[webdev] Web Design Update: February 27, 2014

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Thu Feb 27 06:24:03 CST 2014 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 12, Issue 36, February 27, 2014.

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

++ISSUE 36 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: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: NAVIGATION.
08: PHP.
09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
10: TOOLS.
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.

Kevin Miller
By Kevin Miller.
"My brother passed away at the age of 23 because of a design choice in
a video game. As an epileptic, especially one who had photo-sensitive
seizures in the past, he knew that gaming carried with it a risk; but
that risk was exacerbated by someone wanting a strobe effect here or a
flashing explosion there....Web sites are now expected to work on a
wide array of devices and screen resolutions, but somehow screen
readers and magnifiers are never listed as a 'device' when speaking
about responsive design. Developers are working on touch-friendly
interfaces, when we still have web applications that are not
accessible to someone using only a keyboard, or using foot pedals as a
pointing device..."
https://the-pastry-box-project.net/kevin-miller/2014-February-24

The Struggle for Web eQuality by Persons with Cognitive Disabilities
By Peter Blanck.
"This article is based on the book eQuality: The Struggle for Web
Accessibility by Persons with Cognitive Disabilities (2014, Cambridge
University Press). It contends that the rights of individuals with
cognitive disabilities to equal access to web content are not only
protected under law, but may also be implemented and supported by
current user-based, semantic and cloud technologies..."
http://bbi.syr.edu/news_events/news/2014/02/WebEquality_Blanck.html

Provide Long Descriptions for Complex Images Using Longdesc
By Denis Boudreau.
"Make sure complex images are assigned longdesc attributes that lead
to full text descriptions. "
http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/77707865445/provide-long-descriptions-for-complex-images-using

1.1.1 Non-Text Content
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"Images, charts, graphs, audio/video content, etc are considered as
non-text content. People with certain disabilities will not be able to
perceive the information conveyed through non-text content unless an
alternate way is provided to convey the same..."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/02/1-1-1-non-text-content/

Doesn't Work in Lynx
By Steve Faulkner.	
"I regularly encounter the argument that a particular feature is not
accessible because it doesn't work in a text browser such as Lynx..."
http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2014/02/doesnt-work-lynx/

Inaccessible Cyber Streetwise Website
By Leonie Watson.
"The Cyber Streetwise website was launched by the UK Home Office in
January. Developed by Nudge Digital, Cyber Streetwise is a high
profile website intended to change attitudes towards online security.
It is also a complete travesty when it comes to accessibility. "
http://tink.co.uk/2014/02/inaccessible-cyber-streetwise-website/

Mobile Accessibility Guidelines
By British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).
"The BBC Standards and Guidelines for Mobile Accessibility are a set
of technology agnostic best practices for mobile web content, hybrid
and native apps. "
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/futuremedia/accessibility/mobile

Designing for Accessibility (Video)
By Laura Kalbag.
Laura Kalbag's presentation at a 2-day not-for-profit by-the-community
and for-the-community international conference in Lisbon, Portugal,
October 2-3, 2013.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOM5eY5hG-Q


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

CSS - When to Use Generated Content
By Jens O. Meiert.
"...Generated content should not be used for actual content, like copy
text or important messages..."
http://meiert.com/en/blog/20140224/generated-content/

Float Labels With CSS
By Chris Coyier.
"You've probably seen this pattern going around. It's an input that
appears as if it has placeholder text in it, but when you click/tap
into that input, that text moves out of the way and allows you to type
there. It's rather clever, I think. Brad Frost has a really good post
on it, detailing the pros and cons and such..."
http://css-tricks.com/float-labels-css/


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Everything You Know About Accessibility Testing is Wrong, Part 2
By Karl Groves.
"...Current automatic accessibility testing practices take place at
the wrong place and wrong time and is done by the wrong people..."
http://www.karlgroves.com/2014/02/20/everything-you-know-about-accessibility-testing-is-wrong-part-2/


+04: EVENTS.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day
Correction: This event is May 15, 2014 not May 9.
Everywhere.
http://www.globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/

HTML5 Developer Conference
May 19-23, 2014.
San Francisco, California, U.S.A.
http://html5devconf.com/index.html

Future Insights Live
June 16-20, 2014.
Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A.
http://futureinsightslive.com/las-vegas-2014/

SmashingConf New York
June 17-18, 2014.
New York, New York, U.S.A.
http://smashingconf.com/ny-2014/

