508 for Dummies  

A talk with Gloria Reece, a senior member of STC's AccessAbility SIG who can help demystify Section 508. Get practical advice for implementing the law in your workplace without tearing apart existing products and starting from scratch. Section 508 for Dummies will introduce you to the basics of the regulation using models and scenarios.

Reece, Gloria A. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Accessibility>Standards>Section 508

A to Z(ee) with P3P

When you build websites that rely on cookies and they are expected to work with privacy settings other than default, you’ll have to deal with P3P. Read on to find out about the cornerstones of the Platform for Privacy Preferences, and get your hands dirty with an example guiding you from empty hands to a complete basic implementation.

Willerich, Matthias. Content with Style. Articles>Web Design>Privacy>Standards

The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!)

Ever wonder about that mysterious Content-Type tag? You know, the one you're supposed to put in HTML and you never quite know what it should be? I've been dismayed to discover just how many software developers aren't really completely up to speed on the mysterious world of character sets, encodings, Unicode, all that stuff.

Spolsky, Joel. Joel on Software (2003). Articles>Language>Standards>Unicode

Accessibility and Section 508

Over the last couple of years the electronic and IT industry have had to start seriously considering the accessibility of their products and services. This is due to recent developments regarding Federal legislation, specifically Section 508. This article provides an overview of the legislation and includes a case study showing how a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template is applied in practice.

System Concepts (2005). Articles>Accessibility>Standards>Section 508

Accessibility, Web Standards, and Authoring Tools

It's been a long trip, but we’re almost out of the dark. We finally have browsers that offer substantial support for several technologies established by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and other standards bodies. Designers and developers can use many core features of XHTML and CSS and sometimes DHTML without worrying about the hazards of cross–browser chicanery. As browsers have evolved, it’s become easier to comply with the W3C’s Web Accessibility initiative (WAI) and, in the United States, with the amendments to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1974 (commonly called “Section 508”).

Schmitt, Christopher. List Apart, A (2002). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards

Achieving Usability Beyond ISO 9001

In the January issue, David Dick described how ISO standards 9241-11 and 13407 could be used to create standards and strategies for usability in the product life cycle. Another ISO standard that is an integral part of the product life cycle is called ISO 9001. ISO 9001:1994, 'Model for Quality Assurance in Design, Development, Production, Installation and Serving', specifies (quality system) requirements for achieving customer satisfaction by preventing non-conformity at all stages from design through servicing.

Dick, David J. Usability Interface (1998). Articles>Usability>Standards>ISO 9001

Advanced XML Validation

XSLT stylesheets are designed to transform XML documents. Coupled with Java extensions, stylesheets can also be a powerful complement to XML Schema when grammar-based validation cannot cover all the constraints required. In this article, Peter Heneback presents the case for validating documents using XSLT with Java extensions and provides practical guidance and code samples.

Heneback, Peter. IBM (2006). Articles>Information Design>Standards>XML

AECMA 1000D - Goal and Reality

The contribution deals with the transposition of projects on the basis of the AECMA-1000D-specification. The author explains problems which exist outside aeronautics with the application of this specification.

Just, Stefan. TC-FORUM (2001). Articles>Documentation>Standards

Affordance, Conventions and Design

Please don't confuse affordance with perceived affordances. Don't confuse affordances with conventions. Affordances reflect the possible relationships among actors and objects: they are properties of the world. Conventions, on the other hand, are arbitrary, artificial and learned. Once learned, they help us master the intricacies of daily life, whether they be conventions for courtesy, for writing style, or for operating a word processor. Designers can invent new real and perceived affordances, but they cannot so readily change established social conventions. Know the difference and exploit that knowledge. Skilled design makes use of all.

Norman, Donald A. JND.org (1999). Design>Usability>Standards

The Anti-Mac: Violating the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines

Graphical computer interfaces have become the norm. They are based on a number of principles such as metaphor, see-and-point, direct manipulation, user control, and WYSIWIG. The Anti-Mac project explored alternative interfaces that might result from violating the principles behind conventional graphical interfaces. What emerges is a human-computer interface based on language, a richer representation of objects, expert users, skilled agents, and shared control.

Nielsen, Jakob. ACM SIGCHI (1995). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>User Interface>Standards

Are Standards-Compliant Websites Better?

The adhoc way in which much of the web was developed has created a dilemma for web designers: should websites comply with standards, ensuring accessibility, or break the rules and work with older browsers? At this moment, the answer is simple: Websites should work with older browsers.

