Buzz Archives: Design
What do you want from CSS3 - one week left
(Polish translation) As part of the outreach work we're doing in partnership with the W3C's CSS Working group, we invited all web professionals to tell the Working Group what they want from the next version of the spec. As the Working Group's face-to-face meeting is at the end of March, we will ...
By Bruce Lawson | March 2nd, 2008
- Tell the CSS WG what you want from CSS3
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The W3C's CSS Working Group charter expires on 1 July 2008, so the group will be discussing its revised charter in March this year. Fantasai, an Invited Expert in the group, has put out a call for web professionals to help the working group prioritise its work: The CSSWG plans to ...
By Bruce Lawson | January 18th, 2008
- Amazon allowing CSS customization
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In a fairly interesting move, Amazon is now allowing aStores to be customized using CSS.
By Aaron Gustafson | August 16th, 2007
- Detecting when good fonts change size
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Designing for the web is challenging enough, but when you need to take into account scaling font-sizes, it can quickly become a nightmare. The common wisdom is to design your pages to accomodate fonts two sizes up and two sizes down from the default, but with this new script from two clever Yahoo! blokes, your can get way more clever.
By Aaron Gustafson | September 12th, 2006
- Valid Flash, video, and audio embed (object) markup
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The following three links need to be in one place, once and for all: Valid Flash <object> markup: “Flash Satay” by Drew McLellan Valid video <object> markup: “Bye Bye Embed” by Elizabeth Castro Valid audio <object> markup (with Quicktime): “Object Embedding” by Simon Jessey, et. al. Here's the backstory: Eighteen months ago, I ...
By Ben Henick | August 15th, 2006
- An Open Letter to Disney Store UK
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Dear Disney Store UK, I would write this to you directly via your site feedback page but it is throwing Access database errors. The email appears to be down as well. So instead, I'm going to write my letter here in a public forum in the hopes that someone from your ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | November 3rd, 2005
- WaSP Microsoft Task Force Update: Upcoming Products, XAML, Acid2, SXSW, and IE7 Revealed
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The WaSP Microsoft Task Force held another face-to-face meeting with available members on Tuesday. We met in a Starbucks along the waterfront in rainy Seattle. While the setting might have been a bit predictable, the conversation was unique and at times, very encouraging. WaSPs at the meeting were DL Byron ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | November 2nd, 2005
- Calling all CSS-Savvy Designers
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Kevin Lawver, AOL's representative to the CSS Working Group, is making a plea to the design community to give the Working Group feedback on the CSS3 Borders and Backgrounds module. It isn't often one gets the opportunity to help define the tools you'll be using in your job, and this is ...
By Chris Kaminski | July 21st, 2005
- CSS Reboot 2005
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May 1st. To be remembered for... Elvis Presley and Pricilla's wedding anniversary? (1967) Last British concert by Beatles? (1966) The first Batman comic published? (1939) Well yes, but also for the first CSS Reboot 2005. CSS Reboot will attempt to bring together web professionals who design with CSS and standards in mind to launch their ...
By Andy Clarke | May 1st, 2005
- So long, Joe
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After over 8 years of publishing one of the top web design 'zines going, Joe Gillespie is hanging up his text editor. Along with sites by former WaSP project leader Jeffrey Zeldman, David Siegel and Lynda Weinman and books by the latter two, WPDFD was part of the canon of ...
By Chris Kaminski | December 3rd, 2004
- Keeping your Balance with ECMAScript
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Paul Bellows has revisited the even-height CSS columns question discussed in a couple of previous posts. Paul's method uses ECMAScript, the DOM and some non-standard properties to work it's magic. Personally, I'm not a big fan of using ECMAScript for basic layout. Neither is Paul, truth be told. But at the ...
By Chris Kaminski | September 13th, 2004
- W3C Rebranding
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Andrei Herasimchuk has posted an excellent logo design tutorial based on his efforts to redesign the W3C logo. Andrei undertook the exercise after Dean Jackson asked him to lend a hand with an upcoming W3C ten year anniversary event.
By Chris Kaminski | September 7th, 2004
- Sliding CSS Columns
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Eric Meyer and WaSP Douglas Bowman have teamed up to develop a technique for creating multiple columns of equal height and variable width using CSS. Eric's discussion also includes his thoughts on the expediency of the odd layout table, while Doug frames his explanation in a discussion of the advantages ...
By Chris Kaminski | September 7th, 2004
- A Guide to Small-Screen Web-Dev
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Read it, read it again. Save it. Print it. Highlight key points. (there are many) The End-All Guide to Small-Screen Web-Dev by Heidi Pollock (webmonkey, 5 Mar 2004)It takes one gigantabig tutorial to teach you how to build sites for all those itty, bitty devices.One of the better pieces (I have encountered) that ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | March 12th, 2004
- WYSIWYG CSS Editors Coming of Age?
