[webdev] Web Design Update: January 16, 2014

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Thu Jan 16 06:16:26 CST 2014 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 12, Issue 30, January 16, 2014.

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

++ISSUE 30 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: JAVASCRIPT.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
08: TYPOGRAPHY.
09: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Three Things to Include in Your Accessibility Help Page
By Mark Walker.
"AbilityNet recommends that every site should have an Accessibility
help page. Whether you have a fully accessible site or not they
provide a useful stepping stone on a user journey, they offer
practical help to your customers and show them that you have thought
about their needs..."
http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/blog/three-things-include-your-accessibility-help-page

Safeway Announces Website Accessibility Initiative
By Law Office of Lainey Feingold.
"Posted here is a press release announcing accessibility and usability
improvements to Safeway's online grocery delivery website. Safeway
will use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 Level AA
as the standard for its online content..."
http://lflegal.com/2013/12/safeway-web-press/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Single Line Comments (//) in CSS
By Tab Atkins.
"CSS uses the same "block comment" syntax as the C-like languages -
you start a comment with /*, and end it with *..."
http://www.xanthir.com/b4U10

Introducing CSS Variables
By Sara Vieira.
"Pre-processors like Sass and Less used them, but vanilla CSS never
had variables. Until now. They've been on the horizon for a while, but
only recently have variables started to be implemented in CSS, let's
take a look at how they work..."
http://www.developerdrive.com/2014/01/introducing-css-variables/


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

5 Reasons You Should and Should Not Test With 5 Users
By Jeff Sauro.
"There are a lot of misconceptions about when it is and when it is not
appropriate to test with five users. There's no reason to take an
extreme position on this issue and think it's never acceptable or
always the right number. Instead you should understand what you can
and cannot learn from just a handful of users in a usability test."
http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/five-for-five.php

Google Analytics A/B Test Worksheet for #highered: Fill in the Blanks
to Optimize Your College's Web Pages
By Joshua Dodson.
"If website optimization is not a part of your marketing strategy,
then you are missing out on some excellent opportunities..."
http://higheredanalytics.com/analytics/index.php/2014/01/google-analytics-ab-test-worksheet-for-highered-fill-in-the-blanks-to-optimize-your-colleges-web-pages/

Turn User Goals Into Task Scenarios For Usability Testing
By Marieke McCloskey.
"Guidelines for usability test tasks: engage participants by writing
task scenarios that are realistic, encourage an action, and don't give
away how the interface should be used."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/task-scenarios-usability-testing/

5 Website Usability Testing Tips
By Kumail Hemani.
"Usability testing helps bring together the website structure and
makes it user friendly. It is a method used to improve the web layout,
to make it easy-to-use and easy-to-understand."
 http://www.kumailhemani.com/5-website-usability-testing-tips/


+04: EVENTS.

MX 2014
March 16-17, 2014.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://mxconference.com/

WebVisions Chicago
September 25-26, 2014.
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
http://www.webvisionsevent.com/chicago/

MAX 2014
October 4-8, 2014
Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
http://max.adobe.com/

Fronteers
October 9-10, 2014.
Amsterdam, Netherlands
http://fronteers.nl/congres/2014

Assets
October 20-24, 2014.
Rochester, New York, U.S.A.
http://www.sigaccess.org/assets14/


+05: JAVASCRIPT.

Accessible JavaScript Gestures: Zoom Scaling
By Dylan Barrell.
"As I was implementing the prototype gesture-supporting accessible
datepicker and I was playing around with all sorts of different
approaches to the problem, I noticed that it became much more
difficult to generate a swipe gesture on the iPhone when the browser
was zoomed-in..."
http://unobfuscated.blogspot.com/2014/01/accessible-javascript-gestures-zoom.html

