\n\t\u00a006\u00a0\n\t\u00a0africa\u00a0\n\t\u00a0amsterdam\u00a0\n\t...\n
\n\nAgain we have a simple collection of anchors like del.icio.us, only this time in a paragraph. But rather than using a class to represent the size of the tag they use an inline style. An inline style using a pixel-based font size. That\u2019s so far away from the goal of separating style from content, they might as well use a tag. You could theoretically parse that to extract the information, but you have more work to guess what the pixel sizes represent. Markup crime number two (and extra jail time for using non-breaking spaces purely for visual spacing purposes.)\n\nTechnorati \n\nAh, now. Here, you\u2019d expect something decent. After all, the Overlord of microformats and King of Semantics Tantek \u00c7elik works there. Surely we\u2019ll see something decent here? \n\n- \n\t
- Britney Spears \n\t
- Bush \n\t
- Christmas \n\t...\n\t
- SEO \n\t
- Shopping \n\t...\n
\n\t
\n\nLet\u2019s dive into code and in the markup you\u2019ll see\n\u201cis that an extra div?\u201d \u2026 please don\u2019t kill me?\nThe #page div sets the width and bottom padding\nwhose height is equal to the shadow we\u2019re adding.\n\n\n\nThe #page-contents div will set padding in ems\nto scale with the text size the user intends.\nThe background color will be added here too\nbut not overlapping the shadow where #page\u2019s padding makes room.\n\nA simple technique that you may find amusing\nis to substitute a PNG for the GIF I was using.\nFor that would be crafty and future-proof, too.\nThe page curl could sit on any background hue.\n\nI hope you\u2019ve enjoyed this easy little trick.\nIt\u2019s hardly earth-shattering, and arguably slick.\nBut it could come in handy, you just never know.\nHappy Holidays! And pleasant dreams of web three point oh.", "year": "2006", "author": "Dan Cederholm", "author_slug": "dancederholm", "published": "2006-12-24T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/gravity-defying-page-corners/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 134, "title": "Photographic Palettes", "contents": "How many times have you seen a colour combination that just worked, a match so perfect that it just seems obvious? \n\nNow, how many times do you come up with those in your own work? A perfect palette looks easy when it\u2019s done right, but it\u2019s often maddeningly difficult and time-consuming to accomplish.\n\nChoosing effective colour schemes will always be more art than science, but there are things you can do that will make coming up with that oh-so-smooth palette just a little a bit easier. A simple trick that can lead to incredibly gratifying results lies in finding a strong photograph and sampling out particularly harmonious colours.\n\nPhoto Selection\n\nNot all photos are created equal. You certainly want to start with imagery that fits the eventual tone you\u2019re attempting to create. A well-lit photo of flowers might lead to a poor colour scheme for a funeral parlour\u2019s web site, for example. It\u2019s worth thinking about what you\u2019re trying to say in advance, and finding a photo that lends itself to your message.\n\nAs a general rule of thumb, photos that have a lot of neutral or de-saturated tones with one or two strong colours make for the best palette; bright and multi-coloured photos are harder to derive pleasing results from. Let\u2019s start with a relatively neutral image.\n\nSampling\n\n\n\nIn the above example, I\u2019ve surrounded the photo with three different background colours directly sampled from the photo itself. Moving from left to right, you can see how each of the sampled colours is from an area of increasingly smaller coverage within the photo, and yet there\u2019s still a strong harmony between the photo and the background image. I don\u2019t really need to pick the big obvious colours from the photo to create that match, I can easily concentrate on more interesting colours that might work better for what I intend.\n\nUsing a similar palette, let\u2019s apply those colour choices to a more interesting layout:\n\n\n\nIn this mini-layout, I\u2019ve re-used the same tan colour from the previous middle image as a background, and sampled out a nicely matching colour for the top and bottom overlays, as well as the two different text colours. Because these colours all fall within a narrow range, the overall balance is harmonious.\n\nWhat if I want to try something a little more daring? I have a photo of stacked chairs of all different colours, and I\u2019d like to use a few more of those. No problem, provided I watch my colour contrast:\n\n\n\nThough it uses varying shades of red, green, and yellow, this palette actually works because the values are even, and the colours muted. Placing red on top of green is usually a hideous combination of death, but if the green is drab enough and the red contrasts well enough, the result can actually be quite pleasing. I\u2019ve chosen red as my loudest colour in this palette, and left green and yellow to play the quiet supporting roles.\n\nObviously, there are no hard and fast rules here. You might not want to sample absolutely every colour in your scheme from a photo. There are times where you\u2019ll need a variation that\u2019s just a little bit lighter, or a blue that\u2019s not in the photo. You might decide to start from a photo base and tweak, or add in colours of your own. That\u2019s okay too.\n\nTonal Variations\n\nI\u2019ll leave you with a final trick I\u2019ve been using lately, a way to bring a bit more of a formula into the equation and save some steps.\n\n\n\nStarting with the same base palette I sampled from the chairs, in the above image I\u2019ve added a pair of overlaying squares that produce tonal variations of each primary. The lighter variation is simply a solid white square set to 40% opacity, the darker one is a black square at 20%. That gives me a highlight and shadow for each colour, which would prove handy if I had to adapt this colour scheme to a larger layout.\n\nI could add a few more squares of varying opacities, or adjust the layer blending modes for different effects, but as this looks like a great place to end, I\u2019ll leave that up to your experimental whims. Happy colouring!", "year": "2006", "author": "Dave Shea", "author_slug": "daveshea", "published": "2006-12-22T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/photographic-palettes/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 137, "title": "Cheating Color", "contents": "Have you ever been strapped to use specific colors outlined in a branding guide? Felt restricted because those colors ended up being too light or dark for the way you want to use them?\n\nHere\u2019s the solution: throw out your brand guide.\n\ngasp!\n\nOK, don\u2019t throw it out. Just put it in a drawer for a few minutes.\n\nBranding Guides be Damned\n\nWhen dealing with color on screen, it\u2019s easy to get caught up in literal values from hex colors, you can cheat colors ever so slightly to achieve the right optical value. This is especially prevalent when trying to bring a company\u2019s identity colors to a screen design. Because the most important idea behind a brand guide is to help a company maintain the visual integrity of their business, consider hex numbers to be guidelines rather than law. Once you are familiar enough with the colors your company uses, you can start to flex them a bit, and take a few liberties.\n\nThis is a quick method for cheating to get the color you really want. With a little sleight of design, we can swap a color that might be part of your identity guidelines, with one that works better optically, and no one will be the wiser!\n\nColor is a Wily Beast\n\nThis might be hard: You might have to break out of the idea that a color can only be made using one method. Color is fluid. It interacts and changes based on its surroundings. Some colors can appear lighter or darker based on what color they appear on or next to. The RGB gamut is additive color, and as such, has a tendency to push contrast in the direction that objects may already be leaning\u2014increasing the contrast of light colors on dark colors and decreasing the contrast of light on light. Obviously, because we are talking about monitors here, these aren\u2019t hard and fast rules.