Toward a More Standards-Compliant Internet Explorer

Reveals a major flaw in Internet Explorer when dealing with floats. If you are serious about moving from a table layout to a CSS layout, you must read this article first.

Gallant, John P. Digital Web Magazine (2003). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Web Browsers

DocBook Conversions with XFC

There are a number of tools available for transforming DocBook XML documents to various formats. All of these tools have strengths, as well as some noticeable weaknesses and drawbacks. This article looks at the benefits of using the XMLmind FO Converter, a graphical, highly configurable, and cross-platform application designed to transform DocBook XML files to any supported output format.

Nesbitt, Scott. InformIT.com (2005). Articles>Documentation>Standards>DocBook

A Tutorial in Cross-Browser DHTML

In this article we will look at several techniques, some general, some specific, for constructing Dynamic HTML code which bridges the gap between Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape's Navigator-- specifically, the gap between Netscape 4.x and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4 and 5.

Weiss, Aaron. Intranet Journal. Design>Web Design>Standards>DHTML

Twelve Lessons for Those Afraid of CSS and Standards

if you're starting to work with CSS, everything you've learned to this point probably feels useless, or worse than useless.

Henick, Ben. List Apart, A (2006). Design>Web Design>CSS>Standards

Type Size: What's the Point?

What’s the point of a point system in which 24 points doesn’t always equal 24 points? It’s not pointless, but it does require some explanation!

Strizver, Ilene. Upper and lowercase Magazine (2003). Design>Typography>Standards

The Unicode Character Database

The site lists most of the codepoints ordered in different tables, by block, category, their bidirectional value or by some of the additional properties defined in the original UCD. All as plain Html, the version of each character is shown. Especially the ordering by category is helpful to find characters from different blocks.

Auer, Juergen. SQL und XML (2004). (German) Resources>Language>Standards>Unicode

Unicode: Making the Web Safe for Furriners

I think that Internet and World Wide Web are capitalized because they are proper names. Many names are capitalized common nouns: the White House, the Ninth Circle of Hell, the Heritage Foundation, the Civil War. I've heard arguments for lowercasing Internet and World Wide Web from people who compare them to things like the telephone system, but lowercase is certainly not the predominant style for these terms. At least 90 percent of the time, they're capitalized, and I don't think you should ignore actual use completely.

Ivey, Keith C. Editorial Eye, The (2003). Articles>Language>Standards>Unicode

UPA Supports Maintaining Human Engineering Standard

Standards give very specific details about all varieties of design and give insight into the best practices of an item or process.

Sachs, Baruch. Usability Professionals Association (2005). Articles>Human Computer Interaction>Standards

Using XHTML/CSS for an Effective Search Engine Optimization Campaign

We’re going to be focusing entirely on the benefits of using XHTML and CSS to show you how to improve the readability of your code for search engine spiders, maintain a good content-to-code ratio without going beyond file-size and word-count limits, and how to use CSS to mimic common image effects.

Olejniczak, Brandon. List Apart, A (2003). Design>Web Design>Standards>XHTML

Validate RSS and Atom Documents

Use an online validator to check your RSS and Atom documents.

O'Reilly and Associates (2005). Articles>Information Design>Standards>RSS

Validating a Custom DTD

This article will show you how to create a custom DTD that will add custom attributes, and will also show you how to validate documents that use those new attributes.

Eisenberg, J. David. List Apart, A (2005). Articles>Information Design>Standards>XML

Version Targeting: Threat or Menace?

Real DOM support is a game changer. Enabled by default, it would bring many sites to their knees. That would break the web, and not in quotes. Providing IE8's greater compliance on an opt-in basis is the only way to get everyone over the scripting hump.

Zeldman, Jeffrey. List Apart, A (2008). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Web Browsers

The W3C Multimodal Architecture, Part 2: The XML Specification Stack

Gerald McCobb continues his introduction to the forthcoming W3C Multimodal Architecture with a survey of the many XML languages that you can use to author multimodal applications. He then shows how several specifications -- SCXML, XHTML, REX, and XML Events -- could work together in a complete multimodal application.

