[webdev] Web Design Update: February 23, 2015

Mon Feb 23 06:47:44 CST 2015

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 13, Issue 35, February 23, 2015.

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

++ISSUE 35 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: HTML5.
06: JAVASCRIPT.
07: TOOLS.
08: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Board Proposes Updated ICT Accessibility Requirements
By Access Board.
"The Board has released for public comment a proposed rule updating
accessibility requirements for information and communication
technology (ICT) in the federal sector covered by Section 508 of the
Rehabilitation Act. The rule also would jointly update guidelines for
telecommunications equipment subject to Section 255 of the
Communications Act..."
http://www.access-board.gov/news/1717-board-proposes-updated-ict-accessibility-requirements

Access to Visual Flexibilty Including Word Wrapping
By Wayne Dick.
"...So far the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines of 2008 (WCAG 2.0)
have been the biggest setback for people with low vision in this new
century. If replicated by the US Access Board this mistake will leave
people with low vision in the United States worse off then they were
with the current 508. Today, 508 (1194.22(d)) protects the right to
restyle content visually. This capability is explicitly missing from
WCAG 2.0..."
http://nosetothepage.org/Articles/A2.html

The 508 Refresh Low Vision TimeBomb
By Denis Boudreau.
"...If there are any doubts that the Refresh has really dropped the
ball on a user group as clearly and widely represented as the low
vision users group - and I believe it has, then it is our
responsibility, as that inclusive, caring accessibility community, to
do everything we can to either slow the process down, so we do come up
with proposals/techniques/ideas to fill the gaps or minimally, make
sure the shortcomings for the low vision community are somehow
addressed. It's not a question of talking out of both sides of our
mouths, it's simply a matter of being coherent and doing all we can to
cater to the needs of as many people as we can, because we happen to
claim that we care about everyone..."
http://www.denisboudreau.org/blog/2015/02/the-508-refresh-low-vision-time-bomb/

How Do I Know if My Web Project is Accessible?
By Michael Beil.
"Here's a list of the 16 questions that were proposed to help you
determine whether your web project is accessible..."
http://michaelbeil.com/a11y-web-project

Testing aria-describedby and aria-labelledby in Browsers and Screen Readers
By David MacDonald.
"Below are testing results of aria-labelledby and aria-describedby
with one AND two label references in popular browser and screen reader
combinations."
http://davidmacd.com/blog/is-tabindex-required-on-describedby.html

What is Accessibility?
By Dylan Barrell.
"Lately there seem to have been a lot of different posts exclaiming
'Accessibility is not X' or 'Accessibility is not Y' but not too many
helping to define what accessibility is. So what is accessibility? At
Deque we talk about 'Digital Equality' and obviously that is the goal
of accessibility, but how do we get there and what actions should we
take and which ones should we avoid?..."
http://unobfuscated.blogspot.com/2015/02/what-is-accessibility.html

An Uncomfortable Missing Part of the Accessibility Discussion
By Josh Korr.
"...Here is the obvious, but usually glossed over, truth about web
accessibility: Accessibility has a cost..."
http://viget.com/advance/an-uncomfortable-missing-part-of-the-accessibility-discussion

Access Optional
By Tim Kadlec.
"...The problem is not that there is a cost involved in building
something that works well in different contexts than our own. The
problem is that we're treating that as an option instead of a given
part of what it means to build for the web..."
http://timkadlec.com/2015/02/access-optional/

Examples of WCAG Level AAA Websites
By Luke McGrath.
"...I'd like to use this blog post to highlight some great examples of
Level AAA websites out in the wild, used by real visitors every single
day. If you know of a Level AAA website, leave a comment and I'll add
it to the list..."
https://www.wuhcag.com/wcag-level-aaa-websites/

Coles Web Accessibility Case Settled
By Tim Lohman.
"The case against grocery retailer Coles, for the alleged
inaccessibility of its online shopping service, has been settled..."
http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2015/02/coles-web-accessibility-case-settled

Social Networks and Accessibility - A Not So Sad Picture
By Marco Zehe.
"This post originally was written in December 2011 and had a slightly
different title. Fortunately, the landscape has changed dramatically
since then, so it is finally time to update it with more up to date
information..."
https://www.marcozehe.de/2015/02/21/social-networks-and-accessibility-a-rather-sad-picture/

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Accidental CSS Resets
By Chris Coyier.
"Any time you use a shorthand property in CSS, you set all the values
for all the properties it deals with. It's not a bug, it's just how
CSS works. I've seen it confuse people plenty of times. Let's shine a
light on the issue to hopefully make it more understood..."
http://css-tricks.com/accidental-css-resets

Why You Should Be Excited About CSS Shapes
By Chen Hui Jing.
"...The W3C spec is not that easy to understand, so here's my attempt
at explaining it in plain English...this is a feature that we should
all keep an eye on, and get ourselves ready for, because this could
potentially change the way we design websites altogether."
http://www.chenhuijing.com/blog/why-you-should-be-excited-about-css-shapes/

