[webdev] Web Design Update: March 28, 2014

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 12, Issue 40, March 28, 2014.

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

++ISSUE 40 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: DRUPAL.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: HTML5.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: TOOLS.
10: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Accessibility Lipstick on a Usability Pig
By Jared Smith.
"Applying accessibility techniques to an unusable site is like putting
lipstick on a pig. No matter how much you apply, it will always be a
pig..."
http://webaim.org/blog/accessibility-lipstick-on-a-usability-pig/

University of Montana Reaches Agreement to Develop New Accessible
Technology Policies
By Global Accessibility News.
"...The agreement covers technology used in all aspects of education
and campus life, such as electronic textbooks, course materials,
online registration, classroom technology and library services. The
agreement specifically requires improvements to UM's online learning
management system, Moodle, and many of those already are in place."
http://globalaccessibilitynews.com/2014/03/20/university-of-montana-reaches-agreement-to-develop-new-accessible-technology-policies/

1.3.2 Meaningful Sequence
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"Any user who comes to a webpage can quickly glance at it and
understand the layout. They can skim through the page to find the
required content. They can even relate the content by the appearance
of the page. For a screen reader user the mode of the page navigation
is very different..."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/03/1-3-2-meaningful-sequence/

Indicate Required Form Controls Using the Required Attribute
By Denis Boudreau.
"Make sure indications of required form controls are conveyed using
the required attribute..."
http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/80845612040/indicate-required-form-controls-using-the-required

Do Not Rely on Asterisks Alone to Define Required Fields
By Denis Boudreau.
"Make sure required fields identified with asterisks are also
announced as such in text"
http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/80636672526/do-not-rely-on-asterisks-alone-to-define-required

Why Document Accessibility and PDF/UA Matters
By Tim Lohman.
"Media Access Australia's Access iQ spoke to Shannon Kelly, Global
Accessibility Solutions Subject Matter Expert at Actuate, about
document accessibility and the PDF/UA standard, ahead of her
presentation at the International Technology & Persons with
Disabilities Conference."
http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2014/03/why-document-accessibility-and-pdfua-matters

The Great Big List from the 2014 CSUN International Technology &
Persons with Disabilities Conference
By Christopher Phillips.
"Below is a collections of presentations, people, and news happenings
around the CSUN (California State University, Northridge) Annual
International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference..."
http://curbcut.net/events/csun-disabilities-technology2014/

Edge 3 Accessibility Panel Video
By Sarah Lewthwaite.
"...the afternoon's Accessibility panel is now available via Google's
Web Developer account on YouTube (embedded below). From left to right,
the panellists are Derek Featherstone (Simply Accessible) who also
gives the opening address, myself (King's College London), Chris
Heilmann (Mozilla, our moderator), Alice Boxhall (Google), Andrew
Ronksley (RNIB) and Matthew Tyler Atkinson (Paciello Group)..."
http://slewth.co.uk/blog/2014/03/22/edge-3-accessibility-panel-video/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Title CSS - A Simple Approach to CSS Class Naming
By Jon Cuthbert.
"...To be honest, the perfect name won't help your stylesheet all that
much, but utilizing a CSS methodology could make a big difference..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/title-css-simple-approach-css-class-naming/


+03: COLOR.

Color Systems - Part 2
By Steven Bradley.
"...Today I want to continue the discussion by taking a look at the
Munsell Color System. Munsell's system forms the basis of the familiar
HSL and HSB color spaces we find in graphics editors..."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/color-systems-2/


+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Is Testing With A Screen Reader Enough?
By Kathy Wahlbin.
"Determining which assistive technology to test with and what the
accessibility test matrix should be is a challenge that many
organizations are facing..."
http://www.interactiveaccessibility.com/blog/testing-screen-reader-enough

Question About Testing on Screen Readers
By Jared Smith.
"How can I show my boss what our pages sound like on a screen reader
without actually buying screen reader (reading?) software?"
http://webstandardssherpa.com/ask-the-sherpas/testing-on-screen-readers

Are Most Winning A/B Test Results Misleading?
By Kerry Butters.
"...And how can designers and businesses ensure that if A/B testing
(also known as split testing) is carried out, it's done properly and
effectively?..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/winning-ab-test-results-misleading/


+05: EVENTS.

Event Apart Orlando
October 27-29, 2014.
Orlando, Florida, U.S.A.
http://aneventapart.com/event/orlando-2014

Confab Higher Ed
November 12-14, 2014.
Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A.
http://confabevents.com/events/higher-ed


+06: HTML5.