\n\nCheat and Feel Good About It\n\nOn a light background, when you have a large element of a light color, a small element of the same color will appear lighter.\n\nEnter our fake company: Double Dagger. They manufacture footnotes. Take a look at Fig. 1 below. The logo (Double Dagger), rule, and small text are all #6699CC. Because the logo so large, we get a good sense of the light blue color. Unfortunately, the rule and small text beneath it feel much lighter because we can\u2019t create enough contrast with such small shapes in that color.\n\nNow take a look at Fig. 2. Our logo is still #6699CC, but now the rule and smaller text have been cheated to #4477BB, effectively giving us the same optical color that we used in the logo. You will find that we get a better sense of the light blue, and the added benefit of more contrast for our text. Doesn\u2019t that feel good?\n\n\n\nConversely, when you have a large element of a dark color, a small element of the same color will appear darker.\n\nLet\u2019s look at Fig. 3 below. Double Dagger has decided to change its identity colors from blue to red. In Fig. 3, our logo, rule, and small text are all #330000, a very dark red. If you look at the rule and small text below the logo, you will notice that they seem dark enough to be confused with black. The dark red can\u2019t be sustained by the smaller shapes. Now let\u2019s look at Fig. 4. The logo is still #33000, but we\u2019ve now cheated the rule and smaller text to #550000. This gives us a better sense of a red, but preserves the dark and moody direction the company has taken.\n\n\n\nBut we\u2019ve only touched on color against a white background. For colors against a darker background, you may find lighter colors work fine, but darker colors need to be cheated a bit to the lighter side in order to reach a good optical equivalent. Take a look below at Fig. 5 and Fig. 6. Both use the same exact corresponding colors as Fig. 1 and Fig. 2 above, but now they are set against a dark background. Where the blue used in Fig. 1 above was too light for the smaller elements, we find it is just right for them in Fig. 5, and the darker blue we used in Fig. 2 has now proven too dark for a dark background, as evidenced in Fig. 6.\n\n\n\nYour mileage may vary, and this may not be applicable in all situations, but consider it to be just another tool on your utility belt for dealing with color problems.", "year": "2006", "author": "Jason Santa Maria", "author_slug": "jasonsantamaria", "published": "2006-12-23T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/cheating-color/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 140, "title": "Styling hCards with CSS", "contents": "There are plenty of places online where you can learn about using the hCard microformat to mark up contact details at your site (there are some resources at the end of the article). But there\u2019s not yet been a lot of focus on using microformats with CSS. So in this installment of 24 ways, we\u2019re going to look at just that \u2013 how microformats help make CSS based styling simpler and more logical.\n\nBeing rich, quite complex structures, hCards provide designers with a sophisticated scaffolding for styling them. A recent example of styling hCards I saw, playing on the business card metaphor, was by Andy Hume, at http://thedredge.org/2005/06/using-hcards-in-your-blog/. While his approach uses fixed width cards, let\u2019s take a look at how we might style a variable width business card style for our hCards.\n\nLet\u2019s take a common hCard, which includes address, telephone and email details\n\n\n\t\t
\nGravity-Defying!
\n\t\tLorem ipsum dolor ...
\n\t\n\t![\"download](\"images/vcard-add.png\")
\n\nWhat\u2019s with the odd looking url\n\nbody {\n\tfont-size: 12px; \n}\np {\n\tline-height 1.5em; \n}\n\nThere are many ways to size text in CSS and the above approach provides and accessible method of achieving the pixel-precision solid typography requires. By way of explanation, the first font-size reduces the body text from the 16px default (common to most browsers and OS set-ups) down to the 12px we require. This rule is primarily there for Internet Explorer 6 and below on Windows: the percentage value means that the text will scale predictably should a user bump the text size up or down. The second font-size sets the text size specifically and is ignored by IE6, but used by Firefox, Safari, IE7, Opera and other modern browsers which allow users to resize text sized in pixels.\n\nSpacing between paragraphs\n\nWith our rhythmic unit set at 18px we need to ensure that it is maintained throughout the body copy. A common place to lose the rhythm is the gaps set between margins. The default treatment by web browsers of paragraphs is to insert a top- and bottom-margin of 1em. In our case this would give a spacing between the paragraphs of 12px and hence throw the text out of rhythm. If the rhythm of the page is to be maintained, the spacing of paragraphs should be related to the basic line height unit. This is achieved simply by setting top- and bottom-margins equal to the line height.\n\nIn order that typographic integrity is maintained when text is resized by the user we must use ems for all our vertical measurements, including line-height, padding and margins.\n\np {\n\tfont-size:1em;\n\tmargin-top: 1.5em;\n\tmargin-bottom: 1.5em; \n}\n\nBrowsers set margins on all block-level elements (such as headings, lists and blockquotes) so a way of ensuring that typographic attention is paid to all such elements is to reset the margins at the beginning of your style sheet. You could use a rule such as:\n\nbody,div,dl,dt,dd,ul,ol,li,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,pre,form,fieldset,p,blockquote,th,td { \n\tmargin:0; \n\tpadding:0; \n}\n\nAlternatively you could look into using the Yahoo! UI Reset style sheet which removes most default styling, so providing a solid foundation upon which you can explicitly declare your design intentions.\n\nVariations in text size\n\nWhen there is a change in text size, perhaps with a heading or sidenotes, the differing text should also take up a multiple of the basic leading. This means that, in our example, every diversion from the basic text size should take up multiples of 18px. This can be accomplished by adjusting the line-height and margin accordingly, as described following.\n\nHeadings\n\nSubheadings in the example page are set to 14px. In order that the height of each line is 18px, the line-height should be set to 18\u00a0\u00f7\u00a014 =\u00a01.286. Similarly the margins above and below the heading must be adjusted to fit. The temptation is to set heading margins to a simple 1em, but in order to maintain the rhythm, the top and bottom margins should be set at 1.286em so that the spacing is equal to the full 18px unit.\n\nh2 {\n\tfont-size:1.1667em;\n\tline-height: 1.286em;\n\tmargin-top: 1.286em;\n\tmargin-bottom: 1.286em; \n}\n\nOne can also set asymmetrical margins for headings, provided the margins combine to be multiples of the basic line height. In our example, a top margin of 1\u00bd lines is combined with a bottom margin of half a line as follows:\n\nh2 {\n\tfont-size:1.1667em;\n\tline-height: 1.286em;\n\tmargin-top: 1.929em;\n\tmargin-bottom: 0.643em; \n}\n\nAlso in our example, the main heading is given a text size of 18px, therefore the line-height has been set to 1em, as has the margin:\n\nh1 {\n\tfont-size:1.5em;\n\tline-height: 1em;\n\tmargin-top: 0;\n\tmargin-bottom: 1em; \n}\n\nSidenotes\n\nSidenotes (and other supplementary material) are often set at a smaller size to the basic text. To keep the rhythm, this smaller text should still line up with body copy, so a calculation similar to that for headings is required. In our example, the sidenotes are set at 10px and so their line-height must be increased to 18\u00a0\u00f7\u00a010 =\u00a01.8.