[webdev] Web Design Update: December 5, 2013

Thu Dec 5 06:46:11 CST 2013

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 12, Issue 24, December 5, 2013.

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

++ISSUE 24 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: EVALUATION & TESTING.
03: EVENTS.
04: HTML5.
05: MISCELLANEOUS.
06: NAVIGATION.
07: 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.

Coding Towards Accessibility
By Charlie Perrins.
"'Can we make it AAA-compliant?' - does this question strike fear into
your heart? Maybe for no other reason than because you will soon have
to wade through the impenetrable WCAG documentation once again, to
find out exactly what AAA-compliant means?..."
http://24ways.org/2013/coding-towards-accessibility/

HealthCare.gov - Lessons Learned on Accessibility, Privacy and Security
By Ken Nakata.
"Unfortunately the U.S. government's HealthCare.gov website has been
plagued with a number of issues. Many stories have appeared on
deficiencies in usability, security, testing and technical failures to
name a few. That said, Healthcare.gov isn't all bad..."
http://blog.hisoftware.com/2013/brand-integrity-site-quality/healthcare-gov-lessons-learned-on-accessibility-privacy-and-security

Telstra Bans CAPTCHA Tests
By Eliza Cussen.
"Australia's largest telecommunications company Telstra has won the
day by announcing it will no longer use CAPTCHA tests on its apps and
websites..."
http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2013/12/telstra-bans-captcha-tests

+02: EVALUATION & TESTING.

How to Breathe Life Into Personas
By Barnabas Nagy.
"...Creating a model of your target audience may help you and your
stakeholders feel significantly more empathy for those people..."
http://boxesandarrows.com/how-to-breathe-life-into-personas/

+03: EVENTS.

An Event Apart Atlanta
February 17-19, 2014.
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.
http://aneventapart.com/event/atlanta-2014

An Event Apart Seattle
March 30 - April 2, 2014.
Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
http://aneventapart.com/event/seattle-2014

An Event Apart Boston
April 28-30, 2014.
Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
http://aneventapart.com/event/boston-2014

+04: HTML5.

Responsive Images, Part 1 - Using srcset
By Annarita Tranfici.
"...In this article we've described how the srcset attribute could
help developers in a better management of their websites' images.
Nevertheless, as we've seen, support among browsers is lacking but we
are hopeful and confident that this problem will be solved very
soon..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/responsive-images-part-1-using-srcset/

How to Use HTML5 Data Attributes
By Craig Buckler.
"...HTML5 introduces custom data attributes. You can use any lowercase
name prefixed with data-, e.g..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/use-html5-data-attributes/

+05: MISCELLANEOUS.

Interview with EasyChirp Creator Dennis Lembree
By Mark Miller.
"This week on the IAP, we talk with Dennis Lembree, creator of
EasyChirp, an accessible interface for Twitter..."
http://www.interactiveaccessibility.com/blog/podcast-episode-21-interview-easychirp-creator-dennis-lembree

How To Choose The Best Responsive Table Solution
By Steven Bradley.
"One topic I haven't yet covered where responsive design is concerned
is how to work with data tables. Part of the reason is that I haven't
had to work with them much. For whatever reason my clients haven't
needed tables beyond very simple ones where a bit of flexibility was
enough to make them work responsively."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/responsive-table-solutions/

The Business of Responsive Design
By Mark Boulton.
"...it's clear that everyone is finding everything hard right now. The
change is so big, and so rapid, that we're struggling to keep our
heads above water. And this especially goes for those working in-house
or clients. Breaking new ground is always difficult. But, just like
Hinterstoisser, take heart in knowing that what we're working on right
now is a legacy for designers and developers in the months and years
ahead."
http://markboulton.co.uk/journal/thebusinessofrwd

+06: NAVIGATION.

Accessible Dropdown Menus Revisited
By Terrill Thompson.
"...I created a simple test page using Accessible Mega menu, and I
like it! This menu meets all of the needs I described above..."
http://terrillthompson.com/blog/474

Efficiently Simplifying Navigation, Part 1 - Information Architecture
By Anastasios Karafillis.
"Navigation, as crucial as it is to the user experience, is merely a
means to an end - the end being to consume content. This is why users
have very contrasting expectations about content and navigation. While
content is supposed to be unique, surprising and exciting, navigating
to it is supposed to be as simple and predictable as possible..."
http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/2013/12/03/efficiently-simplifying-navigation-information-architecture/

URL Rewriting for the Fearful
By Drew McLellan.
"...When we think about URL rewriting, usually that means adding some
rules to an .htaccess file for an Apache web server. As that's the
most common case, that's what I'll be sticking to here..."
http://24ways.org/2013/url-rewriting-for-the-fearful/

+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Standards Matter
By Kyle Weems.
"...As the web continues to fracture into not only multiple browsers,
but a wider and wider variety of form factors and devices, from toast
to televisions, from watches to phones, standards, and the advocacy of
them, become even more important. We're not just talking about making
a site's CSS look good in four browsers, or ensuring a site is usable
for people with accessibility challenges. We're talking about ensuring
our sites, our clients sites, and the sites we use every day being
available for use in situations we wouldn't have needed to consider
even six years ago..."
http://cssquirrel.com/blog/2013/11/30/standards-matter/

The (Other) Web We Lost
By John Allsopp.
"In the aftermath of the Browser Wars, the W3C and developer groups
like the Web Standards Project worked long and hard to rebuild a
unified, un-fragmented Web. But these last few years, we developers
have gone and re-fragmented it all over again all by ourselves. Maybe
we should think about what we are losing, before we lose this Web for
good..."
http://www.webdirections.org/blog/the-other-web-we-lost/

Plussing Web Standards
By Marc Drummond.
"Following the standards for HTML5 and CSS3 will get your site part of
the way there. You'll get further along if you count WCAG2 and ARIA in
your staple of standards you adhere to with all your might. But even
with that, you need more. That green check mark doesn't solve
everything. But it's a good place to start. Those green check marks
offer a pretty good attraction..."
http://marcdrummond.com/web-standards/2013/11/30/plus-it

+08: TOOLS.

YouDescribe
By The Smith-Kettlewell Video Description Research and Development Center.
"An experimental platform for adding extended audio description to
YouTube videos."
http://youdescribe.ski.org/rel/

+09: USABILITY.

Speedy Mobile Sites Impact Google Search Rankings
By Andy King.
"Google is now factoring in mobile friendliness and mobile website
speed into their search engine rankings."
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/mobile-site-speed-rankings/

When Content Audits are Not a Good Idea
By Gerry McGovern.
"When dealing with a large, complex, old and out-of-date website, a
content audit can be a waste of time and money."
http://gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/when-content-audits-are-not-good-idea

[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.

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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.]