[webdev] Web Design Update: October 25, 2012

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 10, Issue 18, October 26, 2012.

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

++ISSUE 18 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: EVENTS.
05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: PHP.
09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
10: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Accessibility - What is it Good For?
By Marco Zehe.
"...We need to leave our comfortable niche and turn the accessibility
extra way into the standards way. Make people use headings, correct
form element labeling, and other stuff just because it is the right
thing to do that benefits everyone, not because 'it's an accessibility
requirement'. Accessibility needs to finally shake off the smell of
being an unloved burden to meet some government criteria..."
http://www.marcozehe.de/2012/10/22/accessibility-what-is-it-good-for/

Assessing your Institution's Web Accessibility Efforts: Part 1
By Cyndi Rowland.
"...Because of lengthy timelines, it is vital that institutions
include periodic assessments of their process. By process, we mean the
efforts you make to achieve the goals and objectives, or milestones
and activities, you have targeted as a way to improve accessibility.
The assessment of your process should be done alongside assessments of
the outcome, or product, of accessible web content (i.e., how many of
our pages or courses are now accessible)..."
http://ncdae.org/resources/tips/2012assessing.php

Assessing Your Institution's Web Accessibility Efforts: Part 2
By Jon Whiting.
http://ncdae.org/resources/tips/2012product.php

5 Tips to Improve the Web for Mobility/Dexterity Disabilities
By Kathy Wahlbin.
"Imagine ... you are right-handed and you just broke your right wrist.
You're a programmer: how in the world will you get any work done?..."
http://www.interactiveaccessibility.com/blog/5-tips-improve-web-mobilitydexterity-disabilities

Matt May Talks About How Accessibility Has Influenced Mobile
Development and Design
By Matt May.
Adobe Accessibility Evangelist Matt May talks about how mobile
developers are coming up against the same problems that accessibility
designers have been addressing for almost 40 years.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkwoFH2rmo0

The Practical and Legal Reasons Behind Designing for Accessibility
By Gregory P. Care, Dan Ross.
"...Mobile apps and websites should be made accessible for the same
reasons that they are popular: accessibility enhances the reach of
your business or organization..."
http://uxmag.com/articles/the-practical-and-legal-reasons-behind-designing-for-accessibility

Guidelines for Audio Description on Videos
By accessiq.
"Audio description allows people who are blind or vision impaired to
have access to your videos. It is a descriptive narration of all the
visual elements of a video. Audio description is written and recorded
so that it falls in the gaps between dialogue (and other important
audio elements)..."
http://www.accessiq.org/content/guidelines-for-audio-description-on-videos

New Plug-In: WP Accessibility
By Joe Dolson.
"I released a brand-new WordPress plug-in today, targeted specifically
at improving accessibility issues. There's only so much you can do via
a plug-in when it comes to site accessibility - most of what grants
accessibility for a WordPress site is in the theme. However, that
doesn't mean that you can't do anything..."
http://www.joedolson.com/articles/2012/10/new-plug-in-wp-accessibility/

My Response to WAI's Website Accessibility Conformance Evaluation
Methodology 1.0 Working Draft
By Brian Kelly.
"I have concerns that the WAI's Website Accessibility Conformance
Evaluation Methodology 1.0 working draft [9] could be
counter-productive if it is used by policy-makers to  mandate
conformance with WCAG, rather than treating WCAG as a valuable set of
guidelines whose use should be considered in context..."
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2012/10/19/my-response-to-wais-website-accessibility-conformance-evaluation-methodology-1-0-working-draft/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

The Future of CSS Layout Presentation at Future of Web Design Conference
By Zoe Mickley Gillenwater.
Today I spoke at Future of Web Design in New York on The Future of CSS
Layout. For a decade we've been using floats for creating CSS layouts,
and while they're still the best choice for creating most multi-column
designs, we've all been frustrated by their quirks and limitations. So
in this presentation, I talked about some of the new and exciting CSS
layout techniques that are either working right now, right around the
corner, or a little ways down the road. I talked about how to use not
only inline-block and table-cell display, but also how to use the
Flexible Box Layout module in practical ways as a progressive
enhancement technique for the layouts you're crafting today...
http://zomigi.com/blog/future-css-layout-fowd/

