Useful links: WCAG, NOT selector, touchscreen thinking

Making Your Website Accessible, Part 1: Understanding WCAG is an interesting look at WCAG. In addition to explaining the basics of using WCAG, the author also discusses some of the drawbacks and problems.

Here’s a video of Russ Weakley explaining the CSS NOT selector.

 IA in the touchscreen era. This is a long post, but I promise you’ll never be bored reading it.

Useful links: rvl.io, Windows 8, NMWIT

rvl.io, which is pronounced “reveal ee oo” is an online tool that uses HTML, CSS and some JavaScript to allow you to create presentation slides with nice transitions. You can download your finished presentation for offline use, or direct people to it on their site.

The RNIB in the UK did a very thorough analysis of Windows 8 in terms of accessibility.

I’m attending a New Mexico Women in Technology event this week. This event honors women in technology. Since I was a winner last year, I get to attend and helped with the judging for this years winners. The speaker this year is Valerie Plame Wilson, but the real emphasis is on the fantastic women who receive recognition as women in technology during the event. The New Mexico Technology Council also gives several scholarships to high school girls during the event. All in all, an excellent thing.

10 Quotes All Graphic Designers Should Know By Heart

Inspiration fuels great design, and we most often seek design inspiration in visual cues. However, some of the best inspiration comes from poignant phrases uttered by some of design’s greatest thinkers.  Check out the following ten quotes all graphic designers should know by heart, and give them consideration when you plan your next design. Doing so might lend you the insight needed to turn a static design into a compelling and memorable work that defines your status as a master designer.

1. “Design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose.” – Charles Eames

Before you set out to create a design, ask yourself what the end goal is. Then create a design that helps that goal be met.

Charles Eames

2. “Good design is obvious. Great design is transparent.” – Joe Sparano

Your design shouldn’t distract from your end goal.

Joe Sparano

3.  “Design is as much an act of spacing as an act of marking.” – Ellen Lupton

Great designs are made by excellent use of white space, and plenty of it.

Ellen Lupton

4. “Content precedes design. Design in the absence of content is not design, it’s decoration.” – Jeffrey Zeldman

Always keep in mind why the end viewer or customer is there in the first place.

Jeffrey Zeldman

5. “You can’t do better design with a computer, but you can speed up your work enormously.” – Wim Crouwel

Don’t be afraid to incorporate new technologies into your design business if you can work more efficiently without sacrificing quality.

Wim Crouwel

6. “Technology over technique produces emotionless design.” – Daniel Mall

New technologies should never hamper your ability to craft stellar artwork.

Daniel Mall

7.  “If design isn’t profitable, then it’s art.” – Henrik Fiskar

More people will pay you money to help them achieve a monetary goal than will pay you to give them something pretty to look at.

Henrik Fiskar

8. “Practice safe design: Use a concept.” – Petrula Vrontikis

This goes hand-in-hand with goal-setting.  Plan before you design; don’t skimp the design brief.

Petrula Vrontikis

9. “Create your own visual style… let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others.” – Orson Welles

When your design speaks to you, those who share your ideals (customers, clients, and end viewers) can hear it too.

Orson Welles

10. “A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” – Antoine de Saint Exupéry

Keep it simple, stupid!

Antoine de Saint Exupery

Guest author Brian Morris writes for the PsPrint Design & Printing Blog. PsPrint is an online commercial printing company. Follow PsPrint on Twitter @PsPrint and Facebook.

Useful links: CSS Layouts, Ray, iPad Mini

The Future of CSS Layouts slide deck and other materials are from a presentation at the Future of Web Design

A new smartphone called Ray has been created for the blind and visually impaired. As with all progress made in the area of accessibility, this technology may have far reaching effects on all smart phone technology.

The iPad Mini announcement yesterday means we finally have the much rumored iPad Mini. What was your opinion of the pricing? I was a bit disappointed that it was so much higher than the competition in the small tablet field, but then again, competing on price has never been Apple’s thing. With Google marketing a $250 laptop and the Kindle Fire HD doing much of what an iPad does, I was hoping (in vain) for something more affordable in an iPad Mini.