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IDCC 380 Announcements
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Christopher Hass Speaks about Web Accessibility 04/03/09
Check this out:Chris Hass, Usability Consultant from the Bentley Design and Usability Center (DUC), speak about Web accessibility issues on Friday, April 3, 11:20-12:35, in Smith 210.
Here are some of the topics Chris will cover:
Here are some of the topics Chris will cover:
- What is a disability? What?s the difference between a situational and a functional disability?
- What are assistive technologies that affect Web use, and how familiar does one need to be with them?
- What is accessibility? From both legal and practical standpoints
- What/who governs Web- and software-based products in the US and abroad
- Understanding the letter AND the spirit of the law ? advocating for ?usable access? not just ?access?
- What coding solutions typically support or fail to support accessibility
- What decisions can able-bodied developers make as opposed to testing with persons who have disabilities
- Case examples from DVD development, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site development, HP.com?s commercial Web site, others
- The perils and challenges of ?Web 2.0? for persons with disabilities
- ROI benefits of accessible design
Brief Bio:
Chris Hass has more than 12 years of experience in human factors research, user interface design, and accessibility in the development of innovative user experience programs. Chris has unique expertise conducting human factors research with persons with physical and cognitive disabilities, a skill that strategically aligns with one of the center's key growth areas. He also brings extensive experience designing information architecture and interaction designs for consumer, medical, professional, and human service products. Prior to joining the Design and Usability Center, Chris worked at the American Institutes for Research, where he was a senior research scientist in the Human Factors Research and Design group. Previously, he served as a World Wide Web specialist at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Mass.
If you have questions, just e-mail me at wbuchholz@bentley.edu. Feel free to comment on this announcement, or if you want to e-mail it, click on the little mail icon directly below.
Labels: accessibility, DUC, human factors, usability, web design
WJB posted on Wednesday, April 01, 2009 (permalink) 0 Comments Links to this post
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Friday, January 16, 2009
Welcome to IDCC 380, Web Design II, 01/16/09
Check this out:Building upon the knowledge and experience gained in IDCC 370 Web Design I, this course develops further the generally accepted concepts and applications of information architecture, human factors, and usability in creating and managing Web sites.
Topics include page layout and design, navigation systems, interface design, Web graphics information architecture, interactivity, writing for the Web, site architecture, management, and maintenance. You will work with high-end Web authoring tools to create various site elements.Please take a moment to fill out the IDCC 380 student information form.
If you have questions, just e-mail me at wbuchholz@bentley.edu. Feel free to comment on this announcement, or if you want to e-mail it, click on the little mail icon directly below.
Labels: human factors, information architecture, interactivity, navigation systems, usability, web design
WJB posted on Friday, January 16, 2009 (permalink) 0 Comments Links to this post
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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
The Web 2.0 Look: Rounded Corners & Gradient Fills, 04/23/08
Check this out:I promised I would recommend two tools that would give you the Web 2.0 look as you design your sites: rounded corners and gradient fills.
For rounded corners, go to sitepoint and give Spanky Corners 1.1 beta a try. As the developers note: "'Spanky Corners' is an experimental technique for using only CSS to produce 'round-cornered content boxes' with semantically pure markup. It does not require JavaScript to work." After creating your corners, be sure to download the zip file, unzip the file, and save the contents in your 380 site.A really neat and painless way to make various kinds of gradient fills is to use grsites.com's gradient texture maker: http://www.grsites.com/generate/group/4000/ Once you produce a gradient, you can then define CSS to use the gradient fill as an element background: in pages, sections of pages, buttons, and the like.
Happy designing!
If you have questions, just e-mail me at wbuchholz@bentley.edu. Feel free to comment on this announcement, or if you want to e-mail it, click on the little mail icon directly below.
Labels: gradient fill, gradients, grsites, Site Point, sitepoint, spanky corners, Web 2.0, web design
WJB posted on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 (permalink) 0 Comments Links to this post
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Sunday, February 24, 2008
Exercise 7 - Usability Associates Services, 02/24/08
Check this out:Tuesday, February 26, we will begin Exercise 7, using one set of the tabs you generated with CSS Tab Designer, Thursday, February 21.
This tab set will become the top-tier primary navigation in the header of the services page of our prototype site, Usability Associates.Exercise 7 will allow you to place the tabs in a fully functional template, complete with wrapper, header, left-column secondary navigation, right column content, and footer. The screenshot at right (click for larger view) illustrates the prototype I built from a tab set placed into one of the earlier layout exercises.
This exercise introduces you to a number of new Web design challenges, chief of which is putting together layout (with appropriate color palette), primary navigation (generated), secondary navigation (hand carved), exported and commented CSS, exported JavaScript, W3C validation, and high level prototype functionality. All in all, this exercise is an excellent design, information architecture, and site management experience.
If you have questions, just e-mail me at wbuchholz@bentley.edu. Feel free to comment on this announcement, or if you want to e-mail it, click on the little mail icon directly below.
Labels: css, CSS Tab Designer, information architecture, internal navigation, navigation systems, primary navigation, prototype, secondary navigation, template, top-tier navigation, web design
WJB posted on Sunday, February 24, 2008 (permalink) 0 Comments Links to this post
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Monday, January 21, 2008
Designing a Web Site, 01/22/08
Check this out: Designing a well-functioning Web site calls for quite a bit of planning and upfront "rough work." 
