[webdev] Web Design Update: January 29, 2015

Thu Jan 29 06:01:45 CST 2015

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 13, Issue 31, January 29, 2015.

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

++ISSUE 31 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: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
10: TOOLS.
11: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

When Can a Web Author Use Null alt Text alt="" to Make an Image Conform to WCAG?
By David MacDonald.
"...Most experts in the field identify a grey zone in the
interpretation of pure decoration. Think of it as a continuum: 1.) If
it's a gradient image or spacer image etc., all agree it needs alt="".
2.) If it's a picture that has a purpose, information or function then
it needs descriptive alt text. 3.) If it is a photo of some thing for
ambience or eye candy, then it is in the grey zone and can have
alt="". However, a short alt description is preferable to most screen
reader users..."
http://davidmacd.com/blog/what-is-pure-decoration-alt-text-in-wcag.html

Nine Common Accessibility Issues Affecting Websites
By Tim Lohman.
"Access iQ has trawled through its growing list of website
accessibility audits to bring you nine of the most common issues we
uncover..."
http://www.accessiq.org/news/features/2015/01/nine-common-accessibility-issues-affecting-websites

2.3.1 Three Flashes or Below Threshold
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"People who suffer from photosensitive seizure disorders, more
specifically those who have photosensitive epilepsy induce seizures
when a flash appear on the screen. The flash effect is observed
significantly high in people who use screen magnifiers to read the
content of the page and those who have problems such as tunnel
vision..."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/01/2-3-1-three-flashes-threshold/

Justice Department Settlement Requires the Museum of Crime and
Punishment to Make Website, Facilities, and Tours Accessible
By Minh Vu and Kylie Byron.
"The Department of Justice (DOJ) is continuing to pressure businesses
to make their websites accessible even while it is drafting proposed
regulations for websites that are supposedly coming out this June. The
latest business targeted by DOJ is the National Museum of Crime and
Punishment, which entered into a settlement agreement that was
announced on Tuesday, January 13, 2015..."
http://www.adatitleiii.com/2015/01/justice-department-settlement-requires-the-museum-of-crime-punishment-to-make-website-facilities-and-tours-accessible/

The Browser Accessibility Tree
By Steve Faulkner.
"The accessibility tree and the DOM tree are parallel structures.
Roughly speaking the accessibility tree is a subset of the DOM
tree..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2015/01/the-browser-accessibility-tree/

How Accessible is the Internet?
By S.E. Smith.
"We took a look at some of the most highly trafficked news sites on
the Web over the week of Jan. 8. Starting with the Web Accessibility
Evaluation Tool (WAVE), we assessed the main page of each site to
determine if it met the basic standards of accessibility-compliant
coding...We also evaluated sites visually: Was there a risk that
content would be difficult for colorblind people to read? Did it
include the dreaded carousel, which is a particular problem for
screenreader and keyboard users who can't see carousel interfaces, and
thus can't use them to navigate off the main page and onto the stories
they link to?...Your favorite website probably flunked this test..."
http://kernelmag.dailydot.com/issue-sections/headline-story/11421/disability-web-accessibility-design/

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Updated Off Screen Techniques
By Dylan Barrell.
"The HTML Working group has recently deprecated the clip CSS property
in favor of the more useful clip-path property. This means that our
favorite offscreen technique that works well for RTL languages and
mobile devices, and introduced by snook.ca must be updated..."
http://unobfuscated.blogspot.com/2015/01/updated-offscreen-techniques.html

Center and Crop Images with a Single Line of CSS Using object-fit: cover
By Chris Nager.
"It's simple. Set your image crop dimensions and use this line in your CSS..."
https://medium.com/@chrisnager/center-and-crop-images-with-a-single-line-of-css-ad140d5b4a87

+03: COLOR.

A Designer's Guide to Colour and Accessibility
By Dennis Gaebel.
"Around one in 10 of your site's male visitors are colour blind.
Dennis Gaebel explains how to make your designs accessible for
them..."
http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/designers-guide-colour-and-accessibility-11513946

+04: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Selecting the Right UX Research Method
By Juliet Richardson.
"The other day a colleague asked, 'what is the difference between
qualitative and quantitative user research?'. This is typically
answered by saying that one gives you numbers; the other gives you
more in-depth insight. It sparked a bit of a debate. Is it that easy,
and is that the whole story?..."
http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2015/selecting-right-ux-research-method

+05: EVENTS.

Accessibility Camp Bay Area
February 28, 2015.
Mountain View, California, U.S.A.
http://www.accessibilitycampbay.org/

edUi
November 9-11, 2015.
Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A.
http://eduiconf.org/

+06: HTML5.