+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

How to Test the Usability of Prototypes Like a Pro
By Jerry Cao.
"Usability isn't something you just can cook up in any one phase of
design, but must be developed and refined throughout the entire
process. If you want the best end product, you have to anticipate real
user scenarios from the prototyping phase. Usability testing should be
the last place to start thinking about usability..."
http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2015/02/how-to-test-the-usability-of-prototypes-like-a-pro/

How to Weight Data to Make More Balanced Decisions
By Jeff Sauro.
"...A few things to remember about weighted data. While many variables
could affect our measures, participants' prior experience with a
product is one of the most salient. The weighted t-test is the
statistical test to re-balance your sample. The weighted t-test
adjusts means and standard deviations to generate p-values based on
the correct representation. Using the weighted statistical test versus
an unweighted statistical test doesn't necessarily yield different
conclusions. Have a good reason and actual data to support weighting
your sample."
http://www.measuringu.com/blog/weighted-experience.php

+04: EVENTS.

Global Accessibility Awareness Day
May 21, 2015.
Everywhere.
http://globalaccessibilityawarenessday.org/gaad.html

+05: HTML5.

Better SVG Fallback and Art Direction With The <picture> Element
By Sara Soueidan.
"Besides using an SVG as a background image in CSS, you can serve SVG
foreground images in HTML using one of several embedding techniques,
each of which has its advantages and use cases. Unless you're in need
of interactivity or external styling, <img> is the standard way for
loading an SVG image, but it has one disadvantage: you currently need
JavaScript to provide fallback and/or change the image source for art
direction. In this post, I'll talk about a better way to do that,
using the <picture> element..."
http://sarasoueidan.com/blog/svg-picture/

+06: JAVASCRIPT.

Progressive Enhancement is Not About JavaScript Availability
By Christian Heilmann.
"I have been telling people for years that in order to create great
web experiences and keep your sanity as a developer you should embrace
Progressive Enhancement..."
http://christianheilmann.com/2015/02/18/progressive-enhancement-is-not-about-javascript-availability/

A 90 Minute Overview of ECMAScript 6 (Video)
By Axel Rauschmayer.
"On February 1, 2015, I held the 90 minute talk 'Using ECMAScript 6
today' at the Rolling Scopes Conference in Minsk. A video recording of
that talk is online..."
http://www.2ality.com/2015/02/using-es6-today-minsk.html

Terrible JavaScript Mistakes to Avoid with a Static Code Analyzer
By Zack Grossbart.
"Hardly any line of my code comes out perfect the first time I write
it. Well, most of the time... Some of the time... Um, hardly ever. The
truth is that I spend more time chasing down my own stupid programming
errors than I'd like to admit. That's why I use static analyzers in
every JavaScript file I write..."
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/02/18/avoid-javascript-mistakes-with-static-code-analyzer/

+07: TOOLS.

Accessibility Inspection Features for Chrome Devtools
By Alice Boxhall .
"Developers working on web applications have an excellent and
comprehensive set of tools in Chrome DevTools for a wide range of
tasks including inspecting the DOM, visualising and live-editing CSS,
examining performance issues with the page, debugging and editing
their JavaScript, exploring and interacting with local storage, and
more. However, the devtools suite offers almost no assistance with
accessibility-related issues. We have an opportunity to allow
developers to explore, find and fix potential accessibility issues
with their page just as they do with performance problems, JavaScript
bugs or CSS quirks..."
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bj9Dc3_DnezF-IeNg51LEG2zfGtxD3YKP5t7SBB_-Dk/

+08: USABILITY.

White Space
By Isabella Morris.
"...As a commonly-overlooked and underutilized element, white space is
indeed one of the most valuable assets of a web design..."
http://usabilitygeek.com/white-spaces-improving-usability-web-designs/

The Best Interface Is No Interface - An Interview with Golden Krishna
By Golden Krishna.
"User Experience Designer Golden Krishna talks to Peachpit about his
new book, The Best Interface Is No Interface: The simple path to
brilliant technology, why the screen isn't always the best answer,
imagining more elegant answers beyond the screen, and the best and
worst examples of user interfaces."
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=2314085&WT

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+09: 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.

+ SUBSCRIPTION INFO.

WEB DESIGN UPDATE is available by subscription. For information on how
to subscribe and unsubscribe please visit:
http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/webdev_listserv.html
The Web Design Reference Site also has a RSS 2.0 feed for site updates.

+ TEXT EMAIL NEWSLETTER (TEN).

As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to
the accessible Text Email Newsletter (TEN) guidelines.  Please let me
know if there is anything else we can do to make navigation easier.
For TEN guideline information please visit:
http://www.headstar.com/ten

+ 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.]