[webdev] Web Design Update: July 1, 2015

Laura Carlson lcarlson at d.umn.edu
Wed Jul 1 06:23:49 CDT 2015 

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 14, Issue 01, July 1, 2015.

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

++ISSUE 01 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: DRUPAL.
05: EVALUATION & TESTING.
06: EVENTS.
07: JAVASCRIPT.
08: MISCELLANEOUS.
09: TOOLS.
10: TYPOGRAPHY.
11: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Online Accessibility Program
By Stanford Online Accessibility Program (SOAP).
The SOAP web site is a treasure trove of information for getting
started in accessibility along with tips and tools.
http://soap.stanford.edu

What Does the Future Hold for Web Accessibility Guidelines
By Joey Koss.
"Disabilities do not change, technology changes.  This observation,
shared by Gregg Vanderheiden, Ph.D, captures the crux of the issue
facing those who work on the web accessibility guidelines committees
and was the heart of the discussion by the 'W3C-WAI: New Horizons for
2020' panel at this month's M-Enabling Summit..."
http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/what-does-the-future-hold-for-web-accessibility-guidelines/

WCAG 2.0 - Criteria And Techniques For Successful Accessibility Conformance
By Steven Bradley.
"It's one thing understand the basic principles and guidelines for
making your site more accessible and another thing to actually meet
those guidelines..."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/wcag-success-criteria-techniques/

Accessibility Best Practice - Part I: What it is
By Sailesh Panchang.
"While providing feedback to clients following an accessibility
evaluation, it is generally a good idea to include best practice
recommendations in the report..."
http://www.mindoversight.com/?p=41

Make Infographics Accessible to All
By Tess Pajaron.
"...There are at least two simple ways that you can use to create
user-friendly infographics and the bonus is they will both enhance
your reputation with search engines..."
http://spinsucks.com/social-media/infographics-should-be-accessible-to-all/

Blind Students' Lawsuit Leads to Big Changes at N.J. County College
By Kelly Heyboer.
"...the National Federation for the Blind announced Atlantic Cape
Community College had agreed to settle the case out of court by making
extensive changes to accommodate students with disabilities. Under the
deal, the 6,800-student county college, which serves Atlantic and Cape
May counties, will upgrade its technology, overhaul is websites and
upgrade its library to make materials accessible to students with
disabilities..."
http://www.nj.com/education/2015/06/blind_students_lawsuit_atlantic_cape_community.html

Justice Department Files Statements of Interest in Title III and
Section 504 Lawsuits against Harvard and MIT
By Cas Institute.
"The Justice Department announced that it has filed Statements of
Interest in two private cases pending in the United States District
Court for the District of Massachusetts, National Association of the
Deaf, et al., v. Harvard University, et al (link is external)., and
National Association of the Deaf, et al., v. Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (link is external)..."
http://www.casinstitute.org/news/justice-department-files-statements-interest-title-iii-and-section-504-lawsuits-against-harvard

DOJ Shifts Position on Web Access: Stating In Court Filings That
Public Accommodations Have a 'Pre-Existing' Obligation to Make
Websites Accessible
By Minh N. Vu.
"...at issue are videos of general interest (e.g., a lecture posted by
a professor, a speech given at the university, or even a campus
organization's event..."
http://www.adatitleiii.com/2015/06/doj-shifts-position-on-web-access-stating-in-court-filings-that-public-accommodations-have-a-pre-existing-obligation-to-make-websites-accessible/

CVAA Video Programming Requirements - Video Description
By Sam Joehl.
"Video description (also called audio description) is audio-narrated
descriptions of the key visual elements of video programming which are
then inserted within the natural pauses in the program's dialogue to
help blind and visually impaired viewers to better understand the
story..."
http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/cvaa-video-programming-requirements-video-description/


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Quantity Queries In Action (Video)
By Russ Weakley.
Watch as Russ Weakley shows how to use CSS quantity queries
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8ZvKWiebzU

Borders on Bootstrap Columns
By Russ Weakley.
"Equal height borders on columns, they're not impossible"
https://learnable.com/screencasts/borders-on-bootstrap-columns

Thoughts on Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
By Mark DuBois.
"As a professor teaching web technologies, I am often presented with
clear examples demonstrating that someone does not fully grasp a
concept. In this case, the number in question was 3,547. That was the
number of classes in one CSS linked stylesheet to style one website.
Yep. Over three thousand separate classes. I know, I counted them.
Yes, it was painful..."
http://webprofessionals.org/thoughts-on-css/

Gradient Flags
By Eric A Meyer.
"With the news today of the Supreme Court's decision in Obergefell v.
Hodges, and my recent completion of the part of CSS:The Definitive
Guide that deals with gradients, I thought I'd create a couple of
flags using linear gradients..."
http://meyerweb.com/eric/thoughts/2015/06/26/gradient-flags/

Edge Conf - Notes on User Queries
By Bruce Lawson.
"One problem with this is the classic web dev chicken-and-egg problem..."
http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2015/edge-conf-notes-on-user-queries/

The Debate Around 'Do We Even Need CSS Anymore?'
By Chris Coyier.
"...thought we could have a little campfire here and talk about it as
rationally as we can, covering all the relevant points..."
https://css-tricks.com/the-debate-around-do-we-even-need-css-anymore/

Sass Reference
By Sitepoint.
A guide to Sass.
http://www.sitepoint.com/sass-reference/


+03: COLOR.