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The good folks at westciv have released a new version of their style editor, Style Master 3.5. I took some time to work with it today and was rather impressed. There are some super cool features such as a browser support watcher, multiple ways of viewing and applying properties and ...
By Molly E. Holzschlag | March 4th, 2004
- CSS Vault
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Do you ever come to the point sometimes when you are designing and the design is just simply not working so you begin to wonder why you are even a designer or could even claim to be one? So speaks Paul Scrivens of 9rules. If you've ever felt the same (and ...
By Dunstan Orchard | November 14th, 2003
- Mobile Graphics Contest, W3C
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A Mobile Graphics with Standards contest is currently running at the World Wide Web Consortium. Announced September 30th, 2003 by the SVG working group at the World Wide Web Consortium(W3C) the SVG Mobile Competition is underway. There is still time to submit entries, though the deadline is November 3, 2003. The challenge: ...
By Holly Marie Koltz | October 14th, 2003
- ReUSEIT Contest
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ReUSEIT is a contest for designers and coders to create a redesign of Jakob Nielsen's useit.com that must use valid tableless XHTML 1.0, CSS, and it must meet WAI Accessibility level 1. JavaScript, GIF, JPG and PNG images may be used. Eric Meyer's quote says it all, "Design Eye for ...
By Meryl K. Evans | September 2nd, 2003
- Eric talks standards, Dave browses for bugs
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"The criticism that CSS websites have looked plain is really well deserved but the reason that CSS driven sites have looked plain to date is that the people who have created those sites have not been visual artists they haven't ...
By Ian Lloyd | July 7th, 2003
- W3C remixed
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The winners are in for the WThRemix contest. The challenge was to come up with a fancy new design for the W3C homepage using valid, accessible XHTML and CSS and eschewing tables.
By Anders Pearson | April 19th, 2003
- Fun with CSS
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In his new article, Box of Tricks, Joe Gillespie shows how to create multiple link styles, fashion buttons using borders, and create CSS rollovers. A great article, especially because it demonstrates to visual designers the emerging power of CSS over table-based, graphic-heavy designs.
By Molly E. Holzschlag | November 1st, 2002
- 37signals.com redesigns with XHTML and CSS
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37 Signals, a smart agency for accessible, usable, yet beautiful web design, has today launched a slight redesign of their company site with validating XHTML Transitional and CSS.
By Eric Costello | July 11th, 2002
The Web Standards Project is a grassroots coalition fighting for standards which ensure simple, affordable access to web technologies for all.
Recent Buzz
WCAG 2.0 is a W3C Recommendation
By Matt May | December 11th, 2008
After 9.5 years of work, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 have reached W3C Recommendation status. On behalf of the WaSP Accessibility Task Force, I’d like to welcome WCAG 2 officially into the pantheon of Web standards.
I think this tweet by caledoniaman sums up the level of anticipation:
WCAG 2.0 and a new Guns ‘n’ Roses album in the same year. What’s the world coming to.
Interesting comparison. They’ve each had about as many pre-releases. In any case, I can say, having spent over 8 years with it, that WCAG 2 is not as entertaining as Chinese Democracy. But I do think that it’s better equipped to stand the test of time.
If I had to pick one thing I’m most happy about, I’d say it’s that the HTML- and text-centrism in WCAG 1 is largely gone. In its place is a much more flexible (dare I say robust?) concept of accessibility-supported technology. So when newer technologies can show themselves to be directly accessible, they too can be used in WCAG 2-conformant content.
Over the years, many people have conflated “WCAG-conformant” with “accessible,” and that’s led to people making statements like: “Don’t use JavaScript–it’s inaccessible.” That’s bad for everyone, from users with disabilities who actually can work with JavaScript (which is to say, the vast majority), to Web designers and developers, to policymakers, to those developing new technologies.
With WCAG 2, “Don’t use x” is no longer valid. (Was it ever?) It is now up to you, the developer, to work on the direct accessibility of your content, no matter what technology you choose. I believe we’re about to experience a new wave of accessible design techniques, as a result.
But first, we need to flush “Don’t use x” out of our system. Some are accustomed to saying it about anything they’re not comfortable with. That’s only holding accessible design back. It’s time to learn what’s out there, today, and use it in everyday Web design. It’s time to make everyone’s Web more accessible. Have a look at the WCAG 2.0 Recommendation, and its supporting material. Then, start thinking about what a more accessible Web could be. We still have a lot of work to do.
Filed in Accessibility, Accessibility TF, W3C/Standards Documentation, Web Standards (general) | Comments (8)