Meryl K. Evans

Google has come out with another free tool, but it needs more work. First of all, the style sheet appears within the page instead of as an external style sheet. Who is gonna want to have their style sheets on every page? Image the maintenance.
Here are a couple of designs made with Google Page Creator [...]

Federal government Web sites must comply with Section 508 to ensure they’re accessible to individuals with disabilities. As reported in this article, they’ve taken an interest in browsers especially since they have choices. Firefox and IE developers are working to build browsers that meet Section 508 guidelines as well as improve Web accessibility for those [...]

Have you ever abandoned a shopping cart during the checkout stage - other than to find out the price (like Amazon says to add to basket to find out price)? I’m sure I have, but the reasons why are not coming to me at the moment (call it human virus-infected memory syndrome - no worries, [...]

A student from UC Berkeley who is blind is suing Target because its Web site isn’t usable for those who can’t see. The student says the site is missing the alt attribute and uses image maps to go to other parts of the site that people with sight impairments can’t use.
This could be the lawsuit [...]

Lockergnome reported that the IE 7 Beta Preview has been released. Unsurprisingly, people are talking about it (a few slams, of course) in many places. Some people may have downloaded it and installed it, forgetting that newer versions of IE always take over past versions. Thanks to several excellent resources, it’s possible to uninstall IE [...]

From my first job out of college with the U.S. government to my last corporate job, every one had an intranet. Some better than others. Having all the business tools, human resources paperwork, health benefits, savings plans and more in one place saves a lot of time, which makes it worth it for a company [...]

I don’t like the title of this entry and article, but there isn’t anything better. Sometimes you have to use fancier words than you want. Anyway, Design in Theory and Practice looks at resolution, designing for browser, Web-safe color, graphics compression, and text.
Even after all this time, designers still ask and wonder what screen resolution [...]

Last year, I made predictions for 2005 along with the other InformIT folks. The original list isn’t online anymore, but I posted the 2005 predictions along with what really happened. I batted average. Some on the mark and some way out there.
So continuing the tradition, I wrote up my thoughts for this year and linked [...]

Chris Leeds posted an article on E-mail Newsletter Done Right, but I disagree with his comments and here’s why.
I recently wrote an article about e-mail formatting. Based on the example Leeds gave with the USPS, I recommend USPS send out the HTML version of the e-mail with a link to its PDF version and a [...]

I was looking for a list of sites using Ajax and I remember coming across a couple of good ones, but not I can’t find lists of Ajax applications / examples. Here’s what I did find:

Ajax Matters

fiftyfoureleven lists examples of code snippets and proof of concepts.
Emily Chang - eHub
Web 2.0 Explorer

Please leave a comment [...]

I was looking for a list of sites using Ajax and I remember coming across a couple of good ones, but not I can’t find lists of Ajax applications / examples. Here’s what I did find:

Tara mentioned The Washington Post remix project. I checked it out and this is the kind of stuff we’re going to see more of in the near future. Here’s the humorous introduction, which opens with “Welcome to washingtonpost.com’s Post Remix site, affectionately known as mashingtonpost.com.”

It’s official. Macromedia is no more as Adobe has engulfed it. The Flash on the the site formerly known as Macromedia says “Adobe and Macromedia are now one.” The site also has the Adobe logo along with the tagline of “Formerly Macromedia.” So what does this all mean for customers?
Timothy Gray [Link: Chris ] posted [...]

The second edition of one of my favorite Web design-related books is out and Don’t Make Me Think! is a winner.
The book provides value to everyone — even managers, testers and project managers. Management likes to get their hands a little dirty when it comes to Web design projects and sharing this book may make [...]

While designing with XHTML and CSS makes a site more accessible for those with mobile devices and screen readers, it’s not the most effective way to design mobile sites.
As more customers access the Web through the small screens of their cell phones and PDAs, businesses are beginning to develop Web pages specifically for these [...]

Web sites want to reach as wide an audience as possible, right? Who doesn’t? Having an accessible site makes good business sense and avoids bad publicity. Imagine the cost that comes with bad public relations or getting sued.
I offer more reasons on why designing accessible sites is good for your business in addition to [...]

Forums (aka message boards, bulletin boards, discussion boards), wikis (aka has nothing to do with anything Polynesian), chat rooms (where the worst pick up lines come to life) and blogs are great tools for building community on your Web site. You might use one, two or all of them. It just depends on your target [...]

I started hearing about Web 2.0 about a year ago. Probably shortly after the first conference of the same name. Since then, when someone writes about it, O’Reilly is almost always mentioned because the company puts on the conference. But in reality, what is happening on the Web isn’t something called Web 2.0.
I wanted to [...]

With more companies adopting blogs, it’s no surprise Jakob Nielsen looks at the top ten blog usability design mistakes. Author biographies and photos should be a given for any business Web site as it lets people know there are humans behind the company. This is not limited to blogs. However, if the blogger doesn’t have [...]

A friend says the Casio EXILIM EX-Z750 is a superb camera. While I’m not in the market for a new camera, I keep my eyes open as I’m frustrated with my camera’s poor performance when I don’t use the flash. When the flash is off, the picture is blurry. A clear picture comes through in [...]