[webdev] Web Design Update: July 30, 2015

[Laura Carlson]

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 14, Issue 05, July 30, 2015.

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

++ISSUE 05 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: JAVASCRIPT.
06: MISCELLANEOUS.
07: USABILITY.


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

[Contents ends.]


++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Why is so Much of the Internet Still Inaccessible to Disabled People?
By S.E. Smith.
"Twenty-five years ago, George H.W. Bush signed the Americans with
Disabilities Act (ADA) into law. It was a landmark piece of civil
rights legislation for the disabled community, mandating equal
treatment and providing for a wide range of protections. But it
contained one big loophole: the internet..."
http://www.theweek.com/articles/567908/why-much-internet-still-inaccessible-disabled-people

3.3.3 Error Suggestion
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"If an input error is automatically detected and suggestions for
correction are known, then the suggestions are provided to the user,
unless it would jeopardize the security or purpose of the content..."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/07/3-3-3-error-suggestion/

Best Practices for Accessible Diagram Design (Draft)
By Detlev Fischer.
"Below you find the draft of an unpublished chapter of a forthcoming
book (Diagrammatics, ed. by Clive Richards). More precisely, you find
the draft of the meat of the chapter: A set of requirements followed
by design checklists for three user groups: Low-vision users, blind
users and users with cognitive and learning disabilities..."
http://www.incobs.de/articles/items/diagram-a11y.html

Media Player Accessibility Comparison Chart
By Ohio State University Web Accessibility Center.
"This matrix is developed and maintained by the Commitee on
Institutional Cooperation Information Technology Accessibility Group
(CIC ITAG) Media Player Accessibility sub-group. Much of its
accessibilty criteria is borrowed from W3C Media Accessibility User
Requirements. Links to projects, references, and comments are in
"notes" associated with matrix cells."
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1QJVcXx5hTWYBcJbHJD3DrL3hSFVbfy1VQFyADMtrDFY/edit#gid=0

Teaching Accessibility
By teachingaccessibility.com.
"All technology companies that have worked on accessibility have faced
a similar challenge of preparing designers, engineers and researchers
to think and build inclusively. Similarly, academic programs in
design, engineering and HCI are seeking ways to better prepare
students to address the needs of diverse populations. Given this
shared challenge, industry, academia and advocacy have now come
together to create models for teaching and training students of
technology to create accessible experiences. If you're interested in
working with us, please contact teachingaccessibility at gmail.com and
@teachaccess."
http://teachingaccessibility.com/

This Small Change Could Make a Big Difference for Accessible Technology
By Hayley Tsukayama.
"Tech firms such as Yahoo, Facebook, Dropbox and LinkedIn announced
Thursday that they will develop standard language that lets applicants
know that having accessibility knowledge is 'preferred' to land a job.
The move is part of a larger program called 'Teaching Accessibility':
a joint effort between disability advocates, schools and the tech
industry to make all technology accessible from the start."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/07/23/this-small-change-could-make-a-big-difference-for-accessible-technology/

Silicon Valley Vows To Improve Tech For People With Disabilities
By Lorenzo Ligato.
"At 19 percent of the U.S. population, people with disabilities
represent the largest minority group in the country, but basic
technologies are often inaccessible to them. Despite an increasing
number of tools, a lack of industry-wide expertise in accessibility
development still stands as a barrier to creating technology everyone
can truly use..."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/silicon-valley-accessibility-people-with-disabilities_55b23b15e4b0224d8831d789

Accessibility for WordPress (Video)
By Joe Dolson.
"If you build a website with WordPress, build it with accessibility in
mind. Making your content, themes, navigation, and other site features
accessible helps everyone-including visitors who want to find your
site through search engine results...
http://www.lynda.com/sdk/course-tutorials/Accessibility-WordPress/374185-2.html


+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

CSS is Alive and Well
By Louis Lazaris.
"Due to the ever-growing popularity of React, Facebook's user
interface library, there has been some discussion on the topic of CSS
and whether or not it has a future in its current form - that is, in
the form of declarations in a separate stylesheet that provide
presentation information for a given page or section of markup..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/css-is-alive-and-well/

Modern CSS Layout, Power and Responsibility
By Rachel Andrew.
"With this power comes great responsibility. For just as it will be
possible for a developer to start out with a beautifully semantic,
well structured document and use Grid and Flexbox to meet the design
requirements, it will be possible for them to stop caring about the
document structure at all. Worse, I believe there will be a strong
temptation, especially with Grid, to flatten out document structure in
order that all elements become a child of the element with the Grid
declared. Making layout simple, but at what cost?.."
https://www.rachelandrew.co.uk/archives/2015/07/28/modern-css-layout-power-and-responsibility/

