[webdev] Web Design Update: August 12, 2015

Wed Aug 12 06:20:33 CDT 2015

+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE.
- Volume 14, Issue 07, August 12, 2015.

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

++ISSUE 07 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.
04: JAVASCRIPT.
05: MISCELLANEOUS.
06: NAVIGATION.
07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.
08: TOOLS.
09: TYPOGRAPHY.
10: USABILITY.

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

[Contents ends.]

++ SECTION ONE: New references.

+01: ACCESSIBILITY.

Developers Please Don't Detect my Screen Reader
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"...There are many reasons why assistive technology detection is a bad
practice. Below are few of them I could think right now..."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/08/developers-please-dont-detect-my-screen-reader/

Web Accessibility and Down Syndrome
By Rakesh Paladugula.
"Down syndrome is one of the most common genetic birth defects.
Usually, children born with the condition have some degree of mental
retardation, as well as characteristic physical features."
http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/08/web-accessibility-and-down-syndrome/

Discovering Accessibility
By Atul Varma.
"...creating accessible static content is easy and helps extreme
users, but creating accessible rich internet applications is quite
difficult because screen readers implement the standards so
differently. I'm eagerly hoping that this situation improves over the
coming years."
http://www.toolness.com/wp/2015/08/discovering-accessibility/

IT Accessibility Risk Statements and Evidence
By IT Accessibility Constituent Group.
"This document was created by the EDUCAUSE IT Accessibility
Constituent Group to help identify accessibility risks that IT leaders
should consider in their risk management process..."
http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/it-accessibility-risk-statements-and-evidence

+02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS.

Making and Breaking the Web With CSS Gradients
By Mike Taylor and Dietrich Ayala.
"As a Web developer, users of your web sites will be affected if you
use prefixed CSS properties which later have their prefixes
removed-especially if syntax has changed between prefixed and
unprefixed variants..."
https://hacks.mozilla.org/2015/08/making-and-breaking-the-web-with-css-gradients/

How Floating Works
By Ire Aderinokun.
"...I decided to look into the rules that govern the behaviour of
floats, and how to properly use them..."
http://bitsofco.de/2015/how-floating-works/

+03: EVALUATION & TESTING.

Conducting Contextual Enquiry (or Site Visits)
By Gerry Gaffney.
"To do good design, you need to understand the relevant parts of your
users' lives. One of the most powerful ways of gathering this
information is by talking to those users. Contextual enquiry (or site
visits) is a great way of doing this..."
http://uxmastery.com/conducting-contextual-enquiry-or-site-visits/

Preference Testing - What to Do Before You Run A/B Tests
By Jenifer Winter.
"In the world of user research, A/B testing is one of the most popular
types of tests we hear about. And while they're great for optimizing
something that's already built, they can't really help you early on in
your product's lifecycle. But don't worry, there's a test for that:
preference testing..."
https://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/08/06/preference-testing/

The A/B Test Checklist
By Talia Wolf.
"...You've spent time on tracking, analyzing, building a hypothesis
and building your test. Moments before you launch, take the time to go
over the following AB test checklist to make sure you have everything
you need and to ensure your test results are meaningful and scalable."
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/08/11/the-ab-test-checklist/

32 Ways to Measure the Customer Experience
By Jeff Sauro.
"...While the "right" methods and metrics you select depend on the
industry and study goals, this list covers most of the online and
offline customer experience..."
http://www.measuringu.com/blog/32-ways-cux.php

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...."
http://www.measuringu.com/blog/five-essential-tests.php

+04: JAVASCRIPT.

Getting Started with ECMAScript 6
By Axel Rauschmayer.
"This blog post helps you to get started with ECMAScript 6..."
http://www.2ality.com/2015/08/getting-started-es6.html

Accessible Images Using Angular
By Heidi Jungel.
"Angular.js is becoming a widely used framework for web development.
The framework allows developers to create readable code, is known to
be fully extensible, and works well with other libraries. However,
developers must still ensure accessibility when using the angular
framework..."
http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/accessible-images-using-angular/

+05: MISCELLANEOUS.

The Wrong Debate About Native And Web
By Karl Dubost.
"People like dichotomies and they will do everything to have their
story fits the imaginary gap..."
http://www.otsukare.info/2015/08/05/native-mobile-wrong-debate

+06: NAVIGATION.

How Google Changes Will Affect Your Page Structure
By Emma Grant.
"A large number of new websites-perhaps even the overwhelming majority
of them-have started to take on a really familiar look...Google
doesn't like it!.."
http://www.developerdrive.com/2015/08/how-google-changes-will-affect-your-page-structure/

+07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS.

Short Note on HTML Conformance Checking
By Steve Faulkner.
"When you check a HTML document, using the W3C HTML conformance
checker, to find out whether its code conforms to the rules defined in
the HTML specification (and other referenced specifications). It's
useful to understand what the output means..."
http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2015/08/short-note-on-html-conformance-checking/

+08: TOOLS.

Quantity Queries
By Drew Minns.
"A tool to help build Quantity Queries for your projects..."
http://quantityqueries.com/

+09: TYPOGRAPHY.

Text Justification and Accessibility
By Allayne Woodford.
"When it comes to creating accessible content, focus can tend to be on
headings, images and use of colour. Get those things right and you're
well on the way to the metaphorical tick for accessibility. Taking
things to the next level though, considerations include (but are very
much not limited to) the use of tables, font styling and even text
justification..."
http://www.accessiq.org/news/news-features/2015/08/text-justification-and-accessibility

+10: USABILITY.

Headings Are Pick-Up Lines - 5 Tips for Writing Headlines That Convert
By Hoa Loranger.
"Attractive headlines and titles are critical in making the right
first impression. Concise titles that sound authentic and relevant get
noticed."
http://www.nngroup.com/articles/headings-pickup-lines/

How 70s Appliances can Explain the Difference Between UX and UI
By Mike Monteiro.
"...If you're sitting at your desk designing things based on a
styleguide and a pattern library while looking at some wireframes and
flow diagrams that someone handed you, you're doing UI. If you're
going out and meeting the people using your product or service,
listening to how they use it, making decisions based on that
knowledge, testing and improving, and taking into consideration things
that happen before and after they interact with your product or
service, you're doing UX..."
https://deardesignstudent.com/the-difference-between-ui-and-ux-fa62b9837d66

Making Your Icons User-Friendly - A Guide to Usability in UI Design
By Hannah Alvarez.
"...This may come as a disappointment to those who say a picture is
worth a thousand words: Labels dramatically increase the usability of
icons. It's a common misconception that users (especially mobile
users) will tap around and play with all the different icons
cheerfully until they discover what each icon does. In reality, users
are often intimidated by new interfaces and don't explore outside
their comfort zone..."
https://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/08/04/user-friendly-ui-icons/

Apple's Products are Getting Harder to Use Because They Ignore
Principles of Design
By Don Norman.
"...Apple has gotten carried away by the slick, minimalist appearance
of their products at the expense of ease of use, understandability,
and the ability to do complex operations without ever looking at the
manual..."
http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/apples_products_are.html

Recap - Web Form Usability Tips from #UXChat
By Deborah Edwards-Onoro.
"If you couldn't make it to today's Twitter chat on web form
usability, hosted by UserTesting, I've compiled the conversation and
included some of the resources mentioned during the chat...."
http://www.lireo.com/recap-web-form-usability-tips-from-uxchat/

[Section one ends.]

++ SECTION TWO:

+11: 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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As a navigation aid for screen readers we do our best to conform to
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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.]