Accessibility Features of HTML5
By Mark Sadecki.
Mark's CSUN presentation slides.
http://www.w3.org/Talks/2014/0317-HTML5-A11Y/

Notes on Accessibility of Web Components
By Bruce Lawson.
"...If passionate evangelism were enough, the web would be perfectly
accessible now. My message to accessibility advocates is 'passion -
great. But with pull requests, please.'"
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2014/notes-on-accessibility-of-web-components/

Picture Element Implementation in Blink
By Yoav Weiss and Mat Marquis.
"The picture element would enable Responsive Images without ugly JS
hacks...Responsive images have been a thorny issue for Web developers
for quite some time. We even started a Community group! Nowadays, with
the new picture specification, it seems like the problem may actually
be solved in the foreseeable future. But first, a word from the
Community Group's chair on why this is an important issue to
resolve..."
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/picture-element-implementation-in-blink

On Articles and Excerpts
By Alex Bondarev.
"...A short excerpt is not an <article>..."
http://alexbondarev.com/on-articles-and-excerpts/

New HTML5 Attributes for Hyperlinks - download, media, and ping
By Ian Oxley.
"...The new attributes are: download, media, and ping. In this
article, we'll take a quick look at what these new attributes are, and
how they can be used once browser support improves..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/new-html5-attributes-hyperlinks-download-media-ping/


+07: JAVASCRIPT.

W3C's Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 Expands
Accessibility of the Open Web Platform
By W3C.
"Today the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) Web Accessibility
Initiative (WAI) took an important step to make web content and
applications more accessible to people with disabilities by publishing
Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA) 1.0 as a W3C
Recommendation..."
http://www.w3.org/2014/03/aria.html.en

What is WAI-ARIA, What Does It Do for Me, and What Not?
By Marco Zehe.
"...the first rule of using WAI-ARIA is: Don't use it unless you
absolutely have to! The less WAI-ARIA you have, and the more you can
count on using native HTML widgets, the better..."
http://www.marcozehe.de/2014/03/27/what-is-wai-aria-what-does-it-do-for-me-and-what-not/

Some Stuff that Doesn't Work Between the DOM and Shadow DOM
By Steve Faulkner.
"Been reading a few new articles on Web Components and accessibility,
which lead me to re-read an old post I wrote: Notes on Web Components
+ ARIA. I noted the demo was broken, presumably as the web component
syntax had changed since 2012. So I decided to make a few new
tests..."
http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2014/03/stuff-doesnt-work-dom-shadow-dom/

HTML5 - Determining which Validation Constraint Rule Wasn't Met
By Tiffany B. Brown.
"When working with custom error messages and HTML5 forms, it helps to
know which validation constraint rule was broken in order to provide a
helpful error message."
http://tiffanybbrown.com/2014/03/23/html5-determining-which-validation-constraint-rule-wasnt-met/

reduce() and array Indices
By Axel Rauschmayer.
"This blog post explains how the index works that
Array.prototype.reduce() passes to its callback..."
http://www.2ality.com/2014/03/reduce-index.html


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

Sharron Rush and Whitney Quesenbery - Accessibility Easy Checks
By Sean Carmichael.
"If you've just been put in charge of making a site or app works for
everyone, the most daunting step might just be the first one. Sure,
there are standards, but sometimes they raise more questions than they
answer. What you need is an easy way to get started. And Easy Checks
may be just what you need..."
http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2014/03/20/sharron-rush-and-whitney-quesenbery-accessibility-easy-checks/

Why RWD Looks Like RWD
By Tim Kadlec.
"This morning, Mark Boulton wondered aloud on Twitter about why
responsive design 'looks' like responsive design..."
http://timkadlec.com/2014/03/why-rwd-looks-like-rwd/

RWD and Design
By Susan Jean Robertson.
"...After reading Tim's piece I've been thinking for a bit about what
he said. Coming from the front end dev world, where I am taking the
design and making the responsivey good things happen, I've experienced
both good and bad in this process..."
http://susanjeanrobertson.com/geekery/rwd-and-design/

Responsive Design Sameness
By Stephen Hay.
""At the moment I can think of three things that I theorize might be
at least as important as workflow, in regards to RWD design
sameness..."
http://www.the-haystack.com/2014/03/21/responsive-design-sameness/


+09: TOOLS.

Update to WP Accessibility - longdesc
By Joe Doleson.
"Having just returned from the premiere conference on accessibility
and technology, it was inevitable that I would find myself brimming
with new ideas. This year, it started quite early, when John Foliot
caught me and told me he had something he'd like for me to do..."
https://www.joedolson.com/articles/2014/03/update-wp-accessibility-longdesc/


+10: USABILITY.

Responsive-Design Intranets with Smart Content Prioritization
By Kara Pernice.
"See how two winning intranets - triptic and Abt Associates - use
responsive design, prioritize their content aptly, and employ elegant
navigation to accommodate and optimize for multiple devices. "
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/responsive-design-intranets/

Break Grammar Rules on Websites for Clarity
By Hoa Loranger.
"Web writing differs from print writing to emphasize scannability.
Some grammar rules are worth breaking if they improve fast
comprehension."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/break-grammar-rules/

Beware of Feature Overload - A Case Study
By Bartosz Olchowka.
"According to an interesting psychological concept called the paradox
of choice, the more choices we have, the less happy we are with the
choices that we make. If we were to apply this concept to an
application user experience, it just might be that the more options a
product offers, the less satisfied users will be"
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/03/beware-of-feature-overload-a-case-study.php


[Section one ends.]


++ SECTION TWO:

+11: 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.]