\n\n.sidenote {\n\tfont-size:0.8333em;\n\tline-height:1.8em; \n}\n\nBorders\n\nOne additional point where vertical rhythm is often lost is with the introduction of horizontal borders. These effectively act as shims pushing the subsequent text downwards, so a two pixel horizontal border will throw out the vertical rhythm by two pixels. A way around this is to specify horizontal lines using background images or, as in our example, specify the width of the border in ems and adjust the padding to take up the slack. \n\nThe design of the footnote in our example requires a 1px horizontal border. The footnote contains 12px text, so 1px in ems is 1\u00a0\u00f7\u00a012 =\u00a00.0833. I have added a margin of 1\u00bd lines above the border (1.5\u00a0\u00d7\u00a018\u00a0\u00f7\u00a012 =\u00a02.5ems), so to maintain the rhythm the border + padding must equal a \u00bd (9px). We know the border is set to 1px, so the padding must be set to 8px. To specify this in ems we use the familiar calculation: 8\u00a0\u00f7\u00a012 =\u00a00.667.\n\nHit me with your rhythm stick\n\nComposing to a vertical rhythm helps engage and guide the reader down the page, but it takes typographic discipline to do so. It may seem like a lot of fiddly maths is involved (a few divisions and multiplications never hurt anyone) but good type setting is all about numbers, and it is this attention to detail which is the key to success.", "year": "2006", "author": "Richard Rutter", "author_slug": "richardrutter", "published": "2006-12-12T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/compose-to-a-vertical-rhythm/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 122, "title": "A Message To You, Rudy - CSS Production Notes", "contents": "When more than one designer or developer work together on coding an XHTML/CSS template, there are several ways to make collaboration effective. Some prefer to comment their code, leaving a trail of bread-crumbs for their co-workers to follow. Others use accompanying files that contain their working notes or communicate via Basecamp.\n\nFor this year\u2019s 24ways I wanted to share a technique that I has been effective at Stuff and Nonsense; one that unfortunately did not make it into the final draft of Transcending CSS. This technique, CSS production notes, places your page production notes in one convenient place within an XHTML document and uses nothing more than meaningful markup and CSS.\n\nLet\u2019s start with the basics; a conversation between a group of people. In the absence of notes or conversation elements in XHTML you need to make an XHTML compound that will effectively add meaning to the conversation between designers and developers. As each person speaks, you have two elements right there to describe what has been said and who has spoken:
Web Directions North\n\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t
Web Directions Conference Pty Ltd
\n\t
\n\nNow, I chose that class name because that is what the vCard specification calls this group of properties. And typically, I do tend to group together related elements using divs when I mark up content. I find it makes the page structure more logical and readable. But strictly speaking, this isn\u2019t necessary, so you may consider it cheating. But my lesson in this would be, if you are going to add markup, try to make it as meaningful as possible.\n\nAs you have probably guessed by now, we are going to add one part of the bottom border image to this element. We\u2019re going to add this image as the background-image.\n\n\n\nAgain, it will be a very wide image, like the top left one, so that no matter how wide the element might get, the background image will still be wide enough. Now, we\u2019ll need to make this image sit in the bottom left of the element we attach it to, so we use a backgound position of left bottom (we put the horizontal position before the vertical). Here\u2019s our CSS statement for this\n\n.telecommunications {\n\tbackground-image: url(images/bottom-left.png);\n\tbackground-repeat: no-repeat;\n\tbackground-position: left bottom;\n\tmargin-bottom: 2em;\n}\n\nAnd that will look like this\n\n\n\nNot quite there, but well on the way. Time for the final piece in the puzzle.\n\nOK, I admit, I might have cheated just a little bit more in this step. But like the previous step, all valid, and (hopefully) quite justifiable markup. If we look at the HTML again, you\u2019ll find that our email address is marked up like this\n\nPhone/Fax: Work:\n\t\t61 2 9365 5007
\n\tEmail: info@webdirections.org
\nEmail: info@webdirections.org
\n\nTypically, in hCard, the value part of this property isn\u2019t required, and we could get away with\n\ninfo@webdirections.org\n\nThe form I\u2019ve used, with the span of class value is however, perfectly valid hCard markup (hard allows for multiple email addresses of different types, which is where this typically comes in handy). Why have I gone to all this trouble? Well, when it came to styling the hCard, I realized I needed a block element to attach the background image for the bottom right hand corner to. Typically the last block element in the containing element is the ideal choice (and sometimes it\u2019s possible to take an inline element, for example the link here, and use CSS to make it a block element, and attach it to that, but that really doesn\u2019t work with this design).\n\nSo, if we are going to use the paragraph which contains the email link, we need a way to select it exclusively, which means that with CSS2 at least, we need a class or id as a hook for our CSS selector (in CSS3 we could use the last-child selector, which selects the last child element of a specified element, but again, as last child is not widely supported, we won\u2019t rely on it here.)\n\nSo, the least worst thing we could do is take an existing element, and add some reasonably meaningful markup to it. That\u2019s why we gave the paragraph a class of email, and the email address a class of value. Which reminds me a little of a moment in Hamlet\n\n\n\tThe lady doth protest too much, methinks\n\n\nOK, let\u2019s get back to the CSS.\n\nWe add the bottom right corner image, positioning it in the bottom right of the element, and making sure it doesn\u2019t repeat. We also add some padding to the bottom, to balance out the padding we added to the top of the hCard.\n\np.email {\n\tbackground-image: url(images/bottom-right.png);\n\tbackground-position: right bottom;\n\tbackground-repeat: no-repeat;\n\tpadding-bottom: 2em;\n}\n\nWhich all goes to make our hCard look like this\n\n\n\nIt just remains for us to clean up a little.\n\nLet\u2019s start from the top. We\u2019ll float the download image to the right like this\n\n.vcard img {\n\tfloat: right;\n\tpadding-right: 1em;\n\tmargin-top: -1em\n}\n\nSee how we didn\u2019t have to add a class to style the image, we used the fact that the image is a descendent of the vcard element, and a descendent selector. In my experience, the very widely supported, powerful descendent selector is one of the most underused aspects of CSS. So if you don\u2019t use it frequently, look into it in more detail.\n\nWe added some space to the right of the image, and pulled it up a bit closer to the top of the hCard, like this\n\n\n\nWe also want to add some whitespace between the edge of the hCard and the text. We would typically add padding to the left of the containing element, (in this case the vcard element) but this would break our bottom left hand corner, like this\n\n\n\nThat\u2019s because the div element we added this bottom left background image to would be moved in by the padding on its containing element.