+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 10, Issue 11, September 9, 2011. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 11 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: MISCELLANEOUS. 06: NAVIGATION. 07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 08: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 09: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Understanding the Purpose of an Image Using alt Text By Dan Stringe. "A quick tutorial on how to provide alt text for different sorts of images in such a way that people using assistive technologies will be able to understand the purpose of the image..." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2011/understanding-the-purpose-of-an-image-using-alt-text/ Aim For the Stars: Pragmatism and Transcripts By Derek Featherstone. "I was interviewed by Paul Boag for the Boagworld.com podcast that just went live (Season 2, episode 6, Aug 31, 2011). Paul asked me quite a few questions. In the resulting episode, he mentions that he felt a bit of pressure as I asked him some pretty blunt questions about his practice with providing audio transcripts for his podcast..." http://simplyaccessible.com/article/pragmatism-transcripts/ Media Accessibility User Requirements Editor's Draft By Judy Brewer, John Foliot, Geoff Freed, Silvia Pfeiffer, and Janina Sajka. "This document aggregates the requirements of an accessibility user that the W3C HTML5 Accessibility Task Force has collected with respect to audio and video on the Web..." http://www.w3.org/WAI/PF/media-a11y-reqs/ WCAG Myths By W3C Wiki. "Myth No. 1: Use of Color on a Page is Bad: FALSE. It is good to use color on a web page, and it is encouraged. It adds vibrancy, and can make pages easier to understand. Use of different color backgrounds can also separate areas to make them standout as different from each other..." http://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/wiki/WCAG_Myths Resources for Mobile Accessibility Guidelines By Henny Swan. "Anyone looking for a definitive set of mobile accessibility guidelines will be a little disappointed if theyÕve ended up here because the bad news is that there arenÕt any publicly available ones. IÕm involved in writing some and am aware of other organisations doing the same but until these are published all we have are generic resources and a few platform specific resources. I often get asked whatÕs out there so I thought the next best thing would be to keep an updated list of resources. Hopefully the list below will be of some use and if you have any resources youÕd like to add leave a comment and IÕll update the list..." http://www.iheni.com/mobile-accessibility-guidelines/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Take Advantage of the CSS background-size Property By Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis. "Front-end developer Stephanie (Sullivan) Rewis, owner of W3Conversions, takes you through a variety of innovative uses for the new CSS3 background-size property. More control than you've ever had before..." http://www.netmagazine.com/node/1368 Resizing: Fixed, Fluid, or Responsive Layouts By Jason Beaird. "This article is from Jason Beaird’s The Principles of Beautiful Web Design book (the second edition of which is out now)." http://designfestival.com/resizing-fixed-fluid-or-responsive-layouts/ Don't Style Headings Using HTML5 Sections By Nicole Sullivan. Styling headings is either a deceptively complex problem, or maybe the design of CSS made it appear complex when it need not have done..." http://www.stubbornella.org/content/2011/09/06/style-headings-using-html5-sections/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Do You Make These 4 Mistakes When Carrying Out a Usability Review? By David Travis. "When properly carried out, usability reviews are a very efficient way of finding the usability bloopers in an interface. But there are four common mistakes made by novice reviewers: failing to take the user's perspective; using only a single reviewer, rather than collating the results from a team; using a generic set of usability principles rather than technology-specific guidelines; and lacking the experience to judge which problems are important." http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/4_mistakes_when_carrying_out_a_usability_review.html A Guide to Conducting Contextual Inquiry User Research By Pooja Chinnapattan. "...Most systems, products, and customer interface designs are complex. Getting it right will make a huge difference to the customer experience, brand reputation, and ultimately to a company's success. Just as Don Normans book on Living with complexity discusses, complexity can be 'tamed' by understanding the total system, and the best solutions are those that are designed with all aspects fitting perfectly together." http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/web-usability/contextual-inquiry.shtml Test Everything You Got, Regardless of its Polish or Fidelity By Jeff Gothelf. "...Getting whatever is available on testing day in front of your users will provide feedback on the experience. The depth, focus and relevance of that feedback will largely be dependent on the fidelity of the designs shown. While the range of feedback is broad, knowing what to expect and ensuring that your organization gets customers into the product design conversation is worth showing them whatever you have ready when testing day rolls on." http://blog.usabilla.com/test-everything-you-got-regardless-of-its-polish-or-fidelity/ +04: EVENTS. Frontend 2011 October 10-12, 2011. Oslo, Norway http://www.frontend2011.com/ User Interface 16 Conference November 7-9, 2011. Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. http://uiconf.com An Event Apart Atlanta February 6-8, 2012. Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. http://aneventapart.com/2012/atlanta/ South By SouthWest Interactive March 9-13, 2012. Austin, Texas, U.S.A. http://sxsw.com/interactive 2012 International Conference on Data Engineering and Internet Technology (DEIT 2012) March 20-22, 2012. Jakarta, Indonesia http://www.irast.net/conferences/DEIT/2012/ Educause Midwest Regional Conference March 26-28, 2012. Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. http://www.educause.edu/MWRC12 +05: MISCELLANEOUS. Accessibility Post Web 2.0 (Video) By Michael Cooper. Michael Cooper's a11yMTL conference presentation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuTe3MyKr7o Being Human is Good Business By Kristin Smaby. "Customers aren't shy about shouting their experiences-good and bad-to the world via Twitter and Facebook. When you see customer service as a cost center, you risk treating customers as a liability. Yet, customers are a valuable resource: their feedback is integral to shaping your product and building your brand. Customer service, by definition, is about serving people; it should be genuine, personalized, and compassionate-or, simply put, human." