. Date: Thu, 8 May 2014 06:10:08 -0500 From: Laura Carlson <lcarlson@xxxxxxxxx> To: webdev <webdev@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: [webdev] Web Design Update: May 8, 2014 +++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 12, Issue 46, May 8, 2014. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 46 CONTENTS. SECTION ONE: New references. What's new at the Web Design Reference site? http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/ New links in these categories: 01: ACCESSIBILITY. 02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. 03: DRUPAL. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: HTML5. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: NAVIGATION. 09: TOOLS. 10: TYPOGRAPHY. 11: USABILITY. 12: XML. SECTION TWO: 13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. An Accessibility Primer By Virgina DeBolt. "Create web sites that: Use web standards; Use semantic HTML - POSH; Integrate accessibility from the start of a project. Are POUR..." http://www.webteacher.ws/2014/05/07/accessibility-primer/ The Little Button That Could By Karl Groves. "...Turns out we've decided to use a button. All we needed to do was change a few CSS declarations. Thanks so much for the help." http://www.karlgroves.com/2014/05/02/the-little-button-that-could/ Give Your Users Total Control of Your Website By Luke McGrath. "Some of your users find automatic changes hard to deal with. Unexpected actions can interrupt their concentration and stop them reaching their goals. You can help your users by keeping them in control and avoiding elements on your website that change automatically..." http://www.wuhcag.com/change-on-request/ Help Your Users with Unusual and Confusing Pronunciations By Luke McGrath. "We all agree that your users deserve to understand your website. You can help make this happen by paying attention to words that are hard or confusing to pronounce. Words like these can make it hard for your users to focus and understand your content..." http://www.wuhcag.com/pronunciation/ Ensure Content Remains Readable and Legible When Resized to 200% By Denis Boudreau. "Make sure reading remains efficient when content is set to 200% of its initial size."http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/84648096322/ ensure-content-remains-readable-and-legible-when
Website Accessibility Laws Guide - International By Tim Lohman. "An overview of international law and policy that supports web accessibility and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 compliance..."http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2014/04/ website-accessibility-laws-guide-international
Accessibility Suit Filed Against US General Services Administration By Tim Lohman. "An accessibility law suit has been brought against the United States General Services Administration (GSA) alleging that its website, SAM.gov, is inaccessible and does not comply with Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973."http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2014/04/ accessibility-suit-filed-against-us-general-services-administration
Justice Department Targets Websites, Mobile Apps, and POS Devices By Seyfarth Shaw. "Only four months into 2014, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has already made clear that it is pursuing an aggressive enforcement agenda when it comes to the obligation of public accommodations to ensure effective communication with individuals with disabilities..."http://www.adatitleiii.com/2014/04/ justice-department-targets-websites-mobile-apps-and-pos-devices/
Consent Decree - National Federation of the Blind et al and the United States of America vs H&R Block By ADA Title III http://www.adatitleiii.com/files/2014/04/Consent-Decree.pdf Disclosure-Button Custom Control By Steve Faulkner. "Cedric Trevisan and I have been cooking up a simple custom element, web component (using polymer) that provides a flexible disclosure control with accessibility baked in..." http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2014/05/disclosure-button-custom-control/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Cargo Cult CSS By Jonathan Christopher. "...I don't know if I'll ever find the balance of OOCSS I'm really looking for, but I think it's getting better with each project I take on, so that's a good thing. Articles like this keep me on my toes." http://mondaybynoon.com/kapowaz-cargo-cult-css/ Moving Forward with CSS Shapes By Sara Soueidan. "If you liked my CSS Shapes 101 article last week and are as excited about CSS Shapes as I am, then you may find a list of resources to dig deeper into CSS Shapes useful..." http://alistapart.com/blog/post/moving-forward-with-css-shapes +03: DRUPAL. User Facing Accessibility Improvements in Core (Part 1 of D8 A11y Update) By Mike Gifford. "Drupal 7 still remains the most accessible open source CMS available. The changes that the community began implementing in 2008 to improve accessibility for the entire user interface (public, content editor, administrator and developer) has still not been matched by any other piece of web software (open source or proprietary). By focusing accessibility efforts on improving Core, we are able to fix accessibility problems by default regardless of what themes, or extensions are used in any given implementation. That being said, Drupal 8 is already considerably better, and not just because we removed Overlay..." https://groups.drupal.org/node/420413 +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. How Tech Companies Can Take Advantage of Fresh Eyes During Onboarding By Stef Miller. "The first week or so of any onboarding experience is chock-full of raw feedback opportunities. As more and more companies continue to fill experience-focused roles, it makes sense that we take advantage of each new hire's fresh eyes..."http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2014/04/28/ how-tech-companies-can-take-advantage-of-fresh-eyes-during-onboarding/
+05: EVENTS. Web Usability - An Introduction to User Experience August 11-12, 2014. London, England, United Kingdom http://www.userfocus.co.uk/training/webusability.html +06: HTML5. Should You Use HTML5 Header and Footer? By Bruce Lawson. "...my advice is: yes, use them - especially the main <header>, <footer>, <nav> and (once per page) <main>..." http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2014/should-you-use-html5-header-and-footer/ Meet the Site of the Web Components Community By Axel Rauschmayer. "The Web Components community has a new site..." http://www.2ality.com/2014/05/webcomponents-org.html +07: JAVASCRIPT. JavaScript's 'this' - How It Works and Where It Can Trip You Up By Axel Rauschmayer. "In JavaScript, the special variable this is relatively complicated, because it is available everywhere, not just in object-oriented settings. This blog post explains how this works and where it can cause problems, concluding with best practices..." http://www.2ality.com/2014/05/this.html +08: NAVIGATION. Provide a Mechanism to Skip Content Repeated Across Pages By Denis Boudreau. "Make sure content that is repeated across pages can be easily bypassed..."http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/84619099882/ provide-a-mechanism-to-skip-content-repeated-across
