Shahid Online - Tech Corner

I remember the days when I started with web design. While specifications and proposed standards were drafted, many designers and developers were lazy in making websites accessible in many browsers, including myself. The Internet has come a long way since, especially now that governments are making services and information available. I was given my awakening when studying User Centred Design and HCI concepts, realising that a lot of people are missing out. That is when I began utilising my design and marketing skills to provide consultancy to companies that produce web services/applications for the Local Authorities in the UK. My role with my current company is primarily consultancy to ensure that marketing and the online products are usable/accessible , but have been involved in development to ensure that the guidelines are implemented. I was astonished that they never considered making their software usable/accessible until I came along. There must be more companies and local autho...

My work place tasked me with trying to be as purist as possible with HTML and CSS for an interface their web application. Without any formal web development background, I have always been one of those who intermingle the code and have presentation within the HTML. I think it came out pretty well. I separated design from content in addition to separating the dynamics. Mind you, I even separated out all the server talk and taught myself some XML/XSL in the process. After all that I learnt Ajax, without realising it. One little nugget from all this is creating a pure CSS rollover button for the menu, without Javascript. There's alot of websites that help out in this, but they are not "pure" as they involve you including the image in the HTML and to perform some shifting with the image. Hell no to that. My way leaves out the usual ul tag and dives straight into the anchor ( a ) tag as it should be: a href ="links.htm" id ="linksButton" title ="Lin...