Author: vdebolt

Useful links: Forms, WeTopia, Moodle, 24 Ways

How to Make Forms more Usable with HTML5 is a good tutorial from Steven Bradley.

The new WeTopia game on Facebook is described by TechCrunch. This game is a perfect example of what Jane McGonigal and other thinkers say about using game theory to create social good.

NC State U evaluates the accessibility of Moodle 2.1.1.

If you are like me and your subscription to 24 ways has been languishing quietly in your feed reader since last December, you know that 24 Ways is back. If not, be sure to check them out and have a great December with 24 Ways.

Move the Web Forward

Yesterday on Blue Beanie Day, Stephanie Sullivan Rewis announced a new web project on the blog at web standards project. Her post was called Beyond the Blue Beanie.

Today I’m happy to announce a new project, put together by a group of very passionate web folks, that can enable your entry into the process of moving the web forward—no matter what skill level you’re currently at—Move the Web Forward.

The purpose of the new Move the Web Forward site is to help people give back to the web community. Here’s their objective:

Whether you’re a talented web developer, web-slinging since the days of tables and font tags, or you’re a hobbyist hacker, there are a number ways for you to give back. Below, we list some of the ways that anyone can contribute back to the web platform.

Our goal is to make it easy for anyone to get started contributing to the platform, whether that’s learning more about how it works, teaching others, or writing specs. The web has grown due to people like you, and we want to make it even easier for people like you to give back.

There are a multitude of ideas there for how you can level up, dig deeper, or contribute as a guru. No matter what your level of expertise, it’s possible to get involved.

See Also: Smashing Magazine’s The Smashing Guide to Moving the Web Forward.

Supporting Web Standards Today?

Virginia in a blue beanieIt’s Blue Beanie Day, the day on which we all show our support for web standards by wearing a blue beanie.

Jeffrey Zeldman started this event several years ago. It’s been successful in getting all sorts of people to add blue beanies to their various avatars and standing up for web standards on a particular day each year.

It needs to be an every day event to support web standards. For many people it is. Those people are keeping up with the standards, writing web pages that show that they understand what it’s all about, and – for educators – showing others the way to create web sites using web standards. Really committed web standards people are working with browsers, following browser updates, and contributing to the writing of new specs and new browser engines.

Check out the Web Standards Project and Web Standards Sherpas for information about how you can make a contribution to web standards all year long. There’s a new project in the works (I’ll supply the URL when it’s available) that is meant to answer the question “I’ve got my blue beanie on. Now what? What can I do besides wear a toque?” That will help you find ways to learn, participate, and contribute.

 

Useful links: Adaptive Design, nested figures, Susan Kare

Nice article on Opera Dev by Chris Mills about Adaptive Design with media queries.

Nested Figure Elements on Paciello Blog.

The Sketchbook of Susan Kare: The Artist Who Gave Computing a Human Face. Did you know about Susan Kare? I’d never heard of her before. I certainly think a mention of her contribution to the GUI needs to be included in Introductory courses on history of the Internet and history of computing.