Designing For (and With) Color Blindness
By Aaron Tenbuuren.
"Every time someone finds out I'm color blind, I'm always hit with the
same question: 'So, what color is this?' 95% of the time I'll answer
correctly, which is always followed by, 'Wait, so if you can tell this
is {insert color}, then how are you color blind? What do you see?'.
This is where the joy of explaining how colorblindness works, and how
it affects me comes into play..."
https://medium.com/@aaron10buuren/designing-for-and-with-color-blindness-48392aab3d87

Index of Color Contrast Samples
By TRACE (Hat Tip Gregg Vanderheiden).
Includes Sample Palattes of Passing Colors, Text Samples that just
pass at several Contrast Ratios,
http://trace.wisc.edu/contrast-ratio-examples/index.htm


+04: DRUPAL.

Drupal Modules that Improve Accessibility
By Jonas Bartsch.
"A list of modules that you can use to enhance the accessibility of
your Drupal site..."
https://groups.drupal.org/node/85199


+05: EVALUATION & TESTING.

How to Combine 'Gut Feel' and Science in Multivariate Testing
By Anton Ruin.
"As site owners, designers, and developers we often underestimate the
value of our intuition..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/how-to-combine-gut-feel-science-in-multivariate-testing/

The Deceptively Simple Trick to Understanding Your Customers
By Jennifer Winter.
"The reward for observation isn't just insight on solving existing
problems. It can help you find new ones before your customers do, not
to mention provide opportunities to address unmet needs..."
http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/06/25/observation/

Getting to Know Conjoint Analysis
By Jeff Sauro.
"...When you need to identify the relative importance of features in a
product a conjoint analysis may provide useful results..."
http://www.measuringu.com/blog/conjoint-analysis.php

How to Perform Your Own Lean Mobile Usability Testing
By Greg Nudelman.
"Usability testing doesn't have to be done in labs, doesn't require
experts, and doesn't have to be expensive..."
http://uxmag.com/articles/how-to-perform-your-own-lean-mobile-usability-testing


+06: EVENTS.

Accessibility Summit 2015
September 8-9, 2015.
Online conference
http://environmentsforhumans.com/2015/accessibility-summit/

The Mobility and Modern Web Conference
September 16-18, 2015.
Los Angeles, California, U.S.A.
http://mmwcon.org/

Generate London
September 17-18, 2015.
London, England, United Kingdom
http://www.generateconf.com/london-2015

>From The Front
September 17-18, 2015.
Bologna, Italy
http://2015.fromthefront.it/

Fluxible 2015
September 25-27, 2015.
Kitchener, Canada
http://www.fluxible.ca/


+07: JAVASCRIPT.

Availability
By Stuart Langridge.
"...It is true that not everyone has JS and that sometimes that's you,
so let's work out how to do this without regressing to 1998. So I'm
not going to be talking about progressive enhancement any more. I'm
going to be talking about availability. About reach. About my web apps
being for everyone even when the universe tries to stop it."
http://blog.webflow.com/how-to-boost-your-sites-performance

Why Availability Matters
By Stuart Langridge.
"You've heard how about 1% of visits to your site don't get the full
site -- don't get the JavaScript or the CSS or something. And that
means it's like this..."
http://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/why-availability/

aria-multiselectable (property)
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"aria-multiselectable is used to notify the users about the existence
of the components where more than one element can be selected.
aria-multiselectable is not an alternate for aria-selected. Tablists,
listbox, tree and grid are the roles which allows the users to select
more than one element. Do not use aria-multiselectable property where
only one element..."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/06/aria-multiselectable-property/


+08: MISCELLANEOUS.

Brad Frost and the Future of the Web
By Leah Lizarondo.
"Brad Frost is many things: designer, artist, creative director,
musician, even philosopher...)"
http://www.nextpittsburgh.com/next-wave/brad-frost-and-the-future-of-the-web/


+09: TOOLS.

aXe Chrome Extension
By Deque Systems.
"Automated tool to find Accessibility defects on your web site by
using the aXe Chrome extension..."
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/axe/lhdoppojpmngadmnindnejefpokejbdd

tota11y
By Khan Academy.
"An accessibility visualization toolkit..."
http://khan.github.io/tota11y/


+10: TYPOGRAPHY.

Legibility ≠ Optional
By Colm Roche.
"When creating a website, there's a mental checklist a designer might
run through... is this engaging?, is it easy to understand?, is it
on-brand?… but the very first, no-brainer point is, can people read
it? Yet..."
https://medium.com/@colm_roche/legibility-optional-764710e769f4

The Last Word on Helvetica?
By John Boardley.
"...rather than hate a typeface, why not channel that energy into
loving another. That is my last word on Helvetica."
http://ilovetypography.com/2015/06/27/the-last-word-on-helvetica/


+11: USABILITY.

The Roots of Minimalism in Web Design
By Kate Meyer.
"Many of today's most popular design trends are influenced by
minimalism. This web design movement began in the early 2000s, but
borrows its philosophy from earlier movements in the fields of fine
art and human-computer interaction."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/roots-minimalism-web-design/

Great Summaries on 'About Us' Pages Engage Users and Build Trust
By Hoa Loranger.
"Tell your story on top-level pages in 'About Us.' People who trust
you are much more open to engaging with your organization and
website."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/about-us-summaries/

Trends in Digital Design
By Gerry McGovern.
"The future of digital design must be founded in empathy for the
customer. It must be focused on use because with today's impatient and
empowered customer, if it's not immediately easy-to-use, their
attention will be lost...."
http://gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/trends-digital-design

How to Boost Your Site's Performance
By Neal O'Grady.
"Almost half of your visitors will leave if your site takes longer
than three seconds to load. Learn the simple, non-technical ways to
boost the speed
http://blog.webflow.com/how-to-boost-your-sites-performance


[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.


+ 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.]

More information about the Webdev mailing list