Stubbornella - Nicole Sullivan

My Object Oriented CSS grids and templates are open sourced on github. They have all the functionality of YUI grids plus some important features.

• Only 4kb, half the size of YUI grids. (I was totally happy when I checked the final size!)
• They allow infinite nesting and stacking.
• The only change required to use any of the objects is to place it in the HTML, there are no changes to other places in the DOM and no location dependent styling. Eases back-end development and makes it a lot easier to manage for newbies.
• Solution for sub-pixel rounding errors.

http://wiki.github.com/stubbornella/oocss

template.css and grids.css

…My prediction is that you’ll be writing complex layouts in less than 24 hours without adding a line to the CSS file.

I visited Yahoo! last week to record a talk I had given at the Front End Summit in October. If you are a designer or an F2E it is essential that you understand the ways in which design choices impact overall site performance. This talk establishes guidelines for High Performance Design including 9 Best Practices.

9 Best Practices

1. Create a component library of smart objects.
2. Use consistent semantic styles.
3. Design modules to be transparent on the inside.
4. Optimize images and sprites.
5. Avoid non-standard browser fonts.
6. Use columns rather than rows.
7. Choose your bling carefully.
8. Be flexible.
9. Learn to love grids.

Web Directions North, Denver, February 2-7

I’ll be speaking more about Design and also CSS best practices at Web Directions North in February where I’ve been invited to give both a Performance Bootcamp Workshop and a CSS Performance for Websites and Web Apps Presentation. I look forward to seeing you there!

Je vais parler (en francais! eek!) avec Eric Daspet de la performance des images pour le web a ParisWeb. Les inscriptions pour Paris Web 2008 sont officiellement ouvertes. Jusqu’au 15 octobre au soir, vous bénéficierez de tarifs réduits. Le conference sera lieu a Paris le 13-15 Novembre. J’attend vous voir bientot alors.

Voila le proposition

Voulez-vous améliorer la vitesse de vos pages web et réduire l’impact écologique et monétaire de votre hébergement ? Voulez-vous faire ceci avec peu de changement de code et en gardant une belle interface graphique ? Cette session va vous apprendre les 7 étapes pour mettre votre site web au régime. Comment perdre des poids que votre site a pris en rajoutant les dernières nouveautés. Et, encore plus important, comment ne pas reprendre ce poids !

The YUI team released YUI3 for a sneak peek preview. The goals make me happy… especially goal 2.

1. lighter (less K-weight on the wire and on the page for most uses)
2. faster (fewer http requests, less code to write and compile, more efficient code)
3. more consistent (common naming, event signatures, and widget APIs throughout the library)
4. more powerful (do more with less implementation code)
5. more securable (safer and easier to expose to multiple developers working in the same environment; easier to run under systems like Caja or ADsafe)

Most companies either don’t have the resources or aren’t willing to invest in assistive technologies so that they can actively test their web products, so their employees are forced to simply follow the rules (WAI) as best they can and hope that their final product is at least somewhat accessible. Victor Tsaran’s video introduction to screen readers is very useful as it allows a peek into real life screen reader usage. I wonder how many people will be surprised by the last couple minutes of the video?

I’m not a proponent of lowering skill level for diversities sake, but is it possible that there are CSS Goddesses on the A-list in terms of technical skill, speaking ability, and vision who simply aren’t on the radar of the web development community?

Un site accessibles et un site inaccessibles peuvent paraître exactement les mêmes pour un utilisateur qui n’est pas handicapé. Il peut alors être difficile de comprendre les raisons de tout ce remue-ménage. Pourquoi est-il aussi important de tenir compte de cette accessibilité lorsqu’on conçoit et lorsqu’on met en forme des pages Internet ?

L’une des améliorations les plus importantes pouvant être réalisée pour l’accessibilité d’un site est une tâche qui échappera souvent aux rédacteurs. Ajouter du texte pour décrire des images permet aux non-voyants et aux déficients visuels d’accéder au contenu de votre page, mais écrire n’est pas forcément quelque chose d’inné. Les conseils énoncés ici vous aideront à débuter et à éviter les erreurs fréquentes.

A List Apart has launched a new site design. They had a couple seconds of style-less content, and then boom, the new site was born. At first glance it is a 1000px wide, four column design based on ruby on rails. Take a look.
New design. New structure. New server. New publishing system [...]

bobbyvandersluis.com | Unobtrusive Flash Objects (UFO) v1.0
A great article which explains a useful way to include flash content in your website without compromising standards.

I attended WWW2005 in Chiba, Japan, just outside of Tokyo. It was a fun conference. I met lots of great people, and saw some people I hadn’t in a while.

Allowing writers to contribute to the creation of accessible documents.

The testing was based on the needs of non-technical content contributors; writers, graphic artists, editors, etc. The program had to shield the user from all the code and provide a simple usable interface.

It is reasonable to expect writers to be able to update documents and follow preexisting styles without substantially compromising accessibility. However, they won’t be able to create or change the overall look and feel of the documents. This type of change requires familiarity with CSS and XHTML, even in the WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) environment. With proper planning, this limitation can actually help insure consistency across large documents. . .

An accessible and non-accessible site can look exactly the same to a non-disabled user. It can be difficult then to understand what the fuss is all about. Why is it important to consider accessibility when designing and planning online assets?

One of the most important improvements that can be made to the accessibility of a site is a task that will often fall to writers.  Adding text to describe images allows blind and visually-impaired users to access your content, but writing it is not necessarily something that comes naturally.  The tips compiled here will help you get started and avoid common pitfalls.