#34899
The McCulley/Cuppan Standards Development Process We Use with Our Clients
People use different terms to describe quality and if they actually use the same term, then it is highly unlikely that they will use the same definition for the term. So the first problem faced in the review process is the vocabulary used to describe quality attributes in a document.
Cuppan, Gregory. Brainery.net (2009). Articles>Documentation>Quality>Standards
#35005
With the flurry of HTML5 tweets this past month, I felt it was somewhat easier to park some of them in a blog post. Retweeting was adding to the confusion for a non-HTML5 person like me.
STC AccessAbility SIG (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35006
Misunderstanding Markup: XHTML 2/HTML 5 Comic Strip
Now that the development of XHTML 2 is discontinued, should we stick to XHTML 1.0 or move forward to HTML 5 or better prefer the old HTML 4? Let’s set things straight once and for all. In this post we are trying to clear up the confusion, explain what is what and describe what markup language you can use for your web-sites.
Colbow, Brad. Smashing (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35050
Why is HTML Suddenly Interesting?
Today the HTML conversation is reborn. Standards development around HTML seems to actually have a chance of influencing user experience in the browser, and Microsoft itself is participating in the HTML 5 conversation despite still holding roughly two-thirds of the browser market. While Microsoft's market share is only slowly eroding, developer mindshare seems to have shifted decisively to the band of WHATWG upstarts, Microsoft's competitors.
St. Laurent, Simon. O'Reilly and Associates (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35054
On top of the usual frustrations with poor, incomplete, and incorrect implementation of standards and typically buggy and poorly-supported programs, add my frustration with trying to integrate these tools with other similarly joyful tools and you can see that my job is a recipe for bitterness and pain.
Kimber, Eliot. Dr. Macro's XML Rants (2006). Articles>Software>Standards>XSL
#35121
School Standards That Support Technical Writing
The value of learning effective nonfiction nonnarrative writing ("technical writing") for middle- and high-school students has been cited repeatedly in official and unofficial academic standards starting in the early 1990s.
Girill, T.R. STC East Bay (2008). Articles>Education>Standards>Technical Writing
#35152
Ten Ways To Make Your XHTML Site Accessible Using Web Standards
Let’s take a look at 10 ways to improve the accessibility of your XHTML website by making it standards-compliant. We’ll go the extra mile and include criteria that fall beyond the standards set by the W3C but which you should follow to make your website more accessible. Each section lists the criteria you need to meet, explains why you need to meet them and gives examples of what you should and shouldn’t do.
Irigoyen, Michael. Smashing (2009). Articles>Web Design>Accessibility>Standards
#35153
Why Apple is Betting on HTML 5: A Web History
To get an accurate picture of why HTML 5 matters and how its adoption will change the future of the web and software in general, you have to take a look at the squabbling drama of contention that HTML 5 is emerging from as industry rivals work to achieve a new level of consensus on how the web should work.
Dilger, Daniel Eran. AppleInsider (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35160
Are you interested in HTML 5 and what's coming down the pipeline but haven't had time to read any articles yet? We've put together an educational Introduction to HTML 5 video that goes over many of the major aspects of this new standard. In the video we also crack open the HTML 5 YouTube Video prototype to show you some of the new HTML 5 tags, such as nav, article, etc.
Google (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35164
Ready or not, here it comes. Despite the confusion surrounding its evolution, real-world HTML 5 is right around the corner. Longtime ALA contributor J. David Eisenberg returns to get us all up to speed on the markup we’re about to be writing.
Eisenberg, J. David. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35165
In his article in this issue, Peter-Paul Koch proposes adding custom attributes to form elements to allow triggers for specialized behaviors. The W3C validator won’t validate a document with these attributes, as they aren’t part of the XHTML specification. This article will show you how to create a custom DTD that will add those custom attributes, and will show you how to validate documents that use those new attributes.
Eisenberg, J. David. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Information Design>Standards>XML
#35167
If you’re working with the latest technology, there may not be any user reference material at all; the only documentation available is the specification. In such a case, learning to read the spec is a necessity, not a luxury.
Eisenberg, J. David. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>Specifications
#35175
RDFa (“Resource Description Framework in attributes”) is having its five minutes of fame: Google is beginning to process RDFa and Microformats as it indexes websites, using the parsed data to enhance the display of search results with “rich snippets.”
