[webdev] Web Design Update: April 24, 2014

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Thu May 1 06:12:37 CDT 2014 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 12, Issue 45, May 1, 2014.

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

++ISSUE 45 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: COLOR.
04: DRUPAL.
05: EVALUATION & TESTING.
06: EVENTS.
07: HTML5
08: JAVASCRIPT.
09: MISCELLANEOUS.
10: NAVIGATION.
11: TOOLS.
12: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Guide to Creating Accessible Electronic Materials (PDF)
By George Mason University.
"The Assistive Technology Initiative (ATI) at George Mason University
designed this user manual to provide information and guidance
for the creation and testing of e-learning materials (i.e., documents,
websites, and videos), including step-by-step procedures for
access and use..."
http://ati.gmu.edu/upload/PDF-Guide_Final_upd030314.pdf

When is an Image 'Purely Decorative'?
By Dey Alexander.
"In this article, we discuss some examples of images that divide
opinion and argue that blank text alternatives are usually best..."
http://www.4syllables.com.au/2014/04/decorative-images/

Video Captions Improve Comprehension, Professor Finds
By Eurek Alert.
"A simple change -- switching on captions -- can make a big difference
when students watch educational videos, an SF State professor has
discovered..."
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/sfsu-vci101113.php

Captions Improve Learning - Study
By Jonathan Morales.
A case study conducted at San Francisco State University has found
that student test scores and levels of comprehension improve when
captions are turned on in university classrooms.
http://m.mediaaccess.org.au/latest_news/captions/captions-improve-learning-study

Don't Write for Professors (or, How Educated are Your Users?)
By Luke McGrath.
"The key is to write a simply as you can, that way the majority of
your users will stay with you..."
http://www.wuhcag.com/reading-level/

2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"'If keyboard focus can be moved to a component of the page using a
keyboard interface, then focus can be moved away from that component
using only a keyboard interface, and, if it requires more than
unmodified arrow or tab keys or other standard exit methods, the user
is advised of the method for moving focus away. (Level A)...'"
http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/04/2-1-2-no-keyboard-trap/

Explain all Abbreviations to Your Users
By Luke McGrath.
"Some of your users need help understanding your content. Using
abbreviations can cause confusion and prevent your users from using
your website. Avoid using abbreviations where you can and explain them
when you need to use them..."
http://www.wuhcag.com/abbreviations/

Practice What You Preach - Federal Agency Hit With Class Action Web Access Suit
By Kristina M. Launey and Minh N. Vu.
"he American Council of the Blind and three individuals filed suit in
the US District Court for the District of Columbia against the United
States General Services Administration, alleging GSA's own website,
SAM.gov, is inaccessible and does not comply with Section 504, leaving
certain blind and visually impaired government contractors unable to
register or timely renew their government contracts..."
http://www.adatitleiii.com/2014/04/practice-what-you-preach-federal-agency-hit-with-class-action-web-access-suit/

Skipping Heading Levels - Accessibility Considerations
By Duff Johnson.
"The PWS article, PDF/UA and Skipped Headings, critiques the
above-quoted provision in PDF/UA. The article presents the position
that it was wrong for PDF/UA to exclude skipping heading levels from
the PDF accessibility standard, and includes five arguments and five
examples to make its case..."
http://duff-johnson.com/articles/the-argument-for-skipping-heading-levels/

Emotions and Web Accessibility
By Derek Featherstone.
"There's an emotional aspect to accessibility that makes it difficult
to determine exactly how we should design for a particular persona."
http://simplyaccessible.com/article/emotions/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

CSS Shapes 101
By Sara Soueidan.
"The new CSS Shapes specification has the pottential to change the way
you think about arranging content on a webpage. (Hint: think outside
the rectangles!) Sara Soueidan walks us though the different ways to
use this property, with results ranging from simple elegance to
eye-popping."
http://alistapart.com/article/css-shapes-101

CSS3 Buttons with Gradient Stroke
By Jonathan Christopher.
"I style a lot of buttons, but a classic treatment I find myself
needing to implement is one with a gradient background and subtle
gradient stroke along the edges. Over time my solutions began with
multiple elements and specific CSS for each. It got the job done but
it was clearly bloated. CSS3 changes so much of our lives, and it
applies here too. I'm leaving this here for a number of reasons:
posterity, reference, and hopefully having it help other developers
cleanly implement a streamlined button with minimal markup.."
http://mondaybynoon.com/css3-buttons-gradient-stroke/

Incomplete List of Mistakes in the Design of CSS
By W3C CSS Working Goup.
http://css-tricks.com/incomplete-list-mistakes-design-css/


+03: COLOR.

Importance of Color Accessibility
By Greg Kraus and Wayne Dick.
Presentation materials from Greg and Wayne's April 24 EASI Webinar are
available.
http://easi.cc/archive/color2014/resources.htm


+04: DRUPAL.

