[webdev] Web Design Update: April 10, 2015

Fri Apr 10 06:08:34 CDT 2015

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 13, Issue 42, April 10, 2015.

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

++ISSUE 42 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: JAVASCRIPT.
05: NAVIGATION.
06: USABILITY.
07: XML.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

5 Hidden Risks of Your Inaccessible Website
By Deque Systems.
"...These risks can add up to greater costs than government fines or
civil litigation. If you decide to ignore web accessibility
requirements, you should be prepared to accept these hidden risks as
well..."
http://www.deque.com/blog/5-hidden-risks-inaccessible-website/

UX Accessibility with aria-label
By Heydon Pickering.
"WAI-ARIA, the accessibility extension technology for HTML, has a
reputation for being complex - if not entirely impenetrable - in its
specification..."
https://dev.opera.com/articles/ux-accessibility-aria-label/

Twitter (Accidentally) Takes Step Toward Accessible Images
By Adrian Roselli.
"Twitter has officially released its new-ish tweet quoting feature.
Since at least last June, if a user included the URL of a tweet within
a new tweet, it would present viewers with the full body (albeit
smaller) of the referenced tweet within the new tweet..."
http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2015/04/twitter-accidentally-takes-step-toward.html

Accessibility and Low-Powered Devices
By Brad Frost.
"I think this story is really fascinating. It's an interesting
intersection between performance, accessibility, and devices. A few
thoughts..."
http://bradfrost.com/blog/post/accessibility-and-low-powered-devices/

EdX Settles Inaccessible Online Courses Case
By Tim Lohman.
"Massive open online course (MOOC) provider edX has settled a case
brought by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) alleging that its online
courses breach accessibility requirements under the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA)..."
http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2015/04/edx-settles-inaccessible-online-courses-case

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Using CSS to Customize Standard Checkboxes and Radio Buttons for an
Accessible Interface
By Heidi Jungel.
"Standard HTML radio buttons and checkboxes are often some of the most
difficult controls to customize for visual appearance..."
http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/using-css-customize-standard-checkboxes-radio-buttons-accessible-interface/

What Nobody Tells You About 'Will-Change'
By Thierry Koblentz.
"...do not use will-change until all modern browsers are onboard with
it (unless you know what you're doing)..."
http://cssmojo.com/the-dark-side-of-the-will-change-property/

Sass Basics - Control Directives and Expressions
By Reggie Dawson.
"If you have used Sass for while or looked at the code of a framework
like Foundation, you will notice a lot of advanced features used in
mixins. These mixins use control directives such as @if and @for to
accomplish things like setting up classes for grid systems. Continuing
with the basics of Sass we will discuss these control directives and
see how you can use them in your projects. You may not ever find a
need to use these control directives but its always good to know what
tools are at your disposal..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/sass-basics-control-directives-expressions/

+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

The 3 Lenses of Usability Evaluation
By David Travis.
"Over the last few months, I've worked with three clients who have
each adopted a different approach to usability evaluation. These
approaches are like different lenses used to observe the customer
experience. No single approach is adequate on its own, but in
combination the three approaches form a powerful strategy...."
http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/3-lenses-of-usability-evaluation.html

The First Rule of Usability Testing: Test the Right Users
By Daniel G.
"OK, so the real first rule of usability testing is, 'do it.' But we
can assume you already know that usability testing is important, and
that you need to be doing it in order to make sure your apps and
software are creating value for your users-and thus for you-as
efficiently as possible. Given that, the most important consideration
when it comes to usability testing is making sure your testers can
give you the information you need..."
http://www.loop11.com/the-first-rule-of-usability-testing-test-the-right-users/

Demographics are Key to Unlocking Usability Test Returns
By Daniel G.
"...Expertise is just one element of your usability group that needs
to match your target audience, though. Demographics-age, culture, and
in some cases gender and more-are also important considerations..."
http://www.loop11.com/demographics-are-key-to-unlocking-usability-test-returns/

Pilot Testing - Getting It Right (Before) the First Time
By Amy Schade.
"Pilot testing (a session or two before the real test) helps fine-tune
usability studies, leading to more reliable results. It provides an
opportunity to validate the wording of the tasks, understand the time
necessary for the session, and, if all goes well, may even supply an
additional data point for your study."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/pilot-testing/

How to Measure the Reliability of Your Methods and Metrics
By Jeff Sauro.
"Reliability is a measure of the consistency of a metric or a method..."
http://www.measuringu.com/blog/measure-reliability.php

+04: JAVASCRIPT.

Deploying ECMAScript 6
By Axel Rauschmayer.
"This blog post describes the options you have for deploying
ECMAScript 6 in current JavaScript environments..."
http://www.2ality.com/2015/04/deploying-es6.html

ECMAScript 6 - Feature Overview and Comparison
By Ralf S. Engelschall.
http://es6-features.org/

Progressive Enhancement with Handlers and Enhancers
By Hidde de Vries.
"Recently I adopted a different way to manage bits of JavaScript in
websites I was building..."
http://hiddedevries.nl/en/blog/2015-04-03-progressive-enhancement-with-handlers-and-enhancers

+05: NAVIGATION.

WAI-Finding with ARIA Landmark Roles
By Lyza Danger Gardner.
"Recently, as part of my research for a presentation about web
accessibility for non-specialized teams, I asked around about how
people were applying the HTML role attribute in their day-to-day web
practice..."
http://alistapart.com/column/wai-finding-with-aria-landmark-roles/

+06: USABILITY.

Content Migration Alone Is Not An Effective Content Strategy
By Kara Pernice.
"While fairly popular, 'lift and shift' is not a viable content
strategy. It is a folly fueled by fear, limited resources,
inexperience, and politics. There are better ways to ensure
high-quality intranet content, and two award-winning designers offer
their insights, proving that a bright attitude makes all the
difference."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/intranet-content-strategy/

Writing Is Design, Too
By Peter Hornsby.
"...I'm really disappointed to see-on a fairly regular basis-just how
poorly people still write online copy...."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2015/04/writing-is-design-too.php

Practical Empathy
By Indi Young.
"This is a sample chapter from Indi Young's new book Practical
Empathy. 2015 Rosenfeld Media."
http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2015/04/practical-empathy.php

A Dao of Web Design at 15
By John Allsopp.
"What in many ways is a lifetime ago, 15 years as it happens, I wrote
(or more accurately A List Apart published) A Dao of Web Design. The
anniversary would have come and gone had not Val Head email me to
remind me (after the original person who had the vision to publish the
article, Jeffrey Zeldman had reminded her)..."
http://www.webdirections.org/blog/a-dao-of-web-design-at-15/

15 Years of Dao
By A List Apart Staff.
"...To help us commemorate John's article, we asked some of our past
authors and friends to share their thoughts and reflections on the
15th anniversary of 'Dao.' Here's what they had to say..."
http://alistapart.com/blog/post/15-years-of-dao

+07: XML.

Move and Scale SVG Graphics With the viewBox Attribute
By Steven Bradley.
"The SVG canvas and the SVG viewport, through which you see the canvas
operate on independent coordinate systems. The systems are aligned by
default, but you can change the default to move and scale the
canvas..."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/svg-viewbox/

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+08: 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.]