Vendor Prefixes And Market Reality
By Karl Dubost.
"...The mess we are all involved is due to WebKit prefixes and the
leader position they have on the mobile market can really help. This
mess killed Opera Presto on mobile, which had to switch to Blink.
Let's all create a better story for the Web and understand fully the
consequences of our decisions. It's not only about technology, but
also economic dynamics and market realities..."
http://www.otsukare.info/2015/07/29/vendor-prefixes-market

A Look at Length Units in CSS
By Gajendar Singh.
"...Measuring things is as important an aspect of web design, as any
other. The fact that we have at least 10 different measurement units
in CSS speaks for itself..."
http://www.sitepoint.com/look-at-length-units-in-css/


+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

A/B Testing Mobile Apps - Q&A with Apptimize
By Nancy Hua.
"Today's post is a Q&A session with Nancy Hua, CEO of Apptimize..."
http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/07/22/ab-testing-mobile-apps/

5 Essential Statistical Tests and Calculators
By Jeff Sauro.
"...With the five tests I cover here, you can test most of your
hypotheses in the customer experience..."
https://measuringu.com/blog/five-essential-tests.php


+04: EVENTS.

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

Thunder Plains Developer Conference
November 3, 2015.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, U.S.A.
http://thunderplainsconf.com/

Frontiers of Interaction 2015: FrontiersX
November 12-13, 2015.
Milan, Italy
http://2015.frontiersofinteraction.com/

NationJS
November 12-13, 2015.
Silver Spring, Maryland, U.S.A.
http://nationjs.com/

Full Stack Toronto Conference
November 14-15, 2015.
Toronto, Canada
http://fsto.co/


+05: JAVASCRIPT.

5 Rules For Using ARIA Roles, States, And Properties
By Steven Bradley.
"How do you know when to use ARIA and when it isn't necessary..."
http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/five-rules-aria-html/

ARIA-Orientation (Property)
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"Aria-orientation property is used to indicate if an element is
oriented horizontally or vertically on a web page. aria-orientation is
used on components such as separators, scrollbars and spin buttons..."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/07/aria-orientation-property/

New Regular Expression Features in ECMAScript 6
By Axel Rauschmayer.
"This blog post explains new regular expression features in ECMAScript 6..."
http://www.2ality.com/2015/07/regexp-es6.html


+06: MISCELLANEOUS.

The Future of Accessible Software - Sharron Rush Interview
By Divya Mulanjur.
"Partners on Employment and Accessible Technology (PEAT) recently
interviewed Knowbility's Executive Director, Sharron Rush, on her
thoughts regarding the future of accessible technology..."
http://blog.knowbility.org/content/the-future-of-accessible-software-sharron-rush-interview/

Moving the Web Platform Forward
By Philippe le Hegaret.
"The Web Platform keeps moving forward every day.."
http://www.w3.org/blog/2015/07/moving-the-web-platform-forward/

Stop Pushing the Web Forward
By Peter-Paul Koch.
"Fair warning. You're going to hate this one. I want to stop pushing
the web forward for a while. I want a moratorium on new browser
features for about a year or so."
http://www.quirksmode.org/blog/archives/2015/07/stop_pushing_th.html

Publishing Versus Performance: Our Struggle for the Soul of the Web
By Jeffery Zeldman.
"My soul is in twain. Two principles on which clued-in web folk
heartily agree are coming more and more often into conflict..."
http://www.zeldman.com/2015/07/29/publishing-versus-performance-our-struggle-for-the-soul-of-the-web/


+07: USABILITY.

My Definitive Guide to Why CAPTCHA Sucks
By Paul Boag.
"CAPTCHA is one of the most damaging and unnecessary user interface
elements. Those that use CAPTCHA cannot claim to be user centric in
their approach..."
https://boagworld.com/usability/my-definitive-guide-to-why-captcha-sucks/

Mobile Faceted Search with a Tray: New and Improved Design Pattern
By Kathryn Whitenton.
"Displaying faceted-search controls on mobile devices in a 'tray'
overlay is a new effective solution to the challenge of showing both
results and filters on small screens."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-faceted-search/

Indicators, Validations, and Notifications: Pick the Correct
Communication Option
By Kim Flaherty.
"Status feedback is crucial to the success of any system. Knowing when
to use 3 common communication methods is key to supporting users."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/indicators-validations-notifications/

6 Tips Every UX Researcher Should Memorize
By Hannah Alvarez.
"When you're conducting UX research, your goal is to get consistent
and reliable feedback on how users naturally interact with a product.
You're looking to find pain points in the user experience, identifying
any areas where users become confused. But if your test plan is
faulty, then you won't be able to tell what was actually confusing the
participants: the product or the test itself..."
http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/07/23/6-ux-research-tips/

How to Use the Psychology of Choice to Increase Online Sales
By Spencer Lanoue.
"...if you give people too many options they're far less likely to
click, subscribe, or buy your product..."
http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/07/28/how-to-use-the-psychology-of-choice-to-increase-online-sales/


[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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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.]