[webdev] Web Design Update: September 6, 2012

Thu Sep 6 06:21:19 CDT 2012

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 10, Issue 11, September 6, 2012.

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

++ISSUE 11 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: COLOR.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
08: TOOLS.
09: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Research Report on Web Accessibility Metrics
By W3C.
"Web accessibility metrics are an invaluable tool for researchers,
developers, governmental agencies and end users. Accessibility metrics
help indicate the accessibility level of websites, including the
accessibility level of individual websites, or even large-scale
surveys of the accessibility of many websites. Recently, a plethora of
metrics has been released to complement the A, AA, and AAA Levels
measurement used by the WAI guidelines. However, the validity and
reliability of most of these metrics are unknown and those making use
of them are taking the risk of using inappropriate metrics. In order
to address these concerns, this note provides a framework that
considers validity, reliability, sensitivity, adequacy and complexity
as the main qualities that a metric should have..."
http://www.w3.org/TR/accessibility-metrics-report/

FCC - Online Video Caption Requirements Go Forward
By Chris Tribbey.
"Media Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission has denied a
request to have the deadline for closed captioning rules for online
video services pushed back, giving those services a deadline of Sept.
30 to be in line with the law..."
http://www.homemediamagazine.com/digital-evolution/fcc-online-video-caption-requirements-go-forward-28193

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Spacing Row Items - The Liquid Challenge
By Niels Matthijs.
"Most people consider breakpoints to be one of the main pillars of
responsive design. While they are an integral part of most responsive
exercises, you don't necessarily need them to make a site responsive.
As an alternative you can fall back on good old-fashioned liquid
behavior, especially when dealing with one-column constructions. This
article will detail four liquid models for layouting rows of
fixed-width elements..."
http://www.onderhond.com/blog/work/responsive-liquid-rows-spacing-techniques

+03: COLOR.

Styles for Checking Color Reliance
By Jared Smith.
"There are two primary accessibility issues that can be introduced by
using color in web pages. First, you must ensure that there is
sufficient contrast between foreground and background colors. Second,
you must ensure that color is not the only means of conveying content
or information...."
http://webaim.org/blog/styles-for-checking-color-reliance/

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Dealing with Difficult Usability Test Participants
By David Travis.
"A common concern of people running usability tests is that sooner or
later they'll run into a difficult participant. Who are these
difficult characters and how can we prevent them from being a
problem..."
http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/dealing_with_difficult_usability_test_participants.html

+05: EVENTS.

Accessibility Camp Los Angeles
October 20, 2012.
Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
http://www.accessibilitycampla.org/

Text Customization for Readability Online Symposium
November 19, 2012.
Online
Abstract submission date September 24, 2012
http://www.w3.org/WAI/RD/2012/text-customization/cfp.html

+06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Beyond Wireframing - The Real-Life UX Design Process
By Marcin Treder.
"We all know basic tenets of user-centered design. We recognize
different research methods, the prototyping stage, as well as the
process of documenting techniques in our rich methodological
environment. The question you probably often ask yourself, though, is
how it all works in practice?"
http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2012/08/29/beyond-wireframing-real-life-ux-design-process/

+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

The Proposed Picture Element in HTML
By Virginia DeBolt.
"New at the W3C is a proposal to create a way to work responsive
images. The proposal, called HTML Responsive Images Extension,
suggests a new HTML element called <picture>. The editors of the
document are Mat Marquisa member of the  Responsive Images Community
Group and Adrian Bateman from Microsoft Corporation..."
http://www.webteacher.ws/2012/08/30/the-proposed-picture-element-in-html/

W3C Publishes First Draft of HTML Responsive Images Extension
By Scott Gilbertson.
"The web needs a more intelligent way to serve images; one size fits
all doesn't work in an increasingly mobile world..."
http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/08/w3c-proposes-responsive-image-solution/