YouTube Now Defaults to HTML5 <video>
By Richard Leider.
"...Given the progress we've made with HTML5 <video>, we're now
defaulting to the HTML5 player on the web. We're also deprecating the
"old style" of Flash <object> embeds and our Flash API. We encourage
all embedders to use the <iframe> API, which can intelligently use
whichever technology the client supports..."
http://youtube-eng.blogspot.com/2015/01/youtube-now-defaults-to-html5_27.html

+07: JAVASCRIPT.

ARIA-invalid (state)
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"WCAG 22.0 SC 3.3.1 Error Identification says, if an input error is
automatically detected, the item that is in error is identified and
the error is described to the user in text..."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/01/aria-invalid-state/

Destructuring and Parameter Handling in ECMAScript 6
By Axel Rauschmayer.
"ECMAScript 6 (ES6) supports destructuring, a convenient way to
extract values from data stored in (possibly nested) objects and
arrays. This blog post describes how it works and gives examples of
its usefulness. Additionally, parameter handling receives a
significant upgrade in ES6: it becomes similar to and supports
destructuring, which is why it is explained here, too"
http://www.2ality.com/2015/01/es6-destructuring.html

Angular Accessibility Issues - Focus Management
By Dylan Barrell.
"..The new MV* frameworks like Ember, Angular, Backbone all share a
common goal - to make it easier for developers to create dynamic
single page applications. They also all share the same accessibility
challenges. Yes, some of these accessibility challenges are the
same-ol, same-ol ones - basic accessible markup and keyboard foo. But
some are actually unique to the nature of MV* frameworks. One of the
problems that is unique to declarative, data binding frameworks like
Angular.js is focus management..."
http://unobfuscated.blogspot.com/2015/01/angular-accessibility-issues-focus.html

+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

Your App Makes Me Fat
By Kathy Sierra.
"...Willpower and cognitive processing draw from the same pool of
resources. Spend hours at work on a tricky design problem? You're more
likely to stop at Burger King on the drive home. Hold back from saying
what you really think during one of those long-ass, painful meetings?
You'll struggle with the code you write later that day. Since both
willpower/self-control and cognitive tasks drain the same tank,
deplete it over here, pay the price over there. One pool.  One pool of
scarce, precious, easily-depleted resources. If you spend the day
exercising self-control (angry customers, clueless co-workers), by the
time you get home your cog resource tank is flashing E..."
http://seriouspony.com/blog/2013/7/24/your-app-makes-me-fat

+09: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

All of This Has Happened Before and Will Happen Again
By Adrian Roselli.
"... How did we get into that mess? By people coding for one rendering
engine. Everyone who calls for WebKit in Internet Explorer is exactly
the same kind of developer who would have coded to Internet Explorer
15 years ago (and probably happily displayed the "best viewed in"
badge). If you are that developer, then it will all be your fault when
it happens again. When WebKit is no longer the hot engine. When Chrome
loses its dominance. When Apple's market share falls to match the
developing world. You will be to blame..."
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2015/01/all-of-this-has-happened-before-and.html

Tour of the Sausage Factory (Video)
By Bruce Lawson.
"Bruce's NLHTML5 presentation. A story on how standards get made..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXAzctXGEeg

Make Forks Not War (Video)
By Robin Berjon.
Robin's NLHTML5 presentation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpCaWhvlnnQ

+10: TOOLS.

CSS Bookmarklets for Testing and Fixing
By Adrian Roselli.
"I regularly have to test sites in development, review some
third-party site, or just use a site in my day-to-day time wasting
(and banking) rituals. I've relied on viewing the page's source or
popping into my browser's dev tools to find a missing element, copy
un-transformed text, check for inline styles, and so on. Typically I
am relying on CSS and not JavaScript, as that is where I excel..."
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2015/01/css-bookmarklets-for-testing-and-fixing.html

+11: USABILITY.

Showing Passwords on Log-In Screens
By Luke Wroblewski.
"Password setting was on, 100% of participants noticed the checkbox
and interpreted the clear text password as a feature."
http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1941

Pair Writing - A Revolution in Content Creation
By Gerry McGovern.
"There is an accepted wisdom that content creation must be a solitary
activity if you want quality and creativity. But this is a consequence
of the content tools (pens, typewriters) that have been available. As
collaborative, network-oriented content tools emerge, we will see a
lot more collaboratively created content..."
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/pair-writing-revolution-content-creation

An FAQ's User Experience Deconstructed
By Susan Farrell.
"Good FAQ pages use legible typography, chunking, appropriate spacing,
easy navigation to individual questions, and reflect the current
questions of the site users."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/faq-ux-deconstructed/

Tablet UX Research From the Pioneer Days
By Jakob Nielsen.
"The PenPoint tablet was ahead of its time and too expensive and
heavy, but had gestural syntax and personal-productivity benefits that
we can still learn from."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/legacy-tablet-ux/

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+12: 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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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.]