\n\nSo instead, we add left margin to all the paragraphs in the hCard\n\n.vcard p {\n\tmargin-left: 1em;\n}\n\n(there is the descendent selector again \u2013 it is the swiss army knife of CSS)\n\nNow, we\u2019ve not yet made the width of the hCard a function of the size of the text inside it (or \u201cem driven\u201d as we described it earlier). We do this by giving the hCard a width that is specified in em units. Here we\u2019ll set a width of say 28em, which makes the hCard always roughly as wide as 28 characters (strictly speaking 28 times the width of the letter capital M). \n\nSo the statement for our containing vcard element becomes\n\n.vcard {\n\tbackground-image: url(images/vcardfill.png);\n\tbackground-repeat: no-repeat;\n\tcolor: #666;\n\tfont-family: \"Lucida Grande\", Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;\n\twidth: 28em;\n}\n\nand now our element will look like this\n\n\n\nWe\u2019ve used almost entirely the existing HTML from our original hCard (adding just a little, and trying as much as possible to keep that additional markup meaningful), and just 6 CSS statements.\n\nHoliday Bonus \u2013 a downloadable vCard\n\nDid you notice this part of the HTML\n\n\n\n\nWhat\u2019s with the odd looking url\n\nbody {\n\tfont-size: 12px; \n}\np {\n\tline-height 1.5em; \n}\n\nThere are many ways to size text in CSS and the above approach provides and accessible method of achieving the pixel-precision solid typography requires. By way of explanation, the first font-size reduces the body text from the 16px default (common to most browsers and OS set-ups) down to the 12px we require. This rule is primarily there for Internet Explorer 6 and below on Windows: the percentage value means that the text will scale predictably should a user bump the text size up or down. The second font-size sets the text size specifically and is ignored by IE6, but used by Firefox, Safari, IE7, Opera and other modern browsers which allow users to resize text sized in pixels.\n\nSpacing between paragraphs\n\nWith our rhythmic unit set at 18px we need to ensure that it is maintained throughout the body copy. A common place to lose the rhythm is the gaps set between margins. The default treatment by web browsers of paragraphs is to insert a top- and bottom-margin of 1em. In our case this would give a spacing between the paragraphs of 12px and hence throw the text out of rhythm. If the rhythm of the page is to be maintained, the spacing of paragraphs should be related to the basic line height unit. This is achieved simply by setting top- and bottom-margins equal to the line height.\n\nIn order that typographic integrity is maintained when text is resized by the user we must use ems for all our vertical measurements, including line-height, padding and margins.\n\np {\n\tfont-size:1em;\n\tmargin-top: 1.5em;\n\tmargin-bottom: 1.5em; \n}\n\nBrowsers set margins on all block-level elements (such as headings, lists and blockquotes) so a way of ensuring that typographic attention is paid to all such elements is to reset the margins at the beginning of your style sheet. You could use a rule such as:\n\nbody,div,dl,dt,dd,ul,ol,li,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,pre,form,fieldset,p,blockquote,th,td { \n\tmargin:0; \n\tpadding:0; \n}\n\nAlternatively you could look into using the Yahoo! UI Reset style sheet which removes most default styling, so providing a solid foundation upon which you can explicitly declare your design intentions.\n\nVariations in text size\n\nWhen there is a change in text size, perhaps with a heading or sidenotes, the differing text should also take up a multiple of the basic leading. This means that, in our example, every diversion from the basic text size should take up multiples of 18px. This can be accomplished by adjusting the line-height and margin accordingly, as described following.\n\nHeadings\n\nSubheadings in the example page are set to 14px. In order that the height of each line is 18px, the line-height should be set to 18\u00a0\u00f7\u00a014 =\u00a01.286. Similarly the margins above and below the heading must be adjusted to fit. The temptation is to set heading margins to a simple 1em, but in order to maintain the rhythm, the top and bottom margins should be set at 1.286em so that the spacing is equal to the full 18px unit.\n\nh2 {\n\tfont-size:1.1667em;\n\tline-height: 1.286em;\n\tmargin-top: 1.286em;\n\tmargin-bottom: 1.286em; \n}\n\nOne can also set asymmetrical margins for headings, provided the margins combine to be multiples of the basic line height. In our example, a top margin of 1\u00bd lines is combined with a bottom margin of half a line as follows:\n\nh2 {\n\tfont-size:1.1667em;\n\tline-height: 1.286em;\n\tmargin-top: 1.929em;\n\tmargin-bottom: 0.643em; \n}\n\nAlso in our example, the main heading is given a text size of 18px, therefore the line-height has been set to 1em, as has the margin:\n\nh1 {\n\tfont-size:1.5em;\n\tline-height: 1em;\n\tmargin-top: 0;\n\tmargin-bottom: 1em; \n}\n\nSidenotes\n\nSidenotes (and other supplementary material) are often set at a smaller size to the basic text. To keep the rhythm, this smaller text should still line up with body copy, so a calculation similar to that for headings is required. In our example, the sidenotes are set at 10px and so their line-height must be increased to 18\u00a0\u00f7\u00a010 =\u00a01.8.\n\n.sidenote {\n\tfont-size:0.8333em;\n\tline-height:1.8em; \n}\n\nBorders\n\nOne additional point where vertical rhythm is often lost is with the introduction of horizontal borders. These effectively act as shims pushing the subsequent text downwards, so a two pixel horizontal border will throw out the vertical rhythm by two pixels. A way around this is to specify horizontal lines using background images or, as in our example, specify the width of the border in ems and adjust the padding to take up the slack. \n\nThe design of the footnote in our example requires a 1px horizontal border. The footnote contains 12px text, so 1px in ems is 1\u00a0\u00f7\u00a012 =\u00a00.0833. I have added a margin of 1\u00bd lines above the border (1.5\u00a0\u00d7\u00a018\u00a0\u00f7\u00a012 =\u00a02.5ems), so to maintain the rhythm the border + padding must equal a \u00bd (9px). We know the border is set to 1px, so the padding must be set to 8px. To specify this in ems we use the familiar calculation: 8\u00a0\u00f7\u00a012 =\u00a00.667.\n\nHit me with your rhythm stick\n\nComposing to a vertical rhythm helps engage and guide the reader down the page, but it takes typographic discipline to do so. It may seem like a lot of fiddly maths is involved (a few divisions and multiplications never hurt anyone) but good type setting is all about numbers, and it is this attention to detail which is the key to success.", "year": "2006", "author": "Richard Rutter", "author_slug": "richardrutter", "published": "2006-12-12T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/compose-to-a-vertical-rhythm/", "topic": "design"}
{"rowid": 122, "title": "A Message To You, Rudy - CSS Production Notes", "contents": "When more than one designer or developer work together on coding an XHTML/CSS template, there are several ways to make collaboration effective. Some prefer to comment their code, leaving a trail of bread-crumbs for their co-workers to follow. Others use accompanying files that contain their working notes or communicate via Basecamp.\n\nFor this year\u2019s 24ways I wanted to share a technique that I has been effective at Stuff and Nonsense; one that unfortunately did not make it into the final draft of Transcending CSS. This technique, CSS production notes, places your page production notes in one convenient place within an XHTML document and uses nothing more than meaningful markup and CSS.\n\nLet\u2019s start with the basics; a conversation between a group of people. In the absence of notes or conversation elements in XHTML you need to make an XHTML compound that will effectively add meaning to the conversation between designers and developers. As each person speaks, you have two elements right there to describe what has been said and who has spoken: and its cite attribute. \n\n\n\t\n\nWith more than one person speaking, you need to establish a temporal order for the conversation. Once again, the element to do just that is already there in XHTML; the humble ordered list.\n\nThis project will use XHTML1.0 Strict, CSS2.1 and all that malarkey.