Clearing Floats - Why is it Necessary Even in Modern Browsers?
By Louis Lazaris.
"The other day, someone asked me the following question: 'If I
understand it right clear float is automatic in most modern browsers
right?'..."
http://www.impressivewebs.com/clearing-floats-why-necessary/

CSS Box Sizing
By Jake Bresnehan.
"Having a little knowledge of how the box-sizing property works and
when you can utilise it is a neat trick to have up your sleeve. The
reason for using the box-sizing property in your CSS is to alter the
default CSS box model. Modifying the box model gives you the option of
whether or not an element's width and height include padding and
border or not..."
http://web-design-weekly.com/2012/10/18/css-box-sizing/

The Curious Case of min-resolution: 0
By Peter-Paul Koch.
"During my media query test I found out that min-resolution: 0[unit]
does not work in any browser for any unit. I find this weird..."
http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/10/the_curious_cas.html

Mobile Viewport Update
By Peter-Paul Koch.
"In the past week I've done the viewport tests on the latest crop of
devices, and things are definitely looking better. The visual viewport
dimensions are now well-supported, and a consensus on position: fixed
is in the making."
http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2012/10/mobile_viewport.html

Use CSS Media Queries to Create Responsive Websites
By Jeff Bail.
"Static websites with fixed widths are quickly being replaced by
responsive, fluid designs that scale up and down depending on screen
size. With a responsive design you can present a usable interface no
matter what device or screen is accessing the website. A responsive
design also "future proofs" the website by responding to varying
screen sizes, which are changing rapidly as new smart phones and
tablets hit the market. The primary means of achieving a responsive
design is with CSS media queries. In this article, learn to use media
queries for desktop websites, mobile phones, and tablets.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-cssqueries/index.html


+03: COLOR.

No Such Thing as Color (Video)
By Laura Evans.
"'No Such Thing As Color' is a nine-minute documentary that shows us
what the world looks like through the eyes of Evans Forde, a color
blind musician with insightful opinions about the importance of color
in our lives. "
http://www.nosuchthingascolor.com/

Short Film: Color Blindness Explained for Children
By Daniel Fluck.
"Quite a while ago Laura Evans created a nine minute documentary short
film on the topic What is it Like to be Color Blind? The film gives
everyone some insights on color blindness, including an interview with
a colorblind person..."
http://www.colblindor.com/2012/10/18/short-film-color-blindness-explained-for-children/


+04: EVENTS.

OZeWAI 2012
November 28-30, 2012.
Melbourne, Australia.
http://ozewai.org/

International Conference On Intelligent User Interfaces
March 19-22, 2013
Santa Monica, California, U.S.A.
http://iuiconf.org/

Confab London
March 25-27, 2013.
London, England, United Kingdom
http://confabevents.com/events/london-2013

SITE
March 25-29, 2013.
New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.A.
http://site.aace.org/conf/

An Event Apart Seattle
April 1-3, 2013.
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
http://www.aneventapart.com/2013/seattle/


+05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Responsive Design With Paper
By Alexander Baxevanis.
"A few months ago, I spoke at City University London about Wireframing
for Responsive Web Design where I proposed that paper could be a
useful tool for responsive design. Since then, I haven't had many
chances to try the technique I proposed hands-on, but a suitable
opportunity came up recently when we decided to look into making our
own Webcredible site more responsive..."
http://www.webcredible.co.uk/blog/responsive-design-with-paper


+06: JAVASCRIPT.