Skip Links Shouldn't Be This Hard By Greg Kraus. "I've been creating skip-to links for years, like 'Skip to Main Content' or 'Skip Navigation', but I recently ran into a problem with them in HTML5 pages, notably in IE with JAWS. In this one particular case they simply were not working. I would click on the skip link and I wouldn't go anywhere - I was still at the top of the page..." http://accessibility.oit.ncsu.edu/blog/2014/05/02/skip-links-shouldnt-be-this-hard/ Tips on Combining Image and Text Links By Kate Bradbury. "Tips on combining image and text links that link to the same resource, a requirement stated in the Web Content Accessibility guidelines..." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2014/tips-on-combining-image-and-text-links/ Burying the URL By Allen Pike. "Today, a Canary build of Google Chrome removed something kind of important from the browser: the URL..." http://www.allenpike.com/2014/burying-the-url/ On Hiding URLs in the Browser By Adrian Roselli. "...At this point, my resistance to the change is that I am a web developer who consumes URLs and that I don't want to have to re-train my parents how to send a link (without using some nonsense 'share' button). I'd rather not see URLs go away, but I'm a professional, I can sort it out." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2014/05/on-hiding-urls-in-browser.html Web Accessibility and URLs By Derek Featherstone. "Hiding URLs in the browser is like hiding anything. For accessibility, things are usually best left out in the open." http://simplyaccessible.com/article/web-accessibility-and-urls/ URLy Warning By Jeremy Keith. "Im genuinely shocked that Jake thinks that Chrome hiding URLs is a good thing..." http://adactio.com/journal/6779/ +09: TOOLS. Contrast Ratio By Lea Verou. "As you type, the contrast ratio indicated will update. Hover over the circle to get more detailed information. When semi-transparent colors are involved as backgrounds, the contrast ratio will have an error margin, to account for the different colors they may be over..." http://leaverou.github.io/contrast-ratio/ +10: TYPOGRAPHY. Avoid Justified, Centered or Right-Aligned Text in Content By Denis Boudreau. "Make sure text content is always aligned to the left..."http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/84344543792/ avoid-justified-centered-or-right-aligned-text-in
+11: USABILITY. Revenge of the Brochureware Billboard Designers By Gerry McGovern. "Organizations can't resist broadcasting when customers just want to get something done...It is possible to have the best of both worlds. For example, the University of Ottawa website...does use big pictures on its homepage, but in the center of the pictures are clear tasks: Find a Program, Estimate Costs, Calendar & Deadlines, Search the iLibrary. Things that actually matter to people. Useful things..." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/revenge-brochureware-billboard-designers Post Flat Design By Wells Riley. "...I propose post flat design - not just as a new way of thinking about design aesthetic - but also creating sensible visual hierarchy and more understandable interfaces for our users..." http://blog.collectiveray.com/post/82108622609/post-flat Responsive Web Design (RWD) and User Experience By Amy Schade. "Responsive design teams create a single site to support many devices, but need to consider content, design and performance across devices to ensure usability." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/responsive-web-design-definition/ Designing Mobile Usability (Interview) By Jakob Nielsen. "In this interview Jakob Nielsen, explains the rules of mobile usability. He outlines how to create seamless experiences and why designers are plagued with 'featuritis'. He then goes onto explain the reciprocity principle and the importance of user-centred design..." http://drt.fm/jakob-nielsen/ The User By Dmitry Fadeyev. "There's no such thing as the user, only users, and no single user has exactly the same needs, wants, tastes or ideas about what constitutes the perfect product. A large part of design is making the choice between these potential audiences, picking the people you are going to make the product for and saying no to all the rest..." http://usabilitypost.com/2014/05/05/the-user/ Avoid Inline Scroll Areas (50% Get it Wrong) By Christian Holst. "...In this article we'll go over the usability issues brought on by having such separate scrollable lists within the page, outlining both the conceptual and 5 concrete interaction issues that crop up when relying on this unfriendly design anti-pattern..." http://baymard.com/blog/inline-scroll-areas +12: XML. Tips for Creating Accessible SVG By Leonie Watson. "Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) exists in a quantum state of accessibility. Which is to say that SVG is both accessible and inaccessible at the same time. Happily, there is no SVG uncertainty principle. We know which aspects of SVG are accessible to whom, which are not, and what we can do to improve both..." http://www.sitepoint.com/tips-accessible-svg/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? Accessibility Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/accessibility.html Association Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/associations.html Book Listings. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/books.html Cascading Style Sheets Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/css.html Color Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/color.html Dreamweaver Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/dreamweaver.html Evaluation & Testing Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/testing.html Event Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/events.html Flash Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/flash.html Information Architecture Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/architecture.html JavaScript Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/javascript.html Miscellaneous Web Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/misc.html Navigation Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/navigation.html PHP Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/php.html Sites & Blogs Listing. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/sites.html Standards, Guidelines & Pattern Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/standards.html Tool Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/tools.html Typography Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/type.html Usability Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/usability.html XML Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/xml.html [Section two ends.] ++END NOTES. + SUBSCRIPTION INFO. WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription. For information on how to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit: http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/webdev_listserv.html The Web Design Reference Site also has a RSS 2.0 feed for site updates. + TEXT EMAIL NEWSLETTER (TEN). As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) guidelines. Please let me know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier. For TEN guideline information please visit: http://www.headstar.com/ten + SIGN OFF. Until next time, Laura L. Carlson Information Technology Systems and Services University of Minnesota Duluth Duluth, MN U.S.A. 55812-3009 mailto:lcarlson@xxxxxxxxx [Issue ends.] . .