Enough with the JavaScript Already (Video)
By Nicholas Zakas.
"After consulting with several companies on performance related
issues, it became clear that one of the biggest performance issues
facing websites today is the sheer amount of JavaScript needed to
power the page. The demand for more interactive and responsive
applications has driven JavaScript usage through the roof. It's quite
common for large sites to end up with over 1 MB of JavaScript code on
their page even after minification. But do today's web applications
really need that much JavaScript?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li4Y0E_x8zE

Tips for Writing Code Comments in Developer Documentation
By Tom Johnson.
In sum, writing code comments may seem like a trivial exercise, but it
really gets to the heart of what technical writing is all about -
explaining complicated material and layering your explanation for a
variety of audiences.
http://idratherbewriting.com/2014/01/11/tips-for-writing-code-comments-in-developer-documentation/


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Customizing Help and Tips By Input Type
By Luke Wroblewski.
"On today's multi-device Web, your audience might be using a mouse,
keyboard, touchscreen, trackpad, or increasingly, more than one of
these input types to interact with your service. Given all these
possibilities, how do you let people know how they can get things done
in your app?"
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1842

People, Ubiquity, and the Internet of Things - The New Mobile Context
By Steven Hoober and Mudassir Azeemi.
"We like to distinguish between the environmental and situational
contexts of people regardless of the device...Interactions in
all...contexts are important."
http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/01/people-ubiquity-and-the-internet-of-things-the-new-mobile-context.php

Essential Things To Remember While Doing Responsive Web Design
By Hasan Latif.
"... I remember an example that my teacher gave us to explain what
exactly a responsive web design is. He placed a big jug, a flask and a
glass on the table. Then he poured water into each one of them and
asked us a question, 'What is the shape of the water?'..."
http://www.globus.ae/blog/essential-things-to-remember-while-doing-responsive-web-design.html


+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

W3C EME is not DRM (nor other fear-mongering TLAs)
By Aadrian Roselli.
"Plenty has been written about the W3C and DRM. Sadly, most of it has
been written in the form of attacks against the W3C, with very few
laying out the facts."
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2014/01/w3c-eme-is-not-drm-nor-other-fear.html

Net Neutrality News
By Aadrian Roselli.
"If you're spitting-mad about the W3C's perceived position on DRM, we
would all be better served if you re-pointed that anger at what is
happening to net neutrality..."
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2014/01/net-neutrality-news.html

Why Validate?
By W3C.
"This document attempts to answer the questions many people have
regarding why they should bother with Validating their web sites and
tries to dispel a few common myths..."
http://validator.w3.org/docs/why.html


+08: TYPOGRAPHY.

How to Use Cross Browser Web Fonts, Part 2
By Chris Mills.
"In part 1 of my article I introduced web font syntax, looking at how
basic @font-face and font-family syntax can work together to embed
custom fonts on your web pages, and the slightly more complex cross
browser reality. In this part we'll go further, looking at common real
world issues associated with web fonts, and comparing free and paid
options for hosting your fonts..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/use-cross-browser-web-fonts-part-2/

Bulletproof Accessible Icon Fonts
By Zach Leatherman.
"Care must be taken when implementing icon fonts to ensure a great
experience for all users. What happens when your font doesn't load?
What happens when @font-face isn't supported in the browser? We'll
show you how to implement bulletproof font icons..."
http://filamentgroup.com/lab/bulletproof_icon_fonts/


+09: USABILITY.

10 Quick and Easy Fixes to Reduce Page Weight
By Craig Buckler.
"Total page weight increased by 32% in 2013 to reach a ludicrous 1.7Mb
and 96 individual HTTP requests. That's an average figure; half of all
sites will be larger. Website obesity has become an epidemic and we
web developers are to blame. There are no excuses..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/ten-quick-fixes-reduce-page-weight/

When to use target="_blank"
By Chris Coyier.
"Anchor links may have a target attribute which controls what happens
when that link is clicked. One of the possible values of that
attribute is _blank, which tells the browser to open a new window (or
tab, if that's the user's preference) when that link is clicked."
http://css-tricks.com/use-target_blank/


[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.]

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