On the Publication of Editor's Draft of the <picture> Element
By Bruce Lawson.
"...a w3C Editor's Draft of a proposal for HTML Responsive Images
Extension was published, edited by Matt Marquis and Microsoft's Adrian
Bateman..."
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2012/editors-draft-picture-element/

Alt Text on the Picture Element?
By Adrian Roselli.
"This is one of those posts that might interest only a few people and
even then only if you are interested in a very specific aspect of this
ongoing standard development..."
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2012/08/alt-text-on-picture-element.html

Does Creativity Suffer With Responsive Workflows?
By Steven Bradley.
"A couple of weeks ago I posted how workflows are changing with
responsive design. Mike raised an interesting question in a comment on
the post wondering about creativity or a lack of it with the new
workflows. I replied, but had more to add..."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/creativity-responsive-workflows/

Web Teams Need Real Authority
By Paul Boag.
"...The web team are seen as nothing more than technicians who
implement the ideas of others. If the head of sales, or the CFO want
something featured on the homepage, the web team has no authority to
say otherwise. This is why all too many websites lack a cohesiveness
and communicate mixed messages to its readers. For your website to be
truly successful, this needs to change..."
http://boagworld.com/site-content/web-teams-need-real-authority/

Dealing with Management
By Paul Boag.
"...Yesterday I wrote a post complaining about the fact that most
internal web teams don't have the authority to do their job properly;
how they are subject to the whims of more powerful departments. In a
matter of hours this became the most retweeted post I have ever had
and got picked up by .net Magazine. However, despite the general sense
of agreement one response came through again and again..."
http://boagworld.com/business-strategy/dealing-with-management/

+08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

The Flowing Standard
By Robin Berjon.
Looking at it in terms of rebounds, plot twists, nurtured healing and
abandonment, love and betrayal, strife, toil, stunning victories,
dispersions and last minute rallies the only thing that distinguishes
HTML's history from a charts-topping teenage fantasy saga seems to be
the lack of vampires. And even then, were vampires around I'm not sure
we'd notice them for all the action. I am therefore very excited to
join the W3C staff to work on HTML full time as part of the HTML
editorial team, in the hope that I may bring my humble contribution to
this living monument..."
http://www.w3.org/QA/2012/09/the_flowing_standard.html

On the Media Attribute
By Ian Devlin.
"When I was putting together my post on responsive HTML5 video last
week, it led me to investigate the media attribute of the source
element a bit further..."
http://www.iandevlin.com/blog/2012/08/html5/on-the-media-attribute

+09: TOOLS.

Developing Responsive Designs With Opera Mobile Emulator
By Andreas Bovens.
"...Coming in at a fairly small size, Opera Mobile Emulator can be
downloaded for free from Opera's developer website or from the Mac App
Store, and installing it is straightforward. The engine and UI are
exactly the same as when you run Opera Mobile on a phone, while
desktop-specific hooks, such as the profile selector, keyboard
shortcuts and command-line flags, give you a bit of extra debugging
power..."
http://mobile.smashingmagazine.com/2012/08/30/responsive-designs-opera-mobile-emulator/

+10: USABILITY.

UX Strategy - The Heart of User-Centered Design
By April McGee.
"Today, organizations interact with their customers through multiple
digital channels such as call centers, mobile devices, applications,
and Web sites. It is not enough to create a strategy for these
channels from business, technology, and marketing perspectives.
Rather, it is essential that an organization's UX strategy be at the
core of user-centered design. A UX strategy establishes goals for a
cohesive user experience across all channels and touchpoints."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/09/ux-strategy-the-heart-of-user-centered-design.php

Mobile Inline Form Validation
By Steven Hoobe.
"...Most errors result from assuming people are like computers and
making them do work they shouldn't have to do or to work the way a
computer works..."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2012/09/mobile-inline-form-validation.php

A Cost Benefit Analysis of Simplicity
By Gerry McGovern.
"Simplicity for the customer causes complexity for the organization."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2012/nt-2012-09-03-Cost-simplicity.htm

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+11: 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.]