Birbeck, Mark. List Apart, A (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>XML
#35181
Dive Into HTML5 seeks to elaborate on a hand-picked Selection of features from the HTML5 specification and other fine Standards. I shall publish Drafts periodically, as time permits.
#35182
You may well ask: “How can I start using HTML5 if older browsers don’t support it?” But the question itself is misleading. HTML5 is not one big thing; it is a collection of individual features. So you can’t detect “HTML5 support,” because that doesn’t make any sense. But you can detect support for individual features, like canvas, video, or geolocation.
Dive Into HTML5 (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35184
HTML 5 Differences from HTML 4
HTML 5 defines the fifth major revision of the core language of the World Wide Web, HTML. "HTML 5 differences from HTML 4" describes the differences between HTML 4 and HTML 5 and provides some of the rationale for the changes.
W3C (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35371
DITA 1.2 Feature Description: Glossary and Terminology Specialization
In technical writing, synonyms and variants should be used judiciously and often avoided altogether. The use of one term consistently to express a given concept is preferred so that communication is clear and so that translation costs are minimized. For this reason, when synonyms and variants do exist in popular usage, it is common practice in commercial environments to choose one of the terms as the “preferred term.” This indicator of preferred usage needs to be documented in glossaries. Due to the limitations of markup languages for creating glossaries, usually the so-called preferred term is identified simply by making it the headword in a glossary entry and providing a definition in this glossary entry.
Warburton, Kara. OASIS (2009). Articles>Information Design>Standards>DITA
#35390
The HTML working group have decided not to include the headers attribute in the HTML 5.0 working draft, as they believe the scope attribute is sufficient for associating header cells with data cells. With simple and most complex tables, this is a reasonable assertion, but doesn't work with overlaid and irregular tables, where the associated headers aren't in the same column or row.
Lemon, Gez. Juicy Studio (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35395
I'm reading worrying things about the discussions about the next version of HTML, known as HTML5. It looks to me as if things are going in the wrong direction. Oh, and in order not to disappoint long-time readers there'll be a little barb against XHTML pretenders at the end of the article.
Olsson, Tommy. Autistic Cuckoo, The (2007). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35444
This chapter will take an HTML page that has absolutely nothing wrong with it, and improve it. Parts of it will become shorter. Parts will become longer. All of it will become more semantic. It’ll be awesome.
Pilgrim, Mark. Dive Into HTML5 (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35499
HTML 5 Progresses Despite Challenges
Development of HTML 5, the highly touted upgrade to the language of the Web, is progressing but still faces obstacles, including lack of a standard video codec, said an official of the World Wide Web Consortium at a gathering on Tuesday.
Krill, Paul. InfoWorld (2009). Articles>Web Design>Standards>HTML5
#35503
Specifications are moving in the direction of how we have been using the web for the past five years or more, e.g. video, audio and user generated content. Developers have started to fall into habits (some good, some bad), and so the specs are trying to make those habits easier and more standardized. The structural tags, web forms, and advanced CSS are all letting us do the same things we’ve been doing for years, just in an easier, more standardized way.
Whitaker, Keir. Carsonified (2009). Articles>Interviews>Standards>HTML5
#35518
Style Manuals: The Politics of Selection 
Bette Frick and Betsy Frick discuss how a style manual can save time and money, how to select the proper style manual and get buy-in, and how to create a style guide to use in conjunction with a style manual.
Frick, Elizabeth G.'Bette' and Elizabeth A. 'Betsy' Frick. Intercom (2009). Articles>Writing>Style Guides>Standards
#35547
Weblog collaboratif portant sur les enjeux sociopolitiques, technologiques et stratégiques entourant la normalisation et l'accessibilisation du Web, mais aussi un million d'autres trucs tout aussi futiles qui nous passent par l'esprit...
#35628
Choosing the Right Style Guide 
Style guides can improve the quality and presentation of documentation. They establish a layer of professionalism that may not have been there before. They also reduce arguments and ‘loose cannons’ within the department, as the style guide becomes the acknowledged reference. There are at least four points to consider when selecting a style guide.
Walsh, Ivan. I Heart Tech Docs (2007). Articles>Editing>Style Guides>Standards