Sharing Templates Between Multiple Drupal Views
By Jeremy Epstein.
"Do you have multiple views on your Drupal site, where the content
listing is themed to look exactly the same? For example, say you have
a custom 'search this site' view, a "featured articles' view, and an
'articles archive' view. They all show the same fields - for example,
'title', 'image', and 'summary'. They all show the same content types
- except that the first one shows 'news' or 'page' content, whereas
the others only show 'news'..."
http://greenash.net.au/thoughts/2014/04/sharing-templates-between-multiple-drupal-views/

How to Remove Core and Module CSS from a Drupal 7 Theme
By John Hannah.
"In the post on base themes that I wrote earlier this week, I pointed
out that core adds a lot of CSS to your site that you may not want. If
you find yourself overriding this CSS in your themes, you definitely
have some bloat that you could trim down. You also run into this issue
quite a bit with contributed modules. Views, Flexslider and Superfish
are modules that typically add a lot of CSS I don't want..."
http://friendlymachine.net/posts/how-remove-core-and-module-css-drupal-7-theme


+05: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Why I'm Still In Love With User Testing
By Susan Weinschenk.
"I've been doing user testing for (I'm afraid to admit) decades. And I
still love it. It's a great way to get feedback from people about how
effective your design, your product, your assumptions are..."
http://www.blog.theteamw.com/2014/04/23/why-im-still-in-love-with-user-testing/

5 Questions to Answer Before Measuring Anything
By Jeff Sauro.
"Before measuring anything, especially a construct that's not well
defined or used in practice, we answer these five questions..."
http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/five-answers.php


+06: EVENTS.

ADA In Higher Education - What Students and Administrators Need to Know
June 11, 2014.
Online.
http://adata.org/event/ada-higher-education-what-students-and-administrators-need-know

WebAIM Web Accessibility Training
August 12-13, 2014.
Logan, Utah U.S.A.
http://webaim.org/training/


+07: HTML5

HTML5 Accessibility
By Steve Faulkner.
Steve's Presentation at the Paris Web conference.
http://vimeo.com/77860167


+08: JAVASCRIPT.

Labelmask
By Brad Frost.
"Labelmask is a way to create accessible input hinting without using
input masks."
http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/post/labelmask/

2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"'If keyboard focus can be moved to a component of the page using a
keyboard interface, then focus can be moved away from that component
using only a keyboard interface, and, if it requires more than
unmodified arrow or tab keys or other standard exit methods, the user
is advised of the method for moving focus away. (Level A)...'"
http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/04/2-1-2-no-keyboard-trap/

You Have Ruined JavaScript
By Rob Ashton.
"In the old days we had some really awful JS being written on pages in
a pretty ad-hoc fashion and it caused us huge problems..."
http://codeofrob.com/entries/you-have-ruined-javascript.html


+09: MISCELLANEOUS.

Nicole Sullivan on the Value of Optimising Code
By Martin Cooper.
"The creator of Object-Oriented CSS tells Martin Cooper why bubblegum,
carpentry and pianos hold lessons for performance-conscious coders..."
http://www.creativebloq.com/netmag/nicole-sullivan-value-optimising-code-41411428


+10: NAVIGATION.

Beware Horizontal Scrolling and Mimicking Swipe on Desktop
By Katie Sherwin.
"Even as more sites mimic swiping gestures and incorporate horizontal
scrolling in desktop designs, users remain reluctant to move sideways
through content..."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/horizontal-scrolling/


+11: TOOLS.

Tanaguru Contrast-Finder
"Tanaguru Contrast-Finder finds correct color contrasts for web
accessibility..."
http://contrast-finder.tanaguru.com/

Sizer Soze
By Yoav Weiss et al.
"What is the cost of your non-responsive images?"
http://sizersoze.org/


+12: USABILITY.

Stop Wasting Users' Time
By Paul Boag.
"...People hate to have their time wasted, especially online. We spend
so much of our time online these days, and every interaction demands a
slice of our time. One minor inconvenience on a website might not be
much, but, accumulated, it is death by a thousand cuts..."
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/04/25/stop-wasting-users-time/

The Ideal Length of Everything Online, Backed by Research
By Kevan Lee.
"...Solid research exists to show the value of writing, tweeting, and
posting at certain lengths. We can learn a lot from scientific social
media guidelines like these. Here's the best of what I found..."
http://blog.bufferapp.com/the-ideal-length-of-everything-online-according-to-science

The Web Is A Rectangle
By Steven Bradley.
"Have you ever noticed how many websites look the same? How many are
just a bunch of rectangles? How many seem to copy from one another?
Where's the uniqueness and creativity?..."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/rectangular-web/

Why Users Aren't Clicking Your Home Page Carousel
By Anthony.
"A website study found that out of 3 million home page visits only
about 1% clicked a carousel slide. How could a large, graphical
element on the home page get such few clicks? The reason most
carousels do poorly might surprise you."
http://uxmovement.com/navigation/why-users-arent-clicking-your-home-page-carousel/

And They All Look Just the Same
By Greg Storey.
"Let me reiterate that Jason's business savvy is keen. Business
owners, marketing managers, creative directors, and designers should
all consider this statement regarding their own digital properties or
the ones they are in care of: 'Too many companies look the same-all
style and not enough substance.'"
http://cognition.happycog.com/article/and-they-all-look-just-the-same


[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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