McCobb, Gerald. IBM (2007). Design>Multimedia>Standards>XML

W3C Standard for Scalable Vector Graphics  

In this installment of 'W3C Watch,' a new Intercom department dedicated to discussing the work of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its potential impact on technical communicators, Porter introduces Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), which the W3C defines as 'a language for describing two-dimensional vector graphics and graphical applications in XML.'

Porter, Sara J. Intercom. Design>Graphic Design>Standards>SVG

The W3C: Shaping the Future of Technology  

This column continues my focus on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) by describing some activities and non-W3C technologies that I encountered at the W3C Technical Plenary, held in early March outside Cannes, France.

Perlin, Neil E. Intercom (2004). Design>Web Design>Standards

W3Compliant Sites

W3 Compliant Sites is a collection of web sites that were created by designers that conform with the W3C standards. It provides the opportunity for them to display their work and ideas in a community that shares common interests.

Ho, Sean. W3Compliant. Resources>Web Design>Standards>Usability

WCAG 2.0 Baseline Concept

In order to encourage vendors of non-W3C technologies to include accessibility features in their technologies, and in recognition of emerging technologies that are beneficial for the Web, WCAG 2.0 is technology neutral. Rather than list each technology that the guidelines cover, WCAG 2.0 introduces the concept of a baseline. This post attempts to explain what is meant by this baseline concept.

Lemon, Gez. Juicy Studio (2006). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards

WCAG 2.0 Preview: So What's New?

This article reviews the new Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) version 2.0 and was published in SPIN Magazine. The article summaries the new guidelines and identifies key revisions and changes made to the original WCAG version 1.0.

Palmer, Mark. User Vision (2007). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards

Web Accommodation for the Vision-Impaired  

Accessibility for vision-impaired users of corporate websites is becoming a critical issue. The federal government requires its agencies to provide effective, equal access to electronically delivered information. The W3C launched its accessibility initiative in 1999 and continues to expand it. Court rulings are mixed, as the judicial system struggles to clarify accommodation in relation to the web environment. Students in the Jack David Armold Honor Society at DeVry University researched, collaborated, and developed a community service website to convince corporations that web accommodation for visionimpaired users made financial sense.

Hawkes, Lory. STC Proceedings (2003). Design>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards

Web Clients Fatten Up with OpenLaszlo

OpenLaszlo is a rich client application architecture that uses Macromedia Flash as a deployment vehicle. Declarative in design, OpenLaszlo relies upon JavaScript for logic and offers advantages over traditional Flash development, including an advanced UI constraints system, an object-oriented design methodology, and built-in support for Web services and a variety of flavors of Remote Procedure Call (RPC). This article details the basic concepts of OpenLaszlo, and gives examples of situations in which an OpenLaszlo solution might be beneficial.

Woods, Joshua M. IBM (2006). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Flash

Web Page Development: Best Practices

This article gives some practical hints on how to create standards-conforming websites, and to work around some of issues that will arise for Explorer for Windows. Before you start coding your website you must make a few decisions—which DOCTYPE do you use? Do you use pure CSS, or CSS with Minimal Tables? We'll discuss these topics, and then go into some design guidelines and issues to consider with XHTML and CSS.

Apple Inc. (2006). Design>Web Design>Standards

The Web Standards Project

The Web Standards Project (WaSP) fights for standards that reduce the cost and complexity of development while increasing the accessibility and long-term viability of any site published on the Web.

Web Standards Project. Organizations>Web Design>Standards

Web Writing Guidelines Backed by Research

In the past, I have been bothered by the lack of a coherent summary of research on web writing. In November 2003 the problem was solved by the (US) National Cancer Institute, for the time being, at least.

McAlpine, Rachel. Quality Web Content (2004). Articles>Web Design>Writing>Standards