WebVisions Barcelona
June 19-22, 2014.
Barcelona, Spain
http://www.webvisionsevent.com/barcelona/


+05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Intranet Information Architecture (IA) Trends
By Marieke McCloskey.
"Intranets are improving findability and discoverability by organizing
content by task rather than department, using megamenus to present
deep content, offering clear cues to help orient users, and providing
shortcuts to important pages and tools."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/intranet-information-architecture-ia/


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

Coding Accessibility - An Interview with Steve Faulkner
By Sarah Horton.
"Steve Faulkner has been an accessibility engineer since 2001, first
with Vision Australia and currently with The Paciello Group. He has a
hand in developing HTML5 and WAI-ARIA specifications as a member of
W3C working groups, and is editor of W3C specifications on HTML5,
Using ARIA in HTML, accessibility APIs, and text alternatives. In
short, Steve has accessibility chops. Because much of what's needed is
beneath the surface of a page, we asked Steve to explain what user
experience designers should know about how code supports
accessibility. "
http://rosenfeldmedia.com/blogs/a-web-for-everyone/coding-accessibility-an-interview-with-steve-faulkner/


+07: NAVIGATION.

Making Accessible Links - 15 Golden Rules For Developers
By Gian Wild.
"Rule 1: Don't use the word 'link' in your links..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/15-rules-making-accessible-links/

The Magnifying-Glass Icon in Search Design
By Katie Sherwin.
"Users recognize a magnifying-glass icon as meaning 'search' even
without a textual label. The downside is that icon-only search is
harder for users to find."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/magnifying-glass-icon/


+08: PHP.

PHP Coding Standards Cheat Sheet
By David Child.
"The PHP Coding Standards Cheat Sheet is a reference for the current
batch of PSR standards from the PHP-FIG standards group."
http://www.addedbytes.com/cheat-sheets/php-coding-standards-cheat-sheet/


+09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Comments on W3C TAG EME
By Henri Sivonen.
"...it is technically correct that EME involves 'encrypted' content,
but talking about encryption evokes the wrong connotations about who
the adversary is. (Typically, encryption is used against a third party
on the network. In the case of EME, the user is the adversary against
whom encryption is used.) Describing the 'aim' of EME without saying
'DRM' up front is grossly misleading. Furthermore, saying that the
'aim' of EME is to 'enable sharing of encrypted content' is
Newspeakish, when the stated goal of DRM is to *disable* sharing of
content..."
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2014Feb/0057.html


+10: TOOLS.

Fount
By Nathan Ford.
"Fount will tell you which web font in your font-stack you are
actually seeing - not just what is supposed to be seen. It'll also
tell you the font size, weight, and style..."
http://fount.artequalswork.com/


+11: TYPOGRAPHY.

Making Text Legible -Designing for People with Partial Sight
By Aries Arditi.
"Here are basic guidelines for making effective legibility choices
that work for nearly everyone..."
http://www.lighthouse.org/accessibility/design/accessible-print-design/making-text-legible

Cross-Browser Web Fonts, part 3 - Hyphens, Text Rendering, and Font
Feature Settings
By Chris Mills.
"Widespread browser support for @font-face has done wonders for web
typography, allowing us the freedom to use custom fonts wherever we
want. But different fonts are not the whole story with web typography.
There are other things that the web has long been weak at, such as
proper hyphenation of long words, and usage of open type font features
such as ligature and stylistic swashes that often get locked away
inside font files and never see the light of day. In this article we
will look at some of these new CSS font features..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/cross-browser-web-fonts-part-3/

Typography Cheat Sheet - The 6 Big Mistakes to Avoid
By Simone Sala.
"Typography is one of those strange skills - too mathematical to be
pure art, but a touch too intangible to be pure science..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/typography-cheat-sheet/


+12: USABILITY.

What Senior Citizens Taught Me About Designing Apps
By Eden Rohatensky.
"Problems that were presented when trying to do simple tasks such as
adding a friend to their contacts, or finding their email accounts,
repeated themselves quite frequently. This was a result of quite a few
patterns repeating themselves in the design of the user interfaces of
the apps that were used. This list might seem like it's obvious to
many, but might be useful (or at least anecdotal evidence for already
quantified data)..."
http://edenrohatensky.com/what-senior-citizens-taught-me-about-designing-apps/

[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.]

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