Baker, Adam. Merges.net (2001). Design>Web Design>Standards>Usability

Assessing the Usability of a User Interface Standard

User interface standards can be hard to use for developers. In a laboratory experiment, 26 students achieved only 71% compliance with a two page standard; many violations were due to influence from previous experience with non-standard systems. In a study of a real company's standard,developers were only able to find 4 of 12 deviations in a sample system, and three real products broke between 32% and 55% of the mandatory rules in the standard. Designers were found to rely heavily on the examples in the standard and their experience with other user interfaces.

Thovtrup, Henrik and Jakob Nielsen. Alertbox (1991). Articles>User Interface>Standards>Usability

Automated Current Awareness Service Using RSS Web Feed    

Web feed is an automated web content syndication and surfing technique. It is a new eXtensible Markup Language (XML)-based mechanism that influences and enhances library functions and services. This paper briefly discusses web feed creation using RDF (Resource Description Framework) Site Summary (RSS) format, content syndication, and client software used to track and read the web feed contents. It also describes how libraries can use this technique to offer different Current Awareness Services (CAS)/Information Services libraries' to its subscribers.

Bhushan, Indu and P. Rajendiran. International Journal for Technical Communication (2007). Articles>Information Design>Standards>RSS

The Basics of Quality

Can elements of the ISO 9000 standard help us improve the quality of the documents we write?

STC Proceedings (1999). Presentations>Quality>Standards>ISO 9000

Bastien PROT: XPS une alternative au format PDF

XPS (XML Paper Specification) est un format de fichier électronique à présentation fixe comme le PDF du concurrent Adobe qui préserve la mise en forme du document et permet le partage des fichiers sans perte dinformation. Le format XPS garantit que, lorsquun fichier est affiché en ligne ou imprimé, il conserve le format souhaité.

Rédacteur Technique, Le (2007). (French) Articles>Document Design>Standards>XML

A Beginner's Guide to HTML and Web Design  

The best place to learn about HTML is on the Web itself. A few of the best resources for exploring HTML design are listed here.

Quesenbery, Whitney. STC Proceedings (1998). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML

The Best of Both Worlds  

OpenType, a new font format and font-rasterization technology jointly developed by Adobe and Microsoft, promises to make fonts more sophisticated and easier to use.

Larkin, James. Adobe Magazine (1997). Design>Typography>Standards

Beyond Office Document Formats

One possible outcome: Microsoft Office gains support for the OASIS OpenDocument format, either from Microsoft or from the open source community. Another outcome: Microsoft tweaks its Office XML licensing to conform to the definition of openness that governments are rightly insisting on.

Udell, Jon. InfoWorld (2005). Articles>Word Processing>Standards

Big Thing  

OpenType is an awesome font format. Based on Unicode, and created by Microsoft and Adobe, it will inevitably become a universal standard—sooner or later.

Shinn, Nick. ShinnType (2002). Design>Typography>Standards

Bluffers’ Guide to ISO 9241

In the dusty institutions where usability standards gather to party with each other, ISO 9241 is a bit of a celebrity. It is widely cited by people who would be hard pushed to name any other standard, and parts of it are virtually enshrined in law in some European countries. But as is the fate of many celebrities, all most usability professionals know about the standard is its name. This white paper describes each of the 17 parts of ISO 9241 in detail.

Travis, David. Userfocus (2003). Articles>Usability>Standards

Browser Chart

One of the biggest pains about making Web pages is having to keep track of which browsers support what features. Wouldn't it be nice if there were some way to keep track of it all? Well, we've whipped up a few articles and charts to make things easier for you.

Webmonkey. Design>Web Design>Standards>Web Browsers

The Business Value of Web Standards

Industry accolades aside, how important is standardization to an individual business like ours? Do Web standards give organizations a return on investment? Does the transition to XHTML and CSS make financial sense? The answer to those questions is yes.

Veen, Jeffrey. Adaptive Path (2003). Design>Web Design>Standards

De Cascade Style Sheet

CSS oder Cascading Stylesheets zeigt auf, was alles möglich ist im Bereich dieser Formatierung. Es werden Befehle für CSS 1 und CSS 2 behandelt und mit Beispielen erklärt.

Schwarz, René. Talky.de (2001). (German) Resources>Web Design>Standards>CSS

Cascading Style Sheets

A collection of almost two hundred online resources about cascading style sheets.

DMoz. Design>Web Design>Standards>CSS