[webdev] Web Design Update: September 20, 2013

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Fri Sep 20 06:16:09 CDT 2013 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 12, Issue 13, September 20, 2013.

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

++ISSUE 13 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: MISCELLANEOUS.
06: NAVIGATION.
07: TOOLS.
08: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Digital Education Shouldn't Bypass Disabled
By Kyle Shachmut.
"...Just like buildings, digital resources can be made accessible to
all through good design and planning...Yet, the vast majority of
universities, publishers, and software creators do not embrace
mainstream accessibility solutions. Technology giants like Google and
Amazon are making immense efforts to put their products in front of
students across the country, even though Google Apps for Education,
Google Books, the Amazon Kindle, and the Kindle App for mobile devices
have features that blind people cannot use..."
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/09/08/classroom-technology-must-accessible-those-with-disabilities/svRyLPnmnBSNCDUuQaUEVJ/story.html

Is Innovation More Important than Accessibility?
By Paul Boag.
"With more and more sites relying on technologies and techniques that
hamper accessibility, there seems to be a move away from universal
accessibility. But should we accept this as inevitable?"
http://boagworld.com/working-in-web/is-innovation-more-important-than-accessibility/

Creating an Accessible Infographic
By Michael Guill.
"...Creating accessible infographics should not be rocket science to
anyone who can slice PSD files and turn out good-quality HTML and CSS.
There can be a few extra bits of work involved in perfecting the
finished page, but in the end, the infographic is not just some static
image. It is readable by people using assistive technology and also
easily indexed by search engines, which can be considered a type of
blind user...."
http://www.interactiveaccessibility.com/blog/creating-accessible-infographic

Implementing a PDF Reduction Strategy
By Dey Alexander.
"PDF is rarely chosen because it's been assessed as the best format
for the content. And if it's not used appropriately, it can create a
range of problems..."
http://www.4syllables.com.au/2013/09/pdf-reduction-strategy/

Google - Web Accessibility is NOT Just for Blind
By Svetlana Kouznetsova.
"...Google - please do a favor to the accessibility community and
users with disabilities to consult and double check with experienced
accessibility professionals first before developing a course to teach
about accessibility that addresses needs of more people than just
those who are blind..."
http://svk-nyc.com/journal/2013/09/google-web-accessibility-is-not-just-for-blind/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Recap - 7 Habits of Highly Effective Media Queries
By Deborah Edwards-Onoro.
"At the closing session of the Mobile UX Summit 2013, Brad Frost, web
designer, speaker, writer and creator of This is Responsive and Mobile
Web Best Practices, shared practical advice and tips for working with
media queries..."
http://www.lireo.com/recap-7-habits-of-highly-effective-media-queries/


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Making Usability Findings Actionable - 5 Tips for Writing Better Reports
By Jakob Nielsen.
"For usability testing to be valuable, study findings must clearly
identify issues and help the team move toward design solutions."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/actionable-usability-findings/


+04: EVENTS.

UX Intensive 2013 Seattle
November 4-7, 2013.
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
http://ux-intensive.com/

UX New Zealand
November 6-8, 2013.
Wellington, New Zealand
http://uxnewzealand.co.nz/uxnz-2013/

User-Centred Design (UCD)
November 8-9, 2013.
London, England, United Kingdom
http://2013.ucduk.org/

Build Conf
November 11-15, 2013.
Belfast, Northern Ireland
http://2013.buildconf.com/

JavaScript Summit
November 19-21, 2013.
Online
http://environmentsforhumans.com/2013/javascript-summit/


+05: MISCELLANEOUS.

Do as Little as Possible
By Lyza Danger Gardner.
"...it is an appeal for simplicity and elegance: putting commonality
first, approaching differentiation carefully, and advocating for
consistency in the creation and application of web standards..."
http://alistapart.com/column/do-as-little-as-possible

Mobile - Native Apps, Web Apps, and Hybrid Apps
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Native and hybrid apps are installed in an app store, whereas web
apps are mobile-optimized webpages that look like an app. Both hybrid
and web apps render HTML web pages, but hybrid apps use app-embedded
browsers to do that..."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-native-apps/

Responsive Elements
By Kumail Hunaid.
Responsive elements makes it possible for any element to adapt and
respond to the area they occupy. It's a tiny javascript library that
you can drop into your projects today.
http://kumailht.com/responsive-elements/

Why All Graphic Design Students Should Learn Web Design
By Michelle Godfrey.
"I want to share some tips with current students on making your
college days actually count, things to drill into your head now before
you have to learn the hard way..."
http://www.loudnoises.us/the-noise/why-all-graphic-design-students-should-learn-web-design-and-10-other-things-you-outta-know/#post-821

The Birth of the Web
By Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleair.
"The World Wide Web, invented at CERN in 1989 by British scientist Tim
Berners-Lee, has grown to revolutionize communications worldwide..."
http://home.web.cern.ch/about/birth-web


+06: NAVIGATION.

Landmark Roles and Page Structure
By Lias Seeman.
"This post is part of my blog series on using ARIA. This post talks
about using ARIA landmark roles."
http://www.deque.com/aria-blog-series-landmark-roles-page-structure

Happiness Engineers Deliver ARIA Joy
By Virginia DeBolt.
"WordCamp Albuquerque included a Happiness Bar stocked with Automattic
Happiness Engineers. I went in with my problem about wanting to add
ARIA roles to my new blog..."
http://www.webteacher.ws/2013/09/17/happiness-engineers-deliver-aria-joy/

Links Vs Buttons
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"Where to use links, When to use buttons? This question is in my mind
for many years. Finally I did some research to understand the
difference between links and buttons. Took opinions from experts,
discussed in mailing lists, posted in facebook groups and read some
blogs. I have documented my understanding below. Feedback welcome and
ready to incorporate the valid comments in the post..."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2013/09/links-vs-buttons/

BPOW: Arrow Keys for Mega Menu Navigation
By Jeff Smith.
"In this week's Best Practice of the Week we'll take a look at making
mega menus easier to navigate for keyboard and screen reader users..."
http://simplyaccessible.com/bpow/arrow-key-navigation/


+07: TOOLS.

W3C Validator Suite
By W3C.
"The W3C Validator Suite  examines the public pages of an entire
website and evaluates conformance with W3C open standards. It is
available as an online service that provides: Website crawling,  HTML5
& CSS Validation, Internationalization checking, Real-time integrated
reports."
https://validator-suite.w3.org/


+08: USABILITY.

Page Height, Scrolling and Responsive Web Design
By Brad Frost.
"...The fold doesn't exist on the Web, but we should be mindful of
page length and scrolling when creating responsive experiences."
http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/post/page-height-scrolling-and-responsive-web-design/

Designing Effective Carousels - Create a Fanciful Amusement, Not a
House of Horrors
By Jakob Nielsen.
"Carousels allow multiple pieces of content to occupy a single,
coveted space. This may placate corporate infighting, but on large- or
small-view ports, people often scroll past carousels. A static hero or
integrating content in the UI may be better solutions. But if a
carousel is your hero, good navigation and content can help make it
effective..."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/designing-effective-carousels/

Intuitive Equals Familiar (1994)
By Jef Raskin.
"One of the most common terms of praise for an interface is to say
that it is 'intuitive' (the word should have been 'intuitable' but we
will bow to convention). Yet the Human Computer Interaction (HCI)
literature rarely mentions the word, and for good reason. This note
attempts to clarify the meaning of 'intuitive' for non-HCI
specialists..."
http://www.asktog.com/papers/raskinintuit.html


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+09: 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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