the time.

The real reason for this post was a couple accessibility related links:

• Fangs: The Firefox Screen Reader Emulater Extension – wow, Firefox is becoming an essential tool for web developers.
• Rounded corners fun or you could get them made for you
• 3-column CSS holygrail? – perhaps.

..and why ‘hard packed?’ Well apparently you can’t call ice on a ski hill ice.. you have to call it ‘hard packed.’ Since it’s icey.. hrm.. hard packed around campus today I thought it was appropriate.

This week’s collection is really UI heavy I think. The founder of the web has an article pointing out that cooperation is needed on the web. Tech companies need to give a little in order for everyone to benefit from the web.

Making Your Content Management System Work for You: An Interview with Jeffrey Veen look at issues surrounding CMS. I like the first and second questions. Choice quote: When asked about the difficulties of adopting a publication mindset – Most designers I’ve worked with know how publications come together and understand their own role in the process… But… Most often, I find that businesses don’t treat their web site as a publication… It is really worth a read.

Two of the best articles this week appeared in my RSS today. If your copy sucks, people will think your service sucks, too. Such an obvious statement but one that is often ignored in the ‘get it on the web now’ hysteria that grips many areas of campus web sites. We all need to work on our writing skills. Now, What’s Wrong with (Almost) All web sites is a decent look at the general state of bad design on the web. Sure you have 30-50 great sites you can think of, there are likely hundreds of thousands of good sites. Just some of the more popular ones can really suck. Maybe they need to take a look at this recipe for web design, yum stir fry.

Some other interesting things:

• Integrated Web Design: Strategies for Long-Term CSS Hack Management
• PHP Login System with Admin features
• Web Standards with a twist
• How To Create Web Information Maps
• ADA undercurrents
• Livesearch – search while you type
• Create easy-to-view tables
• Deisigning for Web Revisitation: Exploiting Structure from User Interaction and Navigation
• 5 things to know about users