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/being-human-is-good-business/ Marry Your Clients By Shane Pearlman. "Do you consistently work to stay engaged, or do you get comfortable with clients? With new projects, it's easy to make the extra effort. The longer you work together, the easier it becomes to feel satisfied with the status quo, while giving your best energy to the shiny new client. Rather than pretend this won't happen, prepare for it and create a strategy to combat it. Shane Pearlman shows us how." http://www.alistapart.com/articles/marry-your-clients/ +06: NAVIGATION. Block Level Links and Accessibility By Roger Johansson. "One of the news in HTML5 is that links are now allowed to contain block level elements. In HTML 4, only inline elements are allowed. Linking block level elements such as headings and paragraphs can be useful, but there are some things to be aware of in order to avoid reducing the usability and accessibility of such links to screen reader users..." http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201109/block_level_links_and_accessibility/ Screen Readers, ARIA Roles and HTML5 Support By Leonie Watson. Several screen readers now support ARIA landmark roles. Some screen readers such as NVDA and Jaws are also improving support for HTML5 elements. This means that itÕs important to put your ARIA roles in the right place..." http://tink.co.uk/2011/09/screen-readers-aria-roles-html5-support/ +07: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Your Questions 18 (HTML5) By Richard Clark. "The clinic is getting busy with more HTML5 ailments. This week, we'll discuss name-value pairs, e-commerce with HTML5, lightboxes and modal windows, why we need new elements, and optional subtitles." http://html5doctor.com/your-questions-18/ Anatomy of a HTML5 Mobile App By Fling. "Over the past year IÕve been pretty hard on HTML5 Mobile Apps. The general perception is that HTML5 will provide companies with a scalable and flexible cross-platform mobile app strategy. While I firmly believe in the principle of web technologies as a platform on mobile devices, we just arenÕt there yet. I worry that people underestimate the amount of effort that is involved before they get started down the path of HTML5 for mobile..." http://pinchzoom.com/posts/anatomy-of-a-html5-mobile-app/ +08: USABILITY. Why Web Sites With Poor Usability Are Still Being Developed By Justin Mifsud. "...the objective of this post is to highlight the main issues that can contribute towards the development of web sites with poor usability. The list of problems is by no means exhaustive and the order in which they are being presented here is subjective. For instance you might argue that time is more of a limiting factor than money and you can be right too. The aim of this post is ultimately one of creating awareness, so that you understand the main reasons why web sites with poor usability are still being developed and, more importantly, get an insight of how you can avoid facing the same mistakes." http://usabilitygeek.com/why-web-sites-with-poor-usability-are-still-being-developed/ Designing Naturally With Gestalt in Mind By John Sorflaten. "...The Gestalt research showed that the mind seeks to see 'wholeness' or the 'Gestalt'..." http://www.humanfactors.com/downloads/sep11.asp#research Feature Bloat and Usability By Jacob Creech. "...What that means is that we may not have all the features of our competitors, but what we do, we do well. This follows on nicely from the Scrum development principles that we adhere to at IntuitionHQ - it's better to have 80% of the features 100% complete, than 100% of the features 80% complete. It's better to have a product that does what it does extremely well, than a product that does a whole range of things to mediocre standard..." http://www.intuitionhq.com/blog/2011/09/feature-bloat-and-usability/ Adaptive Web Design By Aaron Gustafson. Chapter 1 of Aaron's new book can be downloaded. http://easy-readers.net/ How Responsive Web Design becomes Responsive Web Publishing By Chris Palmieri. "The last few years have been a good time to be a web designer. After a decade of making do with the aging technologies, methods and assumptions that gave birth to mainstream web publishing, designers are starting to trade the tiresome challenge of controlling the user experience for a few more interesting ones." http://aqworks.com/en/blog/2011/09/05/how-responsive-web-design-becomes-responsive-web-publishing/ 10 Things to Know about Completion Rates View More Blog Posts By Jeff Sauro. "1. Completion rates are the fundamental usability metric: A binary measure of pass and fail (coded as 1 or 0) provides a simple metric of success. If users cannot complete a task, not much else matters with respect to usability or utility..." http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/completion-rates.php A Brief Look at Screen Resolutions By Jason Beaird. "In comparison to the fixed-versus-fluid debate, the argument about designing for particular screen resolutions has been quite tame these past few years. When designers say that a site is designed, or optimized, for a particular screen resolution, they're actually talking about the resolution of the viewer's monitor. In the past, the screen resolution debate was focused on whether our designs should still accommodate monitor resolutions of 800x600 without displaying a horizontal scrollbar..." http://designfestival.com/a-brief-look-at-screen-resolutions/ Does Context Really Matter for Mobile Design? By Small Surfaces. "Pick up most books about building web sites or products for mobile and you'll hear a common refrain extolling you to pay attention to the mobile context. Usually this means paying attention to the fact that people using mobile phones are likely to be on the go, have limited attention, and slow Internet connections. This may have been true in the past, but data suggests that this behavior is changing: 93% of smartphone owners use their smartphones while at home, 62% of people use their mobile phone while watching television, 69% use mobile while shopping, 39% of smartphone owners use their devices in the bathroom." http://smallsurfaces.com/2011/09/does-context-really-matter-for-mobile-design/ [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 Dreamweaver Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/dreamweaver.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 Flash Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/flash.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@d.umn.edu [Issue ends.]