[webdev] Web Design Update: August 10, 2012

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Fri Aug 10 06:36:33 CDT 2012 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 10, Issue 07, August 10, 2012.

An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web
design and development.

++ISSUE 07 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: EVALUATION & TESTING.
04: EVENTS.
05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
07: TOOLS.
09: USABILITY.

SECTION TWO:
10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site?

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

HTML5 Accessibility
By Rich Schwerdtfeger.
"...HTML5 accessibility is a work in progress. While it provides many
changes and improvements from HTML 4, organizations are going to have
to prepare by reeducating their development teams..."
http://www-03.ibm.com/able/news/html5.html

Video Captioning: Part 1 of 2
By Colleen Burns.
"In this two-part series, we'll look at the exploding growth of
Internet video, and how captioning your videos can make them
search-engine friendly and available to more potential customers..."
https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/socialbusiness/entry/video_captioning_win_win_for_accessibility_and_seo

Video Captioning: Part 2 of 2
By Colleen Burns.
"... As a competitive advantage, captioning your videos is a winning
strategy - both for promoting your messages, products, and services to
a much broader audience by enabling more of your customers to find
your content, and by making the content accessible to all of your
customers, regardless of disability, device, or native language."
https://www-304.ibm.com/connections/blogs/socialbusiness/entry/video_captioning_part_23

WebVTT Caption Demonstration
By National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM).
"The videos on this page are captioned using WebVTT and HTML5's
<track> element..."
http://ncamftp.wgbh.org/test/track/

Netflix Seeks Permission to Appeal Order to Comply with ADA
By Sheri Qualters.
"Netflix Inc. asked a federal judge in Massachusetts for permission to
appeal his ruling that the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
requires the company to provide closed-captioning text for its
web-only streaming video..."
http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNLJ.jsp?id=1202565125322&Netflix_seeks_permission_to_appeal_order_to_comply_with_ADA

Make Your iOS app Accessible with VoiceOver
By Leonie Watson.
"You've created your iOS app, now you need to make it accessible to
VoiceOver, says Nomensa's Leonie Watson..."
http://www.netmagazine.com/features/make-your-ios-app-accessible-voiceover

Defining Deep Accessibility (or how to make Mustikka-rahkapizza)
By Simon Harper.
"...deep accessibility can be thought of as a seamless analysis of the
inaccessible/or impenetrable raw computational artifact to afford the
user direct access to its meaning..."
http://simon.harper.name/2012/07/31/defining-deep-accessibility/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Where And How To Set Breakpoints In Media Queries
By Steven Bradley.
"Flexible layouts work well to a point, but there comes a time when we
need a more drastic change than simply allowing design elements to
expand and contract. There comes a point where we need the ability to
make larger changes in how elements flow within a design. Enter media
queries. Now with official W3C goodness..."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/media-query-breakpoints/

Beyond Media Queries: Anatomy of an Adaptive Web Design
By Brad Frost.
"I had the fantastic opportunity to speak at An Event Apart Washington
DC. Here's the gist of the talk..."
http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/mobile/beyond-media-queries-anatomy-of-an-adaptive-web-design/

Techniques for High-Contrast-Friendly Icons
By Todd Kloots.
"CSS background images are the most popular means of using image
sprites, but this technique can cause problems for users of High
Contrast mode in Windows. Background images are disabled when High
Contrast mode is enabled, causing all sprites to disappear..."
http://yaccessibilityblog.com/library/high-contrast-friendly-icons.html

HTML5 Reset Stylesheet
By Richard Clark.
"...I've modified Eric Meyer's CSS reset for you to use in your HTML 5
projects..."
http://html5doctor.com/html-5-reset-stylesheet/


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

A New Formula for Quantitative UX Decision Making
By Jeff Sauro and Jim Lewis.
"Imagine a formula that would allow you to take data from a very small
pool of users (often as few as 8; possibly as few as 3) and figure out
why, for instance, Autodesk customers are calling support, whether
Budget.com visitors can rent a car in under a minute, or why
cardholders were reluctant to use a mobile payment site..."
http://uxmag.com/articles/a-new-formula-for-quantitative-ux-decision-making


+04: EVENTS.