\n\n\t
\n\nAdding a new note is as simple as adding a new item to list, and if you prefer to add more information to each note, such as the date or time that the note was written, go right ahead. Place your note list at the bottom of the source order of your document, right before the closing tag. One advantage of this approach over using conventional comments in your code is that all the notes are unobtrusive and are grouped together in one place, rather than being spread throughout your document.\n\nBasic CSS styling\n\nFor the first stage you are going to add some basic styling to the notes area, starting with the ordered list. For this design I am basing the look and feel on an instant messenger window.\n\n\n\nol#notes {\n\twidth : 300px; \n\theight : 320px; \n\tpadding : .5em 0; \n\tbackground : url(im.png) repeat; \n\tborder : 1px solid #333; \n\tborder-bottom-width : 2px; \n\t-moz-border-radius : 6px; /* Will not validate */\n\tcolor : #000; \n\toverflow : auto; \n}\nol#notes li { \n\tmargin : .5em; \n\tpadding : 10px 0 5px; \n\tbackground-color : #fff; \n\tborder : 1px solid #666; \n\t-moz-border-radius : 6px; /* Will not validate */ \n}\nol#notes blockquote { \n\tmargin : 0; \n\tpadding : 0; \n}\nol#notes p { \n\tmargin : 0 20px .75em;\n\tpadding : 0; \n}\nol#notes p.date { \n\tfont-size : 92%;\n\tcolor : #666; \n\ttext-transform : uppercase; \n}\n\nTake a gander at the first example.\n\nYou could stop right there, but without seeing who has left the note, there is little context. So next, extract the name of the commenter from the- \n\t\t
\n\t\n\t\t\t\n\tThis project will use XHTML1.0 Strict, CSS2.1 and all that malarkey.
\n\t\t- \n\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\n\tThose bits are simple and bulletproof.
\n\t\t\u2019s cite attribute and display it before each note by using generated content.\n\nol#notes blockquote:before { \n\tcontent : \" \"attr(cite)\" said: \"; \n\tmargin-left : 20px; \n\tfont-weight : bold; \n}\n\nFun with more detailed styling\n\nNow, with all of the information and basic styling in place, it\u2019s time to have some fun with some more detailed styling to spruce up your notes. Let\u2019s start by adding an icon for each person, once again based on their cite. First, all of the first paragraphs of a\u2019s that includes a cite attribute are given common styles.\n\nol#notes blockquote[cite] p:first-child {\n\tmin-height : 34px;\n\tpadding-left : 40px; \n}\n\nFollowed by an individual background-image.\n\nol#notes blockquote[cite=\"Andy\"] p:first-child { \n\tbackground : url(malarkey.png) no-repeat 5px 5px; \n} \n\nIf you prefer a little more interactivity, add a :hover state to eachand perhaps highlight the most recent comment.\n\nol#notes blockquote:hover { \n\tbackground-color : #faf8eb; \n\tborder-top : 1px solid #fff; \n\tborder-bottom : 1px solid #333; \n}\nol#notes li:last-child blockquote { \n\tbackground-color : #f1efe2; \n}\n\n\n\nYou could also adjust the style for each comment based on the department that the person works in, for example:\n\n\n\t \n\n\t\t\nThis project will use XHTML1.0 Strict, CSS2.1 and all that malarkey.
\n\t\n\t \nol#notes blockquote.designer { border-color : #600; }\n\nTake a look at the results of the second stage.\n\nShow and hide the notes using CSS positioning\n\nWith your notes now dressed in their finest, it is time to tuck them away above the top of your working XHTML/CSS prototype so that you can reveal them when you need them, no JavaScript required. Start by moving the ordered list of notes off the top of the viewport leaving only a few pixels in view. It is also a good idea to make them semi-transparent by using the opacity property for browsers that have implemented it.\n\nol#notes { \n\tposition : absolute; \n\topacity : .25;\n\tz-index : 2000; \n\ttop : -305px; \n\tleft : 20px; \n}\n\nYour last step is to add :hover and :focus dynamic pseudo-classes to reposition the list at the top of the viewport and restore full opacity to display them in their full glory when needed.\n\nol#notes:hover, ol#notes:focus {\n\ttop : 0; \n\topacity : 1; \n}\n\n\n\nNow it\u2019s time to sit back, pour yourself a long drink and bask in the glory of the final result. Your notes are all stored in one handy place at the bottom of your document rather than being spread around your code. When your templates are complete, simply dive straight to the bottom and pull out the notes.\n\nA Message To You, Rudy\n\nThank-you to everybody for making this a really great year for web standards. Have a wonderful holiday season.\n\nBuy Andy Clarke\u2019s book Transcending CSS from Amazon.com", "year": "2006", "author": "Andy Clarke", "author_slug": "andyclarke", "published": "2006-12-15T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/css-production-notes/", "topic": "process"} {"rowid": 123, "title": "Fast and Simple Usability Testing", "contents": "Everyone knows by now that they should test the usability of their applications, but still hardly anybody actually does it. In this article I\u2019ll share some tips I\u2019ve picked up for doing usability tests quickly and effectively.\n\nRelatively recent tools like Django and Ruby on Rails allow us to develop projects faster and to make significant changes later in the project timeline. Usability testing methods should now be adapted to fit this modern approach to development.\n\nWhen to test\n\nIn an ideal world usability tests would be carried out frequently from an early stage of the project. Time and budget constraints lead this to be impractical; usability is often the first thing to get dropped from the project plan.\n\nIf you can only test at one stage in the project, whatever the size, the most valuable time is before your first public beta \u2014 leaving long enough to fix issues and not so late that you can\u2019t rethink your scope.\n\nThere are three main categories of usability test:\n\n\n\tTesting design mockups\n\tTesting a new working application\n\tTesting established applications\n\n\nEach category requires a slightly different approach. For small modern web projects you are most likely to be testing a new working application. You will of course have already done functional tests so you won\u2019t be worried about the user breaking things. The main differences between the categories apply in how you word The Script.\n\nTesting an established application is the most fun in my opinion. Humans are remarkably adaptable and rapidly develop coping strategies to work around usability issues in software they are forced to use. Uncovering these strategies may lead you to understand previously unspoken needs of your users. Often small changes to the application will have a dramatic affect on their everyday lives.\n\nWho to test\n\nWhen you have built a project to scratch your own itch, your intended audience will be people just like you. Test subjects in this case should be easy to find \u2013 friends, co-workers etc.\n\nThis is not always the case; your users may not be like you at all. When they are not, it\u2019s all the more important to run usability tests. Testing on friends, family and co-workers is better than not doing usability tests at all, but it can\u2019t be compared to testing on actual samples of your intended audience. People who would use the system will provide more genuine feedback and deeper insight.\n\nNever let your test subjects put themselves in the shoes of your \u2018actual\u2019 users. For example, you should discourage comments like \u201cWell, I would do this BUT if I was a bus driver I\u2019d do that\u201d. Users are not qualified to put themselves in the position of others. Inaccurate data is often worse than no data.\n\nAim for five or six test subjects: any more and you probably won\u2019t learn anything new; any less and you\u2019re likely to be overwhelmed by issues stemming from people\u2019s individual personalities.\n\nThe Script\n\nThe Script is a single side of A4 (or letter) paper, consisting of questions for your testers and reminders for yourself. Have a balance of task-based questions and expectation analysis. This helps maintain consistency across tests. Expectation analysis is more important for testing designs and new applications: \u201cWhere would you find X?