+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 10, Issue 34, February 14, 2013. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 34 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: EVENTS. 04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 05: JAVASCRIPT. 06: MISCELLANEOUS. 07: NAVIGATION. 08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 09: TOOLS. 10: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Longdesc. Use it Appropriately. By Charles McCathieNevile. "From time to time I see advice given to avoid longdesc, because 'it's not supported by browsers and it isn't in HTML5'. This advice is not correct..." http://chaals.ya.ru/replies.xml?item_no=5 Accessible HTML5 Media Players and More By Dennis Lembree. "Here's a list a accessible HTML5 Media Players-I have not tested them all-and some articles on how to build one yourself. Know any others? Please leave info in a comment..." http://www.webaxe.org/accessible-html5-media-players-and-more/ Quick Tip - Don't Auto-Play Video, Music and More By A11Y Project. "Don't auto-play and it will please all of your users." http://a11yproject.com/posts/never-use-auto-play/ Mobile Accessibility Landscape Update By ssbbartgroup. "This post represents an update to the mobile accessibility landscape post from June 2012..." https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/2013/02/11/mobile-accessibility-landscape-update/ CAPTCHA - Inaccessible to Everyone By Gian Wild. "CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart..." http://www.sitepoint.com/captcha-inaccessible-to-everyone/ The End of Accessibility? By Sandi Wassmer. "Good design? UX? Accessibility? Can we have it all? asks Sandi Wassmer" http://www.netmagazine.com/opinions/end-accessibility Accessibility Information Pages Show Corporate Commitment to all Customers By The Law Office of Lainey Feingold. "An important component of any Structured Negotiations settlement agreement addressing web accessibility is a company's commitment to maintain an Accessibility Information Page, or AIP..." http://lflegal.com/2013/02/access-info-pages/ Accessibility Issues in Digital Publishing DRM, Accessible Content, and User Interface Control By Janina Sajka and Judy Brewer. "Ensuring accessibility of digital publishing systems and content for people with disabilities requires..." http://www.w3.org/2013/Talks/02-12_ebooks_JS/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. When to Avoid the Descendant Selector By Louis Lazaris. "Those of us who have started using modular or object-oriented CSS principles have learned to avoid, as much as possible, the use of the descendant selector (or, more accurately, the descendant combinator)..." http://www.impressivewebs.com/when-to-avoid-descendant-selector/ +03: EVENTS. HighEdWeb October 6-9, 2013. Buffalo, New York, U.S.A. http://2013.highedweb.org/ Fronteers October 10-11, 2013. Amsterdam, Netherlands http://fronteers.nl/congres/2013 Paris Web October 18-20, 2013. Paris, France http://www.paris-web.fr/ Assets 2013 October 20-23, 2013. Bellevue, Washington, U.S.A. http://www.sigaccess.org/assets13/ +04: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Kelly Goto - Prototyping for Mobile Designs By Sean Carmichael. "Building a prototype is a great way to test your design early on with users. Whether you choose to go for a high-fidelity representation, or go lo-fi with paper, you can learn a lot about the usability of your site. Often, teams are concerned with which technique or tool to use because of the litany that are available..." http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2013/02/08/kelly-goto-prototyping-for-mobile-designs/ +05: JAVASCRIPT Making Elements Keyboard Focusable and Clickable By Roger Johansson. "When you want to make an element on a web page clickable in order to trigger a JavaScript function, the best option is to use an element that has native support for keyboard interaction. In most cases a button (either or ) is the most appropriate element. It lets everybody trigger your function, whether they use a mouse or not." http://www.456bereastreet.com/archive/201302/making_elements_keyboard_focusable_and_clickable/ ARIA Guidance By ssbbartgroup. "This note aims to clarify the use and requirements of using ARIA. ARIA is a W3C specification for the creation of Accessible Rich Internet Applications. ARIA aims to provide support to users of assistive technology in three main areas that were not previously addressed by the (X)HTML specifications: indicating main structural areas of a page, creation of roles and properties of user interface elements, and as a method to indicate alerts, page changes and dynamically updating information..." https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/reference/index.php/ARIA_Guidance Using aria-describedby to Replicate Fieldset and Legend By Ted Drake. "This example fixes a form that included a form within a table. It uses the aria-describedby attribute to connect the individual form inputs with a header cell. It was inspired by DeQue's recent article for using ARIA to replace fieldset/legend in a set of radio buttons: ARIA-Group: a viable alternative for Fieldset / Legend?..." http://www.last-child.com/aria-describedby-fieldset/ +06: MISCELLANEOUS. Where to Start By Trent Walton. "When making the transition to building responsive websites, the hardest part can be getting started.,," http://trentwalton.com/2013/02/07/where-to-start/ No More Mobile By Jim Ramsden. "...One term that really confuses me each time it's used is 'Mobile'..." http://jimramsden.com/notes/no-more-mobile A Walk with Paul Irish By Web Design Weekly. "Have you ever wanted to know what's inside other web developers' heads? Have you ever wanted to catch up with someone that is an industry leader and an all-round awesome guy? How about a walk around the back streets of California with Paul Irish?..." http://web-design-weekly.com/2013/02/05/a-walk-with-paul-irish/ +07: NAVIGATION. Using WAI-ARIA Landmarks - 2013 By Steve Faulkner. "Adding ARIA landmarks to your existing site, or to a site you are developing, provides useful global navigation features and aids understanding of content structure for users. Over time the necessity of explicitly assigning landmarks will lessen as browsers build in ARIA landmark roles to newer HTML element semantics. There is widespread support for ARIA landmarks in browsers and screen readers." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2013/02/using-wai-aria-landmarks-2013/ ARIA Tabs By Adrian A. Roselli. "Last week I spent my Friday afternoon trying to get my head around how to apply ARIA properly to a tabbed interface. I even got so far as to map it out on my whiteboard and snap a photo so I could mull it over during the weekend..." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2013/02/aria-tabs.html Avoid the Pains of Pagination By UX Movement. "Everyone has scrolled to the bottom of a web page before and seen that row of numbers. That row of numbers is a website's pagination. Pagination is a user interface pattern that divides content into different pages. It's important to have one on your site to prevent your pages from becoming too long and overwhelming. But the way paginations are designed today are painful for users to use. It's time to turn the page on painful pagination..." http://uxmovement.com/navigation/avoid-the-pains-of-pagination/ Master Mobile Navigation By Aaron Gustafson. "The success of a site almost always