[webdev] Web Design Update: December 12, 2014

Fri Dec 12 06:43:13 CST 2014

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 13, Issue 24, December 12, 2014.

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: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.
03: COLOR.
04: EVALUATION & TESTING.
05: EVENTS.
06: HTML5.
07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.
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.

Takeaways From Mobile Accessibility 101
By Deborah Edwards-Onoro.
"At yesterday's 'Mobile Accessibility 101' webinar, Deque Systems
Accessibilty Evangelist Paul Adam discussed mobile assistive
technology, top mobile accessibility issues, shared tips on how to
avoid creating accessibility barriers, and demonstrated how to test
with VoiceOver (iOS) and TalkBack (Android) screen readers. Here are
some of my takeaways from the webinar..."
http://www.lireo.com/takeaways-from-mobile-accessibility-101/

WCAG 2.0 Tutorial
By Olga Revilla.
"On December 11th, 2008 the W3C WAI released the WCAG 2.0, a new way
to get accessible web pages for everyone. This site shows what they
are and how to accomplish them..."
http://www.oneguidelineaday.com/

Accessibility Teaching Materials
By Virginia DeBolt.
"I prepared a booklet (PDF) of materials that I use to teach a short
class in web accessibility. There really isn't a great resource for a
class in web accessibility that covers the basics in just a few hours.
I took some of my handouts and made such a resource for you..."
http://www.webteacher.ws/2014/12/10/accessibility-teaching-materials/

HTML5 Image Description Extension (longdesc) is a Proposed Recommendation
By Shawn Henry.
"The HTML5 Image Description Extension (longdesc) has been published
as a Proposed Recommendation at: http://www.w3.org/TR/html-longdesc
This specification ("HTML5-longdesc") enables web authors to provide
longer textual descriptions for complex images. HTML5-longdesc is an
extension specification that is part of the HTML5 family of
specifications. HTML5-longdesc is part of W3C's work to ensure that
the Open Web Platform is accessible to people with disabilities..."
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2014OctDec/0196.html

ReCAPTCHA Reboot
By Adrian Roselli.
"If you've got any stake in the wonderful world of spam bots, then
you've probably heard about Google's CAPTCHA update, the No CAPTCHA
reCAPTCHA. Essentially a user need only check a box and Google's
ground-up pixie dust automagically knows whether or not to believe
you. A video overview of the update.."
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2014/12/recaptcha-reboot.html

PDF Accessibility Update from Australian Government
By Digital Access.
"Here's a summary of the key outcomes: The desktop environment now
provides sufficient support for PDF. The mobile environment provides
insufficient support for PDF to claim WCAG 2.0 conformance.  Ideally,
Agencies should publish documents in HTML, with an accessible PDF
optionally provided..."
http://www.visionaustralia.org/living-with-low-vision/learning-to-live-independently/using-technology-and-computers/blog---accessibility-and-assistive-technology-blog/blog/accessibility-blog/2014/12/10/pdf-accessibility-update-from-australian-government#vaContent

Learning to be Accessible
By Susan Robertson.
"I'm trying to be learn more about accessibility these days. Thinking
about it more, reading about it some, and generally being aware as I
write code what I should and shouldn't do in that arena..."
http://alistapart.com/blog/post/learning-to-be-accessible

The Viking and the Lumberjack Go Looking for the 508 Refresh
By Steve Faulkner.
"The ham-fisted Accessibility Power Duo are back in another episode of
the Viking and the Lumberjack. This time they go off in search of the
legendary 508 Refresh."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/12/the-viking-and-the-lumberjack-go-looking-for-the-508-refresh/

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Pop Out The Table
By Karl Dubost.
"The CSS table display Web design pattern emerged among Web designers.
CSS table display is very well supported across browsers. It gave the
ability to use HTML table semantics but keeping the table layout
properties...But it also creates Web compatibility issues when
combined with max-width: 100%..."
http://www.otsukare.info/2014/12/10/table-layout-fixed

+03: COLOR.

Why Luminance Is the Key Component of Color
By Steven Bradley.
"In his book Interaction of Color, Joseph Albers tells us that color
is almost never seen exactly as it physically is. All color judgements
are relative. How a color appears is affected by the colors of the
objects around it..."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/color-luminance/

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Usability vs. A/B testing - Which One Should You Use?
By Arijit Banerjee.
"These days, I see a lot of people arguing over the type of testing
procedures they should follow - Usability testing or A/B testing.
Honestly, I find this argument quite vague. In fact, it's not an
argument at all, because, they serve completely different purposes.
We need to clearly understand which one is required when.  Let's begin
by diving into what is what and when you should go for them..."
http://www.loop11.com/usability-vs-ab-testing-which-one-should-you-use/

Usability Testing Tools Poll Results Tell an Interesting Story
By Craig Tomlin.
"The Usability testing tools poll results are coming in for the
question, 'What usability testing tools do you use?' Here's the story
that the results to date are telling..."
http://www.usefulusability.com/usability-testing-tools-poll-results/

Guide to Usability Testing
By Paul Andrew.
"The biggest challenge designers and product managers face isn't how
the market or different technologies work - it's how humans work. What
users say versus what users do are two completely different things,
and the only way to verify is to test..."
http://speckyboy.com/2014/12/03/free-ebook-guide-usability-testing/

+05: EVENTS.

How an Accessibility Strategy Can Unlock the Power of Academic Video
December 16, 2014.
Webinar.
http://www.sonicfoundry.com/webcast/live-webinar-how-accessibility-strategy-can-unlock-power-academic-video

+06: HTML5.