\u201d, \u201cWhat would you expect to happen if you clicked on Y?\u201d. In an established system users will probably know where these things are though it can still be illuminating to ask these questions though phrased slightly differently.\n\nTask-based questions involve providing a task for the user to complete. If you are testing an established system it is a good idea to ask users to bring in tasks that they would normally perform. This is because the user will be more invested in the outcome of the task and will behave in a more realistic fashion. When designing tasks for new systems and designs ensure you only provide loose task details for the same reason. Don\u2019t tell testers to enter \u201cChantelle\u201d; have them use their own name instead. Avoid introducing bias with the way questions are phrased.\n\nIt\u2019s a good idea to ask for users\u2019 first impressions at the beginning of the test, especially when testing design mockups. \u201cWhat are the main elements on the page?\u201d or \u201cWhat strikes you first?\u201d.\n\nYou script should run for a maximum of 45 minutes. 30-35 minutes is better; after this you are likely to lose their attention. Tests on established systems can take longer as there is more to learn from them. When scheduling the test you will need to leave yourself 5 minutes between each one to collate your notes and prepare for the next. Be sure to run through the script beforehand.\n\nYour script should be flexible. It is possible that during the test a trend will come to light that opens up whole new avenues of possible questioning. For example, during one initial test of an established system I noticed that the test subject had been printing off items from the application and placing them in a folder in date order (the system ordered alphabetically). I changed the script to ask future participants in that run, if they ever used external tools to help them with tasks within the system. This revealed a number of interesting issues that otherwise would not have been found.\n\nRunning the tests\n\nTreat your test subjects like hedgehogs. Depending on your target audience they probably feel a little nervous and perhaps even scared of you. So make them a little nest out of straw, stroke their prickles and give them some cat food. Alternatively, reassure them that you are testing the system and that they can\u2019t give a wrong answer. Reward them with a doughnut or jam tart at the end. Try to ensure the test environment is relaxed and quiet, but also as close as possible to the situation where they would actually use the system.\n\nHave your subjects talk out loud is very important as you can\u2019t read their minds, but it is a very unnatural process. To loosen up your subjects and get them talking in the way you want them to, try the Stapler Trick. Give them a stapler or similar item and ask them to open it, take the staples out, replace them, shut the stapler and staple some paper \u2013 talking all the time about what they see, what they expect to happen, what actually happens and how that matches up. Make them laugh at you.\n\nSay how long the test will take up front, and tell your subject why you are doing it. After the test has been completed, conclude by thanking them for their time and assuring them that they were very useful. Then give them the sugary treat.\n\nWhat to look for\n\nPrimarily, you should look out for incidents where the user stops concentrating on her tasks and starts thinking about the tool and how she is going to use it. For example, when you are hammering in a nail you don\u2019t think about how to use a hammer; good software should be the same. Words like \u2018it\u2019 and \u2018the system\u2019 and are good indications that the test subject has stopped thinking about the task in hand. Note questioning words, especially where testers question their own judgement, \u201cwhy can\u2019t I find \u2026\u201d, \u201cI expected to see \u2026\u201d etc. as this indicates that the work flow for the task may have broken down.\n\nAlso keep an eye on occasions where the user completely fails to do a task. They may need some prompting to unstick them, but you should be careful not to bias the test. These should be the highest priority issues for you to fix. If users recover from getting stuck, make a note of how they recovered. Prolonged periods of silence from the test subject may also require prompting as they should be talking all the time. Ask them what they are thinking or looking for but avoid words like \u2018try\u2019 (e.g. \u2018what are you trying to do?\u2019) as this implies that they are currently failing.\n\nBe wary of users\u2019 opinions on aesthetics and be prepared to bring them back to the script if they get side-tracked.\n\nWriting it up\n\nEven if you are the only developer it\u2019s important to summarise the key issues that emerged during testing: your notes won\u2019t make much sense to you a week or so after the test.\n\nIf you are writing for other people, include a summary no longer than two pages; this can consist of a list or table of the issues including recommendations and their priorities. Remember to anonymise the users in the report. In team situations, you may be surprised at how many people are interested in the results of the usability test even if it doesn\u2019t relate directly to something that they can fix.\n\nTo conclude\u2026\n\nSome usability testing is better than none at all, even for small projects or those with strict deadlines. Make the most of the time and resources available. Choose your users carefully, make them comfortable, summarise your report and don\u2019t forget to leave a doughnut for yourself!", "year": "2006", "author": "Natalie Downe", "author_slug": "nataliedowne", "published": "2006-12-16T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/fast-and-simple-usability-testing/", "topic": "process"} {"rowid": 130, "title": "Faster Development with CSS Constants", "contents": "Anyone even slightly familiar with a programming language will have come across the concept of constants \u2013 a fixed value that can be used through your code. For example, in a PHP script I might have a constant which is the email address that all emails generated by my application get sent to. \n\n$adminEmail = 'info@example.com';\n\nI could then use $adminEmail in my script whenever I wanted an email to go to that address. The benefit of this is that when the client decides they want the email to go to a different address, I only need change it in one place \u2013 the place where I initially set the constant. I could also quite easily make this value user defined and enable the administrator to update the email address.\n\nUnfortunately CSS doesn\u2019t support constants. It would be really useful to be able to define certain values initially and then use them throughout a CSS file, so in this article I\u2019m going to take a look at some of the methods we do have available and provide pointers to more in depth commentary on each. If you have a different method, or tip to share please add it to the comments.\n\nSo what options do we have?\n\nOne way to get round the lack of constants is to create some definitions at the top of your CSS file in comments, to define \u2018constants\u2019. A common use for this is to create a \u2018color glossary\u2019. This means that you have a quick reference to the colors used in the site to avoid using alternates by mistake and, if you need to change the colors, you have a quick list to go down and do a search and replace. \n\nIn the below example, if I decide I want to change the mid grey to #999999, all I need to do is search and replace #666666 with #999999 \u2013 assuming I\u2019ve remember to always use that value for things which are mid grey.\n\n/*\nDark grey (text): #333333\nDark Blue (headings, links) #000066\nMid Blue (header) #333399\nLight blue (top navigation) #CCCCFF\nMid grey: #666666\n*/\n\nThis is a fairly low-tech method, but if used throughout the development of the CSS files can make changes far simpler and help to ensure consistency in your color scheme.\n\nI\u2019ve seen this method used by many designers however Garrett Dimon documents the method, with more ideas in the comments.