Each group gave a presentation showing the revised client site home page and what the report site will look like. I have full confidence in the work one group is doing, some confidence in the work two more groups are doing, and some concerns about the fourth.
I found a couple of interesting sites.
We'll take a look at the former next week as part of our JavaScript investigation.
This class is dedicated to doing what it takes to get ready for Friday's deadline. As you work on the site to improve it, don't change the layout unless you have a reason based on accessibility or usability. If the colors being used don't offer enough contrast, then try to keep the more dominant color if that seems to be part of the organization's identity.
Have you thought about looking for broken links?
Here are some tips for working with the files.
I returned the quizzes that you took before the break. The distribution of scores is 20(3), 19, 14, 12(2), 8, 6, 4, 0. Average: 12.3.
So far, I'm planning to be available Thursday evening between 7:00 and 9:00.
Procrastination on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part. Anonymous
We reviewed the requirements for Part 2 of the project. You have two weeks to complete your group's report. These reports are to be published on the CS server at http://cs.wofford.int/groupcolor/. You should be able to SFTP files by logging in using your account and then setting the folder on the server to /var/www/html/groupcolor. There is already an index.html file in that folder as well as a subfolder named mirror that contains all the files in your client site's mirror.
As far as I can tell, I received information by the Tuesday deadline about pages to audit only from the navy group (5 points). The assessment of your work and your group's work was due at the start of class today (10 points). I've been very disappointed, too, by the relative dearth of blog posts about meetings. There were at least two meetings that I alloted class time for. Groups should have gotten together to meet and work at other times, too. On the positive side, the posts I did get to read were quite good.
Last time we built a two-level navigation menu using CSS. I discovered over the break that the pop-up sub-menus don't work in IE6. The fix? Use JavaScript.
At least one blog entry questioned useit.com and usability. Let's consider How Users Read on the Web as a starting point. This article mentions Eyetracking Research, which also contains some significant ideas. Add these ideas to your audit. [Who is Jakob Nielsen anyway?]
We worked today on some dynamic menus. I have a start on a new Web site for me at Wofford. I'm abandoning myblog look for a simpler, more accessible design. I've adopted a two-column, liquid layout [Zip of files we started with]. I want to add a navigation menu similar to what I have now, but with pop-up sub-menus รก la son of suckerfish. For spring, I'll need the following menu.
At some point, I might want to use an elastic layout. And have you checked out Zen Garden: The Beauty of CSS Design lately?
The resulting Web pages that we put together are [Zip of files] linked below. I'm happy with the menus, although I still want to style them to look better.
Have a safe, restful, and yet productive break!
We heard reports from each group about the home page audits. The presentations, though necessarily brief, were reassuring to me that work is progressing. I asked each group to submit something in writing, preferably a completed checklist.
Reminder: Part 1 of the project has two deliverables due as we complete that part: one due by Tuesday and one due the day we return from Thanksgiving break.
After the presentations, we took a brief look at Son of Suckerfish Dropdowns. I want to convince you that you know enough to use tips available on the Web in your own pages. On Monday, you'll help me create a menu based on these tips.
I came across a useful extension for Firefox: Firefox Accessibility Extension. Check it out!
We took a look at the XHTML for tables and the CSS used to style them in Chapter 13.
Check out Bobby.
There will be a short quiz on Wednesday at the beginning of class.
Please e-mail me the audit checklist due today if you didn't have it for class today. Remember: it was due today. And don't forget to update your blog with meeting info. (Today's class counts as a meeting. If you missed class, you need to meet with at least one of your teammates to find out what you need to do.)
The four team presentations went well. There was som good cross-fertilization of ideas. For example, he Navy team found Dive Into Accessibility and that seems to be a good source of information.
I did a quick introduction to tables in HTML and showed you how using Nvu makes working with tables a lot easier than doing them by hand. I showed you an example of some ways to style the parts of a table. Chapter 13 of HFHTML covers tables in more detail (and better than I did). Please read it.
Wish the programming team much success as we head to Myrtle Beach today for the CCSC:SE contest.
Project Kick-off
Today we started the project. It will run for the rest of the semester. I will give you time for groupwork in some classes. We will use some class time for reporting findings and progress. Please note that the groups are not in competition with each other. If a group is doing something that you like, then your group can adopt the other group's good idea.
I'm going to check out the information at useit.com. Jakob Nielsen is a respected authority on user interface design. He's published a lot of tips about making Web sites and Web pages usable. (Usability is different from accessibility.) I encourage you to investigate the site, too. You'll be addressing usability of your client's site as part of the project.
I came across a color scheme generator. There are lots of them on the Web. The interesting thing about this one is it lets you see how people with various types of colorblindness will perceive a color scheme.
It was my intent to kick off the project today, designating groups and using class time to get groupwork started. However, I heard from only four of you about your availability/non-availability by Sunday afternoon at 5:18. So I need another day to assign students to groups. Consequently, we will kick the project off on Wednesday.
The homework assignment will help to prepare you for Wednesday's groupwork.
We worked some more on the lab we started on Friday. I want the navigation menu to look better. I googled css navigation, visited the first link returned and found Free Menu Designs. I downloaded the files for the set in the middle. You can use that set or pick another from that page to use. Icorporate the CSS into your style sheet and put the image(s) used by the rules in the appropriate folder on your site.
Note: There is a wealth of information about CSS techniques for doing all sorts of wonderful things. Congratulations! You know enough to be able to start applying them.
Read Conformance Evaluation of Web Sites for Accessibility and Involving Users in Web Accessibility Evaluation. Keep in mind that for our client sites, our target conformance level of WCAG 1.0 is AAA.
You should identify at least two Web accessibility evaluation tools that you think your group should use. You will report Friday on the ones your group has decided to use.
Be sure to read through the Checklist of Checkpoints for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0.
Reminder: Groupwork accounts for 25% of your grade for this course.
I have a two-column layout if you'd like to check it out.
Today we worked a lab that I hope will help to tie a lot of things together.
Use the tools we have to refactor (change and improve) your personal Web site on cs.wofford.int and to give it a new presentation. Work through the steps below.
Setup: SFTP the root folder and its contents to your lab computer. Add the folder on your computer to Nvu's site manager.
A lot of Web pages look better with a textured background. Google free web page backgrounds, select one that works with your presentation, and add it to your style sheet. You can use this background for the whole page, the header and footer, or one or both columns. Be sure to put a comment in the style sheet showing the source of the image (in case you want to go back to it later.)
Note: You'll need to validate via URI in order to get access to the images.