Defining Multiple Captions and Alt Text for Responsive Images
By Ian Devlin.
"With the welcome rise of the <picture> element and srcset attribute,
we now have control over what images are loaded when, allowing us to
make our images more responsive, and even to change the image entirely
based on screen size. Of course showing a different image in this case
is not recommended, but it is possible that you might want to change
the focal point of the image, showing less of a larger image, and
highlighting a particular object or person within it. This is all well
and good, but what about the image's caption or alt text? How can we
provide different captions or alt text per image, should the need
arise?"
http://www.iandevlin.com/blog/2014/12/html5/defining-multiple-captions-and-alt-text-for-responsive-images

HTML5 - Check it Before you Wreck it with Mike[tm] Smith
By Steve Faulkner.
"The W3C's Mike[tm] Smith (AKA @sideshowbarker) is the man with his
head in the W3C validation markup checking tool source code; he makes
the magic happen. Questions were asked for the HTML5 Doctor reader's
delight and edification..."
http://html5doctor.com/html5-check-it-before-you-wreck-it-with-miketm-smith/

Responsible Web Components
By Jeremy Keith.
"Bruce has written a great article called On the accessibility of web
components. Again. In it, he takes issue with the tone of a recent
presentation on web components, wherein Dimitri Glazkov declares..."
https://adactio.com/journal/7967

HTML5 Differences from HTML4
By Simon Pieters, Editor.
"This document covers the W3C HTML5 specification..."
http://www.w3.org/TR/html5-diff/

+07: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE.

Revisiting the Pile-Sort Method of User Research
By Hang Guo, Khasfariyati Razikin, and Muhammad Hatib.
"The UX community has a long acquaintance with the pile-sort method of
user research. In this article, we'll revisit the origin of the
pile-sort method in anthropology and provide an account of how we used
this method to understand user task flows. We'll also introduce an
extension to the pile-sort method that helped us to collect user data
more effectively while working in an agile software-development
environment. Finally, we'll discuss the analytical method that we used
to process our study results: factor analysis."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/12/revisiting-the-pile-sort-method-of-user-research.php

If You Think Paper Prototyping is a Waste of Time, You're Doing it Wrong.
By Ashlea McKay.
"A former colleague of mine showed me an article that compared paper
prototyping to macaroni artwork commonly found at your local
preschool..."
http://uxmas.com/2014/if-you-think-paper-prototyping-is-a-waste-of-time

+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

Responsive Enhancement
By Jeremy Keith.
"24 ways has been going strong for ten years. That's an aeon in
internet timescales. Just think of all the changes we've seen in that
time: the rise of Ajax, the explosion of mobile devices, the
unrecognisably changed landscape of front-end tooling..."
http://24ways.org/2014/responsive-enhancement/

Websites of Christmas Past, Present and Future
By Josh Emerson.
"The first website was created at CERN. It was launched on 20 December
1990 (just in time for Christmas!), and it still works today, after
twenty-four years. Isn't that incredible..."
http://24ways.org/2014/websites-of-christmas-past-present-and-future/

Don't Push Through the Pain
By Carolyn Wood.
"Carolyn Wood reminds us of what in recent years we've come to
overlook, hunched as we are over laptop and tablet: our physical
wellbeing. Sometimes, that tingle down your arm from shoulder to
fingers isn't Christmas magic."
http://24ways.org/2014/dont-push-through-the-pain/

+09: TOOLS.

Long Descriptions in Context Menu
By Google.
This is an official longdesc extension for Chrome. "The HTML standard
allows images to have a link to an additional file with a long
description with the 'longdesc' attribute. In addition there's a
proposed new ARIA attribute 'aria-describedat' that's similar.
Normally these attributes are only exposed to users who have screen
readers or other assistive technology installed that knows to look for
these. This extension puts an item in the context menu so you can
right-click on any element on the page and open its long description.
It also gives you the option of adding a colored border to images with
a long description so you know when one is available..."
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/long-descriptions-in-cont/ohbmencljkleiedahijfkagnmmhbilgp

Tell Me More longdesc Chromium Extension
By Charles McCathie Nevile.
Chaals has made his longdesc chromium extension code available on github.
https://github.com/chaals/tellmemore/

AInspector Sidebar FireFox Extension
By Nicholas Hoyt.
"AInspector Sidebar evaluates the accessibility compliance of web
pages based on WCAG 2.0 requirements using OpenAjax Alliance rulesets.
It organizes the evaluation results by Rule Categories and WCAG
Guidelines."
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ainspector-sidebar/

+10: USABILITY.

Task-Driven User Interfaces
By Oleksandr Sukholeyster.
"The user experiences of enterprise applications do have direct impact
on an organization's performance. When the applications that an
enterprise employs provide better user experiences and usability, its
people are more efficient and productive..."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/12/task-driven-user-interfaces.php

Organizational Ego is Eating Trust
By Gerry McGovern.
"The world has changed but many organizations are still stuck in a
medieval mind-set. Their egocentric websites are advertisements for
why they don't deserve to be trusted. Taming the ego is the first step
in rebuilding trust..."
http://gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/organizational-ego-eating-trust

Redesigning Your Website? Don't Ditch Your Old Design So Soon
By Hoa Loranger.
"Testing your site's existing design along with a few competitor
websites provides valuable insight for new designs. Competitive
studies help you avoid developing unusable new features."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/redesign-competitive-testing/

About that C Word...
By Ruth Ellison.
"Doug Bowman summarises the compromising challenge nicely: 'Someone
recently put it to me that all design is a series of compromises; but
good design finds the right ones.'"
http://uxmas.com/2014/about-that-c-word

[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

Drupal Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/drupal.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

HTML Information.
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/html.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.]