[webdev] Web Design Update: August 8, 2013

Thu Aug 8 06:13:24 CDT 2013

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 12, Issue 07, August 07, 2013.

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: DRUPAL.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: HTML5.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: MISCELLANEOUS.
08: NAVIGATION.
09: PHP.
10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
11: TYPOGRAPHY.
12: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Making Websites Accessible Without Sacrificing Aesthetics
By Simon Norris.
"Fifteen years after the Web Accessibility Initiative was launched,
which aimed to improve web usability for those with disabilities,
online accessibility is still widely ignored. Far too often there is a
belief that a compromise must be made between accessibility and an
attractive design. As a result, a myriad of misconceptions have
emerged, often preventing people from making a determined effort to
integrate accessibility into their websites..."
http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2013/making-websites-accessible-without-sacrificing-aesthetics/

Focus Control and Mobile Accessibility
By Ted Drake.
"This post follows a presentation I gave at the Mobile+Web Conference
in Boston, July 2013. This deals specifically with the impact of
providing focusability in mobile applications, whether iOS, Android,
or web applications. Each platform provides unique methods and
requirements..."
http://www.last-child.com/focus-mobile-accessibility/

Preserving Correct Reading Order (video)
By Gosia Mlynarczyk.
"This video explains how inserting dynamic content can affect logical
reading and focus order."
http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2013/preserving-correct-reading-order/

Improving the Accessibility of Social Media in Government
By howto.gov.
"Social media is transforming how government engages with citizens,
allowing agencies to share information and deliver services more
quickly and effectively than ever before. As social content, data, and
platforms become more diverse, agencies have a responsibility to
ensure these digital services are accessible to all citizens,
including people with disabilities..."
http://www.howto.gov/social-media/using-social-media-in-government/improving-accessibility

Proposed Outcomes For NFB Versus H&R Block
By Chris Hofstader.
"In April, the National Federation of the Blind filed a lawsuit
against H & R Block, the AMerican tax preparation giant over their
failure to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. NFB
asserts that Block, by having a CAPTCHA with no audio alternative
prohibits blind people from using their web site, hence, is out of
compliance with the ADA."
http://chrishofstader.com/proposed-outcomes-for-nfb-versus-hr-block/

Does Web Accessibility Really "place ruinous obligations on websites"?
- Analysis of Internet Association Brief
By Hassell Inclusion.
"...assuming the articles are correct in reporting what the brief
says, what are we to make of this extraordinary statement?..."
http://www.hassellinclusion.com/2013/08/web-accessibility-ruinous-obligation/

The Story Behind the BBC Mobile Accessibility Guidelines
By Henny Swan.
"The BBC has now published a set of draft Mobile Accessibility
Standards and Guidelines to the wider web development community, a
ground-breaking project which has been in development for a year now
[see also - news, earlier in this issue of E-Access Bulletin]. While
written primarily for BBC employees and suppliers to use, the
corporation's hope is that they might be useful for any individual or
organisation building mobile web content and native apps..."
http://www.headstar.com/eablive/?p=907

Selling Accessibility - Framing the Message
By Karl Groves.
"Yesterday I was doing some cleaning of my computer's files and came
across the slide deck for Selling Accessibility (which you can see
under Presentations). It also reminded me of two things littering my
desk for a while which I 'borrowed' from my room at the Marriott in
San Diego during last year's CSUN Conference: The shower tag and towel
tag..."
http://www.karlgroves.com/2013/08/02/selling-accessibility-framing-the-message/

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Responsive Retrofitting
By Ben Callahan.
"Responsive retrofitting, at it's core, is about compromise for this
reality. It's about finding a way to use responsive techniques on
legacy sites to create a better experience for more users. While most
of us probably agree that the web is never really done, we often
choose 'File > New' over a steady evolution of our sites. The truth
is, we don't always get to start over. This article is about putting
our users first, taking small steps toward a more universal experience
and understanding when doing so is the right approach..."
http://webstandardssherpa.com/reviews/responsive-retrofitting

Spacing The Bottom of Modules
By Chris Coyier.
"Ah the humble module! A good many designs these days make use of
modules in the content-y and app-y sites alike. A chunk of
information, an advertisement, a grouped set of functionality... could
be anything. The fact that they likely have visual similarity yet can
contain anything leads to an interesting CSS challenge: how do you pad
the inside consistently?..."
http://css-tricks.com/spacing-the-bottom-of-modules/

+03: DRUPAL.