WAI-ARIA Techniques with Code Examples (and User Agent Notes)
By 3needs.
"This page links to draft WCAG WAI-ARIA techniques in the W3C wiki
with code examples (linked from the wiki page and from here). The
results of screen reader tests are recorded in the User Agent Notes on
the respective W3C wiki page..."
http://3needs.org/en/testing/sr-aria.html

Introduction to WAI-ARIA
By Kathy Wahlbin.
Kathry Wahlbin's presentation Boston Accessibility Group meeting materals.
http://www.interactiveaccessibility.com/blog/introduction-wai-aria

Does JavaScript Need Classes?
By Nicholas C. Zakas.
"Like it or not, ECMAScript 6 is going to have classes[1]. The concept
of classes in JavaScript has always been polarizing. There are some
who love the classless nature of JavaScript specifically because it is
different than other languages. On the other hand, there are those who
hate the classless nature of JavaScript because it's different than
other languages..."
http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2012/10/16/does-javascript-need-classes/


+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

Adaptive vs. Responsive, What's the Difference?
By Viljami Salminen.
"There seems to be some confusion about these terms and what they
mean, so here's my thoughts on the subject and few links to back them
up. I'm usually not very keen when it comes to debating over what
something is called, but this time I wanted to make it clear, as I
hear this question quite often..."
http://viljamis.com/blog/2012/adaptive-vs-responsive-whats-the-difference.php

Setup to Build Responsive Websites
By Eric Wendelin.
"Not long ago, the biggest challenge for a web engineer was making
sites that worked well in several different browsers. While that is
still the case, our challenge is shifting to supporting the growing
number of devices. I have come across a few tools and paradigms that
helped me make this shift. Some ideas cannot be easily expressed in
words; truly the best teacher is experience. Make a committment to
yourself to grind your mental axe on this skill."
http://davidwalsh.name/responsive-css

Component-Based HTML - A Glimpse of The Future
By Niels Matthijs.
"...The more monkey work we can reduce or even make redundant, the
more time we can spend focusing on overall quality. And the way I see
it, we're definitely going to need that time in the near future."
http://www.onderhond.com/blog/component-based-html-future


+08: PHP.

Basic Object-Oriented Programming in PHP
By Larry Ullman.
"Larry Ullman explains not only the syntax of OOP in PHP 5 and later,
but the key underlying OOP theories as well."
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=1949760


+09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

The Truth About HTML5
By Luke Stevens.
"Part polemic, part instruction manual, The Truth About HTML5 has
ignited an interesting debate. Here we present an exclusive excerpt on
the problems around structuring in HTML5. This is an edited excerpt
from Chapter 3 of The Truth About HTML5 by Luke Stevens."
www.netmagazine.com/features/truth-about-structuring-html5-page

Don't Turn Your Back on HTML5
By Christian Heilmann.
"Despite recent stumbles, HTML5 remains a technology of great promise,
with a slew of tools to smooth the development path..."
http://www.infoworld.com/t/html5/dont-turn-your-back-html5-205174

Constraint Validation: Native Client Side Validation for Web Forms
By T.J. VanToll.
"...HTML5's constraint validation APIs make adding client side
validation to forms quick while providing a JavaScript API and CSS
hooks for customization..."
http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/forms/constraintvalidation/


+10: USABILITY.

A Loose Heuristic for Mobile Design
By Brad Orego.
"Back in July, in the picturesque city of Madison, WI, a group of
enthusiastic and dedicated UX professionals got together for a
conference known as UXMad. One of the speakers, Hampton Catlin, gave a
talk outlining the '6 Rules of Mobile Design.' I’d like to share his
original six with you, along with some modifications of my own, as a
Loose Heuristic for Mobile Design..."
http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/a-loose-heuristic-for-mobile-design/

Hey Jack - You're Wrong About 'Customers' Versus 'Users'
By Jesse James Garrett.
"...your focus on 'users' over 'customers' is not your weakness. It's
your strength. Don't leave it behind..."
http://adaptivepath.com/ideas/hey-jack-youre-wrong-about-customers-versus-users

User Experience v. Customer Experience
By 360 connext.
"Customer experience is always a little tricky to explain. It's just
so darn big. What doesn't it cover (not much) and who is responsible
(good question). Often, customer experience is translated into user
experience - the front-end digital experience of users."
http://360connext.com/user-experience-v-customer-experience/

Mobile Email Newsletters
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Mobile use strengthens email marketing's benefits by offering
ubiquitous newsletter access, but it also introduces new usability
limitations for template design."
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mobile-email-newsletters.html


[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.]