Open AIR
October 17 - November 17, 2012.
http://www.knowbility.org/v/open-air/


+05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Creating a Web-Site Information Architecture in Six Steps
By Nathaniel Davis.
"Business clients don't pay practitioners to practice information
architecture; they pay professionals to produce IA work products that
help them to meet their business objectives.."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/08/creating-a-web-site-information-architecture-in-six-steps.php


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

'Picture' in the HTML5 Spec
By Mathew Marquis.
"Paul Cotton, one of the HTML WG Chairs, has arranged for me to work
with several members of the HTMLWG on a final draft of the 'picture'
specification, as we discussed at the HTML WG weekly teleconference on
July 26th..."
http://www.w3.org/community/respimg/2012/08/04/picture-in-the-html5-spec/

Beyond Mobile, Beyond Web
By Scott Jenson.
Video of Scott Jenson's Mobilism 2012 presentation.
http://vimeo.com/46141222

The Responsive Dip
By Ben Callahan.
" Responsive web design is two years old. In those two short years
since the publication of the article coining the phrase, our industry
has seen an amazing amount of churn as front-end developers everywhere
have traded in pixels for percentages. We've applied fluid grids,
flexible content, and media queries to everything we can think of -
all in the name of a better, more accessible web. These three
techniques alone are not terribly difficult to implement, but we all
agree, there's much more to the web than front-end development..."
http://seesparkbox.com/foundry/the_responsive_dip


+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Re-Introducing Canvas
By Christian Heilmann.
"This is a guest post by Christian Heilmann, a Developer Evangelist at
Mozilla. In this post, he explains some of the canvas element's
lesser-known properties and its potential for creating web tools and
animations..."
https://developers.facebook.com/html5/blog/post/2012/07/31/re-introducing-canvas/


+08: TOOLS.

UCDmanager
By jordisan.
"UCDmanager is a web application aimed to manage and document
different User-Centered Design and usability techniques, in an
integrated manner: user roles, personas, heuristic evaluations,
usability user testing, etc."
http://ucdmanager.net/

mobiReady
"The mobiReady testing tool evaluates mobile-readiness using industry
best practices & standards."
http://mobiready.com/

GetMoMeter
By Google.
"This tool shows you how your current site looks on a smartphone, and
provides a free report with personalised recommendations tailored to
how your business can build a more mobile-friendly experience. To get
started, fill in your URL below."
http://www.howtogomo.com/en-gb/d/test-your-site/#getmo-meter


+09: USABILITY.

Improve Website Usability 30 Best HTML5 and CSS3 Form Exercises
By Muhammad Haroon.
"Here we're going to take a look at how to create beautiful HTML5 and
CSS3 forms using some advanced techniques..."
http://www.multyshades.com/2011/12/improve-website-usability-30-best-html5-and-css3-form-exercises/

Develop for as Many Users as Possible
By John Allsopp.
"...Websites aren't developed for browsers, they are developed for
people. Privileged people like Aral, and me (and very likely you),
with fast internet connections, high-powered devices, without
disabilities, the capabilities (and permission) to update our devices.
But not just people like us..."
http://www.netmagazine.com/opinions/develop-many-users-possible

Top 3 Writing Tips for the Web
By Stefan Mischook.
First, let us remember the top 3 rules of websites: 1. Content 2.
Content 3. Content..."
http://www.killersites.com/blog/2012/top-3-writing-tips-for-the-web/

Day 5 - Judge
By Dmitry Fadeyev.
"What the audience wants is not necessarily the same thing that they
should be given. Today's businesses don't seem to realize this, or,
more likely, choose to ignore this for their own benefit...
your choice whether that judgement be based on your experience, your
knowledge, and your reason, or on the instinct of the masses. What?
You think your judgement is to raise conversion rates for your own
ends? So be it, but that judgement will also be reflected back at you,
being the measure of you as a designer or as a journalist, and in turn
through the world that you help create. It's like saving money by
buying cheap materials to build a house with, not realizing that
you're the one who will be living in that house."
http://fadeyev.net/2012/08/06/judge/

More Than Usability - The Four Elements of User Experience, Part II
By Frank Guo.
"User experience is much more than just ease of use..."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/08/more-than-usability-the-four-elements-of-user-experience-part-ii.php

Observing User Research
By Jim Ross.
"There's nothing more impactful than seeing people perform their tasks
and encounter problems firsthand..."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/08/observing-user-research.php


[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+10: 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.


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+ 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 at d.umn.edu


[Issue ends.]

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