Your Guide To Extending RSS Feeds in Drupal
By Robert Bates.
"...what do you do if you need finer-grained control over your feed
generation, and possibly even custom extensions that comply with the
RSS standard?..."
http://www.phase2technology.com/blog/your-guide-to-extending-rss-feeds-in-drupal/

CMSs are Dead, Long Live CMSs
By Darren Mothersele.
"A few people have asked me what happened to my site: is it still
Drupal? Where did the comments go? The short answer is I've joined
cool crowd and started experimenting with static site generators, but
I'm going to give you the long answer. It's a multi-faceted issue, and
an excuse to finally blog about the end of the CMS era. And, no, I'm
not leaving Drupal. I still very much believe that Drupal is the best
tool for a lot of projects. I just don't want to manage my own site
that way..."
http://www.darrenmothersele.com/blog/2013/08/02/cms-is-dead-long-live-cms/

Why do Organizations Hate Their Content Management System?
By Gerry McGovern.
"There seems to be a major disconnect between those who purchase a
content management system (CMS) and those who actually have to use
it."
http://gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/why-do-organizations-hate-their-content-management-system

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Just Follow the Script - Working With Pro and Proto-Pro Co-Researchers
By Dana Chisnell.
"She wrote to me to ask if she could give me some feedback about the
protocol for a usability test. 'Absolutely,' I emailed back, 'I'd love
that'..."
http://usabilitytesting.wordpress.com/2013/08/01/just-follow-the-script-working-with-pro-and-proto-pro-co-researchers/

How to Test Responsive Designs
By Steve Ralston.
"Stop resizing that browser, you're gonna wear it out!' How many times
have you heard that one? Well okay, maybe not so many times, but if
you develop responsive design web sites, you know what I'm talking
about: with every DOM or CSS edit you're dragging that browser edge
back and forth, testing your changes and looking for anything
broken..."
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2013/07/how-to-test-responsive-designs-for-free/

7 Signs You Have a Problem Persona
By W Craig Tomlin.
"If you create user experiences or marketing programs and use
personas, then be on the lookout for the seven signs you may have a
problem persona..."
http://www.usefulusability.com/7-signs-you-have-a-problem-persona/

+05: HTML5.

The HTML5 form Attribute
By Craig Buckler.
"HTML4 and XHTML insisted that all form elements — including the
submit button — were contained within a single <form>…</form> block.
While this is rarely an issue, it can lead to design challenges and I
certainly recall struggling with early versions of ASP.NET which
enforced a single form on every page. In general, if you required an
input field outside the form, you'd need to JavaScript to import it's
value when the form was submitted...nterestingly, the form attribute
allows you to place a field in one form which is submitted in another.
Alternatively, you could change form attributes in JavaScript rather
than importing values, e.g..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/the-html5-form-attribute/

+06: JAVASCRIPT.

How I Came to Grudgingly Accept Aria-Hidden
By Marco Zehe.
"...I still think that aria-hidden is a rather dangerous attribute, I
count on the educational skills of the accessibility community at
large to make sure the situation doesn't get really bad! And I will do
my part to help with that effort."
http://www.marcozehe.de/2013/08/02/how-i-came-to-grudgingly-accept-aria-hidden/

BPOW: ESC key to Close Modals and Menus
By Jeff Smith.
"Using the Esc key to close toggle-able widgets such as modals and
pop-over menus is becoming so prevalent in user interfaces that it's
usually expected by users. The concept is so simple that there's no
reason not to add it into your websites and web applications..."
http://simplyaccessible.com/bpow/closing-modals/

+07: MISCELLANEOUS.

Balancing Act - Features, Budgets and Timelines
By Adrian Roselli.
"So much of web development is really just a snapshot in time. Within
weeks, days or even hours, the landscape will change. A new browser
will be released, a new technique will appear, and so on. As web
developers, we often want to tweak; to implement the latest techniques
and deliver a 'perfect' site. The reality is, though, budgets and
timelines dictate what we can do..."
http://webstandardssherpa.com/reviews/balancing-act-features-budgets-timelines

+08: NAVIGATION.

How Much Navigation Can Responsive Patterns Hold?
By Steven Bradley.
"How many levels of navigation and how many links to include at each
level is something I consider with every design, but I've been
thinking about it more than usual the last couple of weeks..."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/how-much-responsive-navigation/

+09: PHP.

Rasmus Lerdorf at PHP London
By Marijus Kilmanas.
"July's PHP London had a particularly notable speaker - Rasmus Lerdorf
himself presenting what's new in PHP. So many people wanted to attend
that, with limited venue capacity, a live (and recorded) video stream
was used for the first time. You can skip straight to seeing the
slides and video of the session if you like, or keep reading for my
impressions of the evening..."
http://techportal.inviqa.com/2013/08/02/rasmus-lerdorf-at-php-london/

+10: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Crippling the Web
By  Tim Kadlec.
"...This is what excites me about the web and it's why web technology
tends to be my focus. That ubiquity, that ability to get your
information to anyone with a device connected to the web, is
incredibly inspiring. This is why I tend to get so frustrated when we
do things that eliminate that superpower..."
http://timkadlec.com/2013/07/crippling-the-web/

+11: TYPOGRAPHY.

Text Resizing - Why Page Zoom is Not Good Enough - or is It?
By Detlev Fischer.
What do you need to do to ensure that users can resize the text on
your web page? A quick look at WCAG's "How to meet 1.4.4 (Resize
Text)" suggests that relying on browsers' page zoom is sufficient. So
far, failure F69 has given us reason also to require text-only
resizing to work. Now WCAG WG has announced an overhaul of F69..."
http://www.bitvtest.eu/articles/article/lesen/zoom-and-text-resizing.html

Why Browser Zoom Testing Sucks for Accessibility
By Denis Boudreau.
This post was motivated by a discussion that took place while the
EasyChecks document was being developed over at the Education and
Outreach Working Group. During that time, colleagues and myself were
also reviewing our manual testing methodology and found we were not in
agreement as to how to interpret some of the WCAG 2.0 Success
Criteria, including SC 1.4.4 - Resize Text. Right. Like disagreeing on
WCAG 2.0 interpretations never happens in our field.
http://www.denisboudreau.org/blog/2013/07/why-browser-zoom-testing-sucks-for-accessibility/

Browser Zoom Great for Accessibility
By Alastair Campbell.
"This post was motivated by Denis Boudreau's Why Browser Zoom Testing
Sucks for Accessibility, even though I disagree with the method, it
makes some good and important points and it will help set the context
for this post..."
http://alastairc.ac/2013/08/browser-zoom-great-for-accessibility/

+12: USABILITY.

5 Design Mistakes That Interfere With Your Online Usability
By Sabina Idler.
"Good usability - what does that even mean? The term has been around
for quite a while now; long enough anyways to have gained some serious
popularity. In a previous article we even argued that 'usability has
become a commodity and is no longer a distinctive feature'. That is
because people have long gotten used to certain design standards..."
http://blog.usabilla.com/5-design-mistakes-that-interfere-with-your-online-usability/

Tablet Usability
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Flat design and improperly rescaled design are the main threats to
tablet usability, followed by poor gestures and workflow."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/tablet-usability/

[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.

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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.]