\n\nGoing server-side\n\nTo truly achieve constants you will need to use something other than CSS to process the file before it is sent to the browser. You can use any scripting language \u2013 PHP, ASP, ColdFusion etc. to parse a CSS file in which you have entered constants. So that in a constants section of the CSS file you would have:\n\n$darkgrey = '#333333';\n$darkblue = '#000066';\n\nThe rest of the CSS file is as normal except that when you come to use the constant value you would use the constant name instead of adding the color:\n\np {\n\tcolor: $darkgrey;\n}\n\nYour server-side script could then parse the CSS file, replace the constant names with the constant values and serve a valid CSS file to the browser. Christian Heilmann has done just this for PHP however this could be adapted for any language you might have available on your server.\n\nShaun Inman came up with another way \n of doing this that removes the need to link to a PHP script and also enables the adding of constants using the syntax of at-rules . This method is again using PHP and will require you to edit an .htaccess file. \n\nA further method is to generate static CSS files either using a script locally \u2013 if the constants are just to enable speed of development \u2013 or as part of the web application itself. Storing a template stylesheet with constant names in place of the values you will want to update means that your script can simply open the template, replace the variables and save the result as a new stylesheet file.\n\nWhile CSS constants are a real help to developers, they can also be used to add new functionality to your applications. As with the email address example that I used at the beginning of this article, using a combination of CSS and server-side scripting you could enable a site administrator to select the colours for a new theme to be used on a page of a content managed site. By using constants you need only give them the option to change certain parts of the CSS and not upload a whole different CSS file, which could lead to some interesting results!\n\nAs we are unlikely to find real CSS constants under the tree this Christmas the above methods are some possibilities for better management of your stylesheets. However if you have better methods, CSS Constant horror stories or any other suggestions, add your comments below.", "year": "2006", "author": "Rachel Andrew", "author_slug": "rachelandrew", "published": "2006-12-02T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/faster-development-with-css-constants/", "topic": "process"} {"rowid": 125, "title": "Accessible Dynamic Links", "contents": "Although hyperlinks are the soul of the World Wide Web, it\u2019s worth using them in moderation. Too many links becomes a barrier for visitors navigating their way through a page. This difficulty is multiplied when the visitor is using assistive technology, or is using a keyboard; being able to skip over a block of links doesn\u2019t make the task of finding a specific link any easier.\n\nIn an effort to make sites easier to use, various user interfaces based on the hiding and showing of links have been crafted. From drop-down menus to expose the deeper structure of a website, to a decluttering of skip links so as not to impact design considerations. Both are well intentioned with the aim of preserving a good usability experience for the majority of a website\u2019s audience; hiding the real complexity of a page until the visitor interacts with the element.\n\nWhen JavaScript is not available\n\nThe modern dynamic link techniques rely on JavaScript and CSS, but regardless of whether scripting and styles are enabled or not, we should consider the accessibility implications, particularly for screen-reader users, and people who rely on keyboard access.\n\nIn typical web standards-based drop-down navigation implementations, the rough consensus is that the navigation should be structured as nested lists so when JavaScript is not available the entire navigation map is available to the visitor. This creates a situation where a visitor is faced with potentially well over 50 links on every page of the website. Keyboard access to such structures is frustrating, there\u2019s far too many options, and the method of serially tabbing through each link looking for a specific one is tedious.\n\nInstead of offering the visitor an indigestible chunk of links when JavaScript is not available, consider instead having the minimum number of links on a page, and when JavaScript is available bringing in the extra links dynamically. Santa Chris Heilmann offers an excellent proof of concept in making Ajax navigation optional.\n\nWhen JavaScript is enabled, we need to decide how to hide links. One technique offers a means of comprehensively hiding links from keyboard users and assistive technology users. Another technique allows keyboard and screen-reader users to access links while they are hidden, and making them visible when reached.\n\nHiding the links\n\nIn JavaScript enhanced pages whether a link displays on screen depends on a certain event happening first. For example, a visitor needs to click a top-level navigation link that makes a set of sub-navigation links appear. In these cases, we need to ensure that these links are not available to any user until that event has happened.\n\nThe typical way of hiding links is to style the anchor elements, or its parent nodes with display: none. This has the advantage of taking the links out of the tab order, so they are not focusable. It\u2019s useful in reducing the number of links presented to a screen-reader or keyboard user to a minimum. Although the links are still in the document (they can be referenced and manipulated using DOM Scripting), they are not directly triggerable by a visitor.\n\nOnce the necessary event has happened, like our visitor has clicked on a top-level navigation link which shows our hidden set of links, then we can display the links to the visitor and make them triggerable. This is done simply by undoing the display: none, perhaps by setting the display back to block for block level elements, or inline for inline elements. For as long as this display style remains, the links are in the tab order, focusable by keyboard, and triggerable.\n\nA common mistake in this situation is to use visibility: hidden, text-indent: -999em, or position: absolute with left: -999em to position these links off-screen. But all of these links remain accessible via keyboard tabbing even though the links remain hidden from screen view. In some ways this is a good idea, but for hiding sub-navigation links, it presents the screen-reader user and keyboard user with too many links to be of practical use.\n\nMoving the links out of sight\n\nIf you want a set of text links accessible to screen-readers and keyboard users, but don\u2019t want them cluttering up space on the screen, then style the links with position: absolute; left: -999em. Links styled this way remain in the tab order, and are accessible via keyboard. (The position: absolute is added as a style to the link, not to a parent node of the link \u2013 this will give us a useful hook to solve the next problem).\n\na.helper {\n\tposition: absolute;\n\tleft: -999em;\n}\n\nOne important requirement when displaying links off-screen is that they are visible to a keyboard user when they receive focus. Tabbing on a link that is not visible is a usability mudpit, since the visitor has no visible cue as to what a focused link will do, or where it will go.\n\nThe simple answer is to restyle the link so that it appears on the screen when the hidden link receives focus. The anchor\u2019s :focus pseudo-class is a logical hook to use, and with the following style repositions the link onscreen when it receives the focus:\n\na.helper:focus, a.helper.focus {\n\ttop: 0;\n\tleft: 0;\n}\n\nThis technique is useful for hiding skip links, and options you want screen-reader and keyboard users to use, but don\u2019t want cluttering up the page. Unfortunately Internet Explorer 6 and 7 don\u2019t support the focus pseudo-class, which is why there\u2019s a second CSS selector a.helper.focus so we can use some JavaScript to help out. When the page loads, we look for all links that have a class of helper and add in onfocus and onblur event handlers:\n\nif (anchor.className == \"helper\") {\n\tanchor.onfocus = function() {\n\t\tthis.className = 'helper focus';\n\t}\n\tanchor.onblur = function() {\n\t\tthis.className = 'helper';\n\t}\n}\n\nSince we are using JavaScript to cover up for deficiencies in Internet Explorer, it makes sense to use JavaScript initially to place the links off-screen. That way an Internet Explorer user with JavaScript disabled can still use the skip link functionality.\n\nIt is vital that the number of links rendered in this way is kept to a minimum. Every link you offer needs to be tabbed through, and gets read out in a screen reader. Offer these off-screen links that directly benefit these types of visitor.\n\nAndy Clarke and Kimberly Blessing use a similar technique in the Web Standards Project\u2018s latest design, but their technique involves hiding the skip link in plain sight and making it visible when it receives focus. Navigate the page using just the tab key to see the accessibility-related links appear when they receive focus.\n\nThis technique is also a good way of hiding image replaced text. That way the screen-readers still get the actual text, and the website still gets its designed look.\n\nWhich way?\n\nIf the links are not meant to be reachable until a certain event has occurred, then the display: none technique is the preferred approach. If you want the links accessible but out of the way until they receive focus, then the off-screen positioning (or Andy\u2019s hiding in plain sight technique) is the way to go.", "year": "2006", "author": "Mike Davies", "author_slug": "mikedavies", "published": "2006-12-05T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/accessible-dynamic-links/", "topic": "ux"} {"rowid": 127, "title": "Showing Good Form", "contents": "Earlier this year, I forget exactly when (it\u2019s been a good year), I was building a client site that needed widgets which look like this (designed, incidentally, by my erstwhile writing partner, Cameron Adams):\n\n\n\nBuilding this was a challenge not just in CSS, but in choosing the proper markup \u2013 how should such a widget be constructed?\n\nMmm \u2026 markup\n\nIt seemed to me there were two key issues to deal with:\n\n\n\tThe function of the interface is to input information, so semantically this is a form, therefore we have to find a way of building it using form elements: fieldset, legend, label and input\n\tWe can\u2019t use a table for layout, even though that would clearly be the easiest solution!\n\n\nAbusing tables for layout is never good \u2013 physical layout is not what table semantics mean. But even if this data can be described as a table, we shouldn\u2019t mix forms markup with non-forms markup, because of the behavioral impact this can have on a screen reader:\n\nTo take a prominent example, the screen reader JAWS has a mode specifically for interacting with forms (cunningly known as \u201cforms mode\u201d). When running in this mode its output only includes relevant elements \u2013 legends, labels and form controls themselves. Any other kind of markup \u2013 like text in a previous table cell, a paragraph or list in between \u2013 is simply ignored. The user in this situation would have to switch continually in and out of forms mode to hear all the content. (For more about this issue and some test examples, there\u2019s a thread at accessify forum which wanders in that direction.)\n\nOne further issue for screen reader users is implied by the design: the input fields are associated together in rows and columns, and a sighted user can visually scan across and down to make those associations; but a blind user can\u2019t do that. For such a user the row and column header data will need to be there at every axis; in other words, the layout should be more like this:\n\n\n\nAnd constructed with appropriate semantic markup to convey those relationships. By this point the selection of elements seems pretty clear: each row is a fieldset, the row header is a legend, and each column header is a label, associated with an input.\n\nHere\u2019s what that form looks like with no CSS:\n\n\n\nAnd here\u2019s some markup for the first row (with most of the attributes removed just to keep this example succinct):\n\n\n\nThe span inside each legend is because legend elements are highly resistant to styling! Indeed they\u2019re one of the most stubborn elements in the browsers\u2019 vocabulary. Oh man \u2026 how I wrestled with the buggers \u2026 until this obvious alternative occurred to me! So the legend element itself is just a container, while all the styling is on the inner span.\n\nOh yeah, there was some CSS too\n\nI\u2019m not gonna dwell too much on the CSS it took to make this work \u2013 this is a short article, and it\u2019s all there in the demo [demo page, style sheet]\n\nBut I do want to touch on the most interesting bit \u2013 where we get from a layout with headers on every row, to one where only the top row has headers \u2013 or at least, so it appears to graphical browsers. For screen readers, as we noted, we need those headers on every row, so we should employ some cunning CSS to partly negate their visual presence, without removing them from the output.\n\nThe core styling for each label span is like this:\n\nlabel span\n{\n\tdisplay:block;\n\tpadding:5px;\n\tline-height:1em;\n\tbackground:#423221;\n\tcolor:#fff;\n\tfont-weight:bold;\n}\n\nBut in the rows below the header they have these additional rules:\n\nfieldset.body label span\n{\n\tpadding:0 5px;\n\tline-height:0;\n\tposition:relative;\n\ttop:-10000em;\n}\n\nThe rendered width of the element is preserved, ensuring that the surrounding label is still the same width as the one in the header row above, and hence a unified column width is preserved all the way down. But the element effectively has no height, and so it\u2019s effectively invisible. The styling is done this way, rather than just setting the height to zero and using overflow:hidden, because to do that would expose an unrelated quirk with another popular screen reader! (It would hide the output from Window Eyes, as shown in this test example at access matters.)\n\nThe finished widget\n\nIt\u2019s an intricate beast allright! But after all that we do indeed get the widget we want:\n\n\n\tDemo page\n\tStyle sheet\n\n\nIt\u2019s not perfect, most notably because the legends have to have a fixed width; this can be in em to allow for text scaling, but it still doesn\u2019t allow the content to break into multiple lines. It also doesn\u2019t look quite right in Safari; and some CSS hacking was needed to make it look right in IE6 and IE7.\n\nStill it worked well enough for the purpose, and satisfied the client completely. And most of all it re-assured me in my faith \u2013 that there\u2019s never any need to abuse tables for layout. (Unless of course you think this content is a table anyway, but that\u2019s another story!)", "year": "2006", "author": "James Edwards", "author_slug": "jamesedwards", "published": "2006-12-11T00:00:00+00:00", "url": "https://24ways.org/2006/showing-good-form/", "topic": "ux"} {"rowid": 142, "title": "Revealing Relationships Can Be Good Form", "contents": "A few days ago, a colleague of mine \u2013 someone I have known for several years, who has been doing web design for several years and harks back from the early days of ZDNet \u2013 was running through a prototype I had put together for some user testing. As with a lot of prototypes, there was an element of \u2018smoke and mirrors\u2019 to make things look like they were working. \n\nOne part of the form included a yes/no radio button, and selecting the Yes option would, in the real and final version of the form, reveal some extra content. Rather than put too much JavaScript in the prototype, I took a preverbial shortcut and created a link which I wrapped around the text next to the radio button \u2013 clicking on that link would cause the form to mimic a change event on the radio button. But it wasn\u2019t working for him. \n\nWhy was that? Because whereas I created the form using a\n\t\t\nThose bits are simple and bulletproof.
\n\t