This semester we will go through the planning process carefully so that you get a clear sense of the major steps involved in designing a successful site--one that will make you very proud.Your Web site will be designed according to Web standards, so you will be learning very many new things about building a Web presence. I think you'll really enjoy the whole design project.
To get started, please read about the Web Design Process. This is a tutorial, published by Adobe (owners of Macromedia and thereby the parent company of Dreamweaver), that offers a very nice high level view of site design. I have given you the URL to the printable version, so you might want to print this out and bring it to class on Thursday.
We'll discuss a few approaches to design at that time. Also make sure you have some paper and a pencil or pen to start your design sketching.You should also read what the IBM usability team has to say about ease of use in Web design. Not to overload you at this point, but I will talk in class about planning and the kinds of documents and approaches you should be thinking about at this point in the planning process, especially regarding purpose, scope, audience, and technology concerns of your site.
If you have questions, just e-mail me at wbuchholz@bentley.edu. Feel free to comment on this announcement, or if you want to e-mail it, click on the little mail icon directly below.
Labels: audience, design, information design, purpose, scope, technology, usability, web design
WJB posted on Monday, January 21, 2008 (permalink) 0 Comments Links to this post
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Wednesday, January 02, 2008
Welcome to IDCC 380, Web Design II, 01/02/08
Check this out:Building upon the knowledge and experience gained in IDCC 370 Web Design I, this course develops further the generally accepted concepts and applications of information architecture, human factors, and usability in creating and managing Web sites.
Topics include page layout and design, navigation systems, interface design, Web graphics information architecture, interactivity, writing for the Web, site architecture, management, and maintenance. You will work with high-end Web authoring tools to create various site elements.Please take a moment to fill out the IDCC 380 student information form.
If you have questions, just e-mail me at wbuchholz@bentley.edu. Feel free to comment on this announcement, or if you want to e-mail it, click on the little mail icon directly below.
Labels: human factors, information architecture, interactivity, navigation systems, usability, web design
WJB posted on Wednesday, January 02, 2008 (permalink) 0 Comments Links to this post
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Monday, February 05, 2007
XHTML Strict and Transitional Validation, 02/05/07
Check this out:
An important part of your Web design experience involves creating pages that will be future-proofed -- that is, pages and sites designed in such a way that they are well-formed and valid today so they do not have to be re-engineered for tomorrow's Web or for the next new type of rendering engine or Internet appliance.Your first exercise using CSS Tab Designer will call for W3C validation of the pages you create. I will explain all of this to you carefully in class, and demonstrate how all of this works. You may want to get a little head start on the main show by viewing the PowerPoint tutorial on XHTML. You can also print a pdf version of the entire tutorial.
If you have questions, just e-mail me at wbuchholz@bentley.edu. Feel free to comment on this announcement, or if you want to e-mail it, click on the little mail icon directly below.
Labels: CSS Tab Designer, PowerPoint tutorial, re-engineer, tutorial, valid, web design, well-formed, xhtml
WJB posted on Monday, February 05, 2007 (permalink) 0 Comments Links to this post
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Thursday, January 18, 2007
Designing a Web Site, 01/23/07
Check this out: Designing a larger Web site calls for quite a bit of planning and upfront "rough work." This semester we will go through the planning process very carefully so that you get a clear sense of the major steps involved in designing a successful site--one that will make you very proud.Your Web site will be designed according to Web standards, so you will be learning very many new things about building a Web presence. I think you'll really enjoy the whole design project.
To get started, please read about the Web Design Process. This is a tutorial, published by Adobe (owners of Macromedia and thereby the parent company of Dreamweaver), that offers a very nice high level view of site design. I have given you the URL to the printable version, so you might want to print this out and bring it to class on Thursday.
We'll discuss a few approaches to design at that time. Also make sure you have some paper and a pencil or pen to start your design sketching.You should also read what the IBM usability team has to say about ease of use in Web design. Not to overload you at this point, but I will talk in class about planning and the kinds of documents and approaches you should be thinking about at this point in the planning process, especially regarding purpose, scope, audience, and technology concerns of your site.
If you have questions, just e-mail me at wbuchholz@bentley.edu. Feel free to comment on this announcement, or if you want to e-mail it, click on the little mail icon directly below.
Labels: audience, design, information design, purpose, scope, technology, usability, web design
WJB posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 (permalink) 0 Comments Links to this post
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Welcome to IDCC 380, Web Design II, 01/18/07
Check this out:Building upon the knowledge and experience gained in IDCC 370 Web Design I, this course develops further the generally accepted concepts and applications of information architecture, human factors, and usability in creating and managing Web sites.
Topics include page layout and design, navigation systems, interface design, Web graphics information architecture, interactivity, writing for the Web, site architecture, management, and maintenance. You will work with high-end Web authoring tools to create various site elements.Please take a moment to fill out the IDCC 380 student information form.
If you have questions, just e-mail me at wbuchholz@bentley.edu. Feel free to comment on this announcement, or if you want to e-mail it, click on the little mail icon directly below.
Labels: human factors, information architecture, interactivity, navigation systems, usability, web design
WJB posted on Thursday, January 18, 2007 (permalink) 0 Comments Links to this post
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