[webdev] Web Design Update: February 26, 2015

Thu Feb 26 06:14:02 CST 2015

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 13, Issue 36, February 26, 2015.

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

++ISSUE 36 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: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
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.

The Unbearable Inaccessibility of Slideshows
By Gian Wild.
"Slideshow. Slider. Carousel. Whatever you call them, they're
ubiquitous on organizational home pages across the web. And almost all
of them are inaccessible..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/unbearable-accessible-slideshow/

Accessible Charts and Information Graphics
By Tim Lohman.
"Fred Esch, Accessibility Lead, Watson Innovations IBM, on the access
challenges associated with charts and other information graphics, and
approaches to addressing them..."
http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2015/02/accessible-charts-and-information-graphics

Capturing and Captioning a Screen Reader Demo
By Becky Gibson.
"Here are the steps I used to create and caption my demo. It is much
easier said than done but the process is getting easier..."
http://www.weba11y.com/blog/2015/02/24/capturing-and-captioning-a-screen-reader-demo/

aria-label (Property)
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"Aria-label (property) aria-label is used for the objects where users
need to know the action associated with them..."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/02/aria-label-property/

Accessibility Originates With UX - A BBC iPlayer Case Study
By Henny Swan.
"Not long after I started working at the BBC, I fielded a complaint
from a screen reader user who was having trouble finding a favorite
show via the BBC iPlayer's home page. The website had recently
undergone an independent accessibility audit which indicated that,
other than the odd minor issue here and there, it was reasonably
accessible..."
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/02/23/bbc-iplayer-accessibility-case-study/

Regulations on the Universal Design of ICT
By uu.difi.no.
"This website provides information about § 14 in the
Anti-Discrimination and Accessibility Act and the regulations that
legislate the universal design of information and communication
technology (ICT) in Norway..."
http://uu.difi.no/english

Proposed Accessibility Standards for Federal Government Websites
Highlights Double Standard Justice Department Seeks to Impose on
Public Accommodations
By Minh Vu and Kristina Launey.
"On February 18, 2015, the U.S. Architectural and Transportation
Barriers Compliance Board ('Access Board') issued a proposed rule
('NPRM') which would, among other things, adopt the WCAG 2.0 Level AA
Guidelines ('WCAG 2.0 Level AA') as the standard for federal
government websites. "
http://www.adatitleiii.com/2015/02/proposed-accessibility-standards-for-federal-government-websites-highlights-double-standard-justice-department-seeks-to-impose-on-public-accommodations/

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Selector Specificity with CSS Preprocessors
By Alexander Futekov.
"Selector specificity is a real problem for most medium and
large-sized projects, and as any other frequently recurring coding
problem it needs to be addressed carefully..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/selector-specificity-css-preprocessors/

+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Practical Tips for Web and Mobile Usability Tests
By Jerry Cao.
"...While most usability testing methods described in The Guide to
Usability Testing apply to Web and mobile, we want to describe some of
the nuances specific to each medium. Actually, most usability testing
methods can be run any product from cloud payment systems to
next-generation gaming consoles. In this piece, we want to narrow our
focus a little so you can best understand how the fundamental
differences between how Web and mobile are used require different
tactics..."
http://thenextweb.com/dd/2015/01/04/practical-tips-web-mobile-usability-tests/

How to Test The Prototype of Usability as a Professional
By Webzin.
"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.webzin.in/test-usability-prototypes-like-pro.html

+04: EVENTS.

Remotely Possible Webinar Series
February 25, March 18, April 1, April 22, April 29, and May 13, 2015.
Online
http://www.usertesting.com/resources/remotely-possible

+05: HTML5.

Aural UI of the Elements of HTML
By Steve Faulkner and Leonie Watson.
"...Typical support patterns of HTML elements by screen readers..."
http://thepaciellogroup.github.io/AT-browser-tests/

HTML5 Structural Elements-Sectioning Elements
By Steven Bradley.
"Are you using any of the new HTML5 structural elements in your work?
Have you replaced div class='nav' with the nav element? Do you know
when to use elements like article, section, and aside?"
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/html5-sectioning-elements/

+06: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Pointer Events Advance to W3C Recommendation
By Patrick H. Lauke.
"As a member of the Pointer Events Working Group, I am delighted to
see that today Pointer Events advanced to an official W3C
Recommendation..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2015/02/pointer-events-advance-to-w3c-recommendation/

Pointer Events W3C Recommendation, Interoperable Touch, and Removing
the Dreaded 300ms Tap Delay
By Jacob Rossi.
"Today, the W3C published Pointer Events as a final Recommendation
standard. This journey began a little over 2 years ago when we first
submitted our proposal to the W3C for a common event model across
pointing input devices..."
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ie/archive/2015/02/24/pointer-events-w3c-recommendation-interoperable-touch-and-removing-the-dreaded-300ms-tap-delay.aspx

Apple's Web?
By Tim Kadlec.
"While Microsoft has a full implementation in IE11 and Mozilla is
working on it, Apple has shown no interest and Google seems ready to
follow their lead...."
http://timkadlec.com/2015/02/apples-web/

Tired of Safari
By Peter-Paul Koch.
"Apple's paranoid approach to developer relations, and, I assume,
relations with other browser vendors (and, in fact, relations to
anything outside itself) is becoming a serious liability to the open
Web. That is the issue we must confront..."
http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2015/02/tired_of_safari.html

+07: TOOLS.

Colorable
By Brent Jackson.
"Takes a set color palette and shows contrast values for every
possible combination. This is useful for finding safe color
combinations with predefined colors and includes pass/fail scores for
the WCAG accessibility guidelines..."
http://jxnblk.com/colorable/demos/text/
http://jxnblk.com/colorable/

HTML5 Video Caption Maker
By Microsoft.
"Caption Maker lets you view a video and define captions for scenes
between in and out points. Once you've created a caption list, you can
save it to a WebVTT or TTML format file which can be used in Internet
Explorer 10. You can preview the caption file with the video from
within Caption Maker, or create yourself an HTML5 webpage that uses
the track tag..."
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Graphics/CaptionMaker/

+08: USABILITY.

Writing for the Web
By usability.gov.
"When writing for the web, using plain language allows users to find
what they need, understand what they have found, and then use it to
meet their needs. It should also be actionable, findable, and
shareable..."
http://www.usability.gov/how-to-and-tools/methods/writing-for-the-web.html

[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.

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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.]