[webdev] Web Design Update: September 19, 2013

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 12, Issue 12, September 16, 2013.

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

++ISSUE 12 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: JAVASCRIPT.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: NAVIGATION.
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.

Why Accessibility APIs Matter
By Maro Zehe.
"...there were these inconsistencies between what Chrome exposes, and
what chromeVox reads to users. An example quite to the contrary is the
fact that Google Docs is only accessible if one uses Chrome and
chromeVox. What Chrome exposes to VoiceOver or NVDA is not sufficient
to gain the same level of access to Google Docs...And here's my pledge
to all who still use their own DOM scraping methods on whichever
platform: Stop using them! If you have an API available by the
browser, use that whenever possible! You will make your product less
prone to changes or additions in the HTML spec and supported
elements."
http://www.marcozehe.de/2013/09/07/why-accessibility-apis-matter/

The Incredible Accessible Modal Dialog
By Greg Kraus.
"...So what's the big deal with modal dialogs? The problem is that
they work great when you interact with your computer using a mouse,
but if you only use a keyboard or if you use a screen reader, they can
often be traps of insanity in terms of trying to figure out what is
going on..."
http://accessibility.oit.ncsu.edu/blog/2013/09/13/the-incredible-accessible-modal-dialog/

Accessibility Summit Quick Review
By Dennis Lembree.
"The Accessibility Summit, an online conference on accessibility, took
place earlier this week. The event is presented by the good folks at
Environments for Humans (@e4h). The event was one day in the past few
years but was extended to two days this year! If you attended or not,
take a look at the great information in the Twitter stream using the
hash tag #a11ySummit..."
http://www.webaxe.org/accessibility-summit-quick-review/

Accessibility Summit 2013 Thoughts
By Steve Grobschmidt.
"It was pretty cool to finally get to see and hear some accessibility
notables that I've followed for the past several years, such as Glenda
Sims, John Foliot, Sharron Rush, and Dennis Lembree...Tonight, I
thought I'd just pull out random snippets or highlights that have
stuck with me..."
http://www.theaccessibility.com/2013/09/accessibility-summit-2013/

Don't Disable Pinch to Zoom
By Jamie Knight.
"As all the other options are nowhere near as usable..."
http://jkg3.com/Journal/don-t-disable-pinch-to-zoom


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Putting Flexbox Into Practice Presentation at Blend Conference
By Zoe Mickley Gillenwater.
Zoe's Blend Conference presnetation material on "Putting Flexbox into
Practice".
http://zomigi.com/blog/flexbox-presentation/

Responsive Image Container
By Yoav Weiss.
"...Just to sum it up, I've demonstrated (along with a prototype) how
a responsive image format can work, and can resolve most of the
responsive images use cases. I also went into some detail about which
other bits would have to be added to the platform in order to make it
a viable solution..."
http://blog.yoav.ws/2013/09/Responsive-Image-Container

Responsive Design is Not About Screen Sizes Any More
By Gorka Molero.
"To achieve truly lightweight sites, performance shouldn’t only be a
concern, it should be treated as a design feature. Performance is like
any other issue. Sites that overcome it are the ones who acknowledged
it from the beginning. And the ones that overlook it are the ones that
suffer for it in the end."
http://speckyboy.com/2013/09/11/responsive-design-is-not-about-screen-sizes-any-more/


+03: COLOR.

BPOW: Color Contrast by the Numbers
By Elle Waters.
"Always provide good color contrast on your web pages, as insufficient
contrast can affect several types of users in many different
scenarios. Specifically, improving the overall color contrast on your
web site or application benefits users with color blindness, users
with low vision, and users with mobile devices."
http://simplyaccessible.com/examples/bpow-color-contrast/


+04: EVENTS.

HTML5 Developer Conference
October 22-23, 2013.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://html5devconf.com/

Future of Web Apps (FOWA)
October 23-25, 2013.
London, England, United Kingdom
http://futureofwebapps.com/london-2013/

Pittsburgh Web Design Day
October 25-26, 2013.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
http://www.webdesignday.com/

WebTech Conference
October 27-30, 2013.
Munich, Germany
http://webtechcon.de/

International PHP Conference
October 27-30, 2013.
Munich, Germany
http://phpconference.com/2013/en

Ampersand NYC
November 2, 2013.
New York, New York, U.S.A.
http://nyc.ampersandconf.com/


+05: JAVASCRIPT.

On Progressive Enhancement
By Brad Frost.
"...progressive enhancement is ultimately about empathy, flexibility,
inclusiveness, and open-mindedness. It's about understanding that we
don't have total control and that we aren't able to predict the
future."
http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/post/on-progressive-enhancement/

Anti-Pattern - Data in Prototype Properties
By Alex Rauschmayer.
"This blog post explains why it may seem like a good idea to put data
in prototype properties, but actually isn't..."
http://www.2ality.com/2013/09/data-in-prototypes.html

Understanding ECMAScript 6 Arrow Functions
By Nicholas C Zakas.
"One of the most interesting new parts of ECMAScript 6 are arrow
functions. Arrow functions are, as the name suggests, functions
defined with a new syntax that uses an "arrow" (=>) as part of the
syntax. However, arrow functions behave differently than traditional
JavaScript functions in a number of important ways..."
http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2013/09/10/understanding-ecmascript-6-arrow-functions/


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Go Mobile or Kiss Future Students Goodbye
By Toni Fuhrman.
"In the competitive world of student recruitment, schools must
recognize that today's students are finding--and judging--them on
their mobile offerings."
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2013/09/12/without-mobile-first-strategy-kiss-students-goodbye.aspx


+07: NAVIGATION.

Responsive Navigation On Complex Websites
By Jon Rundle.
"...To illustrate the techniques involved in implementing responsive
navigation on a large website, I'll refer to two actual clients of
mine. I'll start with the process and how to get through it with
research and mockups, then later get into some of the actual code that
was used..."
http://mobile.smashingmagazine.com/2013/09/11/responsive-navigation-on-complex-websites/


+08: TOOLS.

Diagnostic.css - Super Quick web Accessibility Testing
By Karl Groves.
"In my quest to make accessibility accessible, I've created a
super-easy-to-use tool that people can use to do accessibility
testing. If you can view the page in the browser, you can use this
tool. Diagnostic.css is a CSS (Cascading Stylesheets) file which, when
applied to a web page, will highlight accessibility errors in the
page..."
http://www.karlgroves.com/2013/09/07/diagnostic-css-super-quick-web-accessibility-testing/


+09: USABILITY.

Flat Design - The Next Step Forward in the Evolution of Web Design
By Sufyan bin Uzayr.
"Flat design is nothing but simplicity put into practice..."
http://speckyboy.com/2013/09/09/flat-design-evolution/


[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.


+ 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 at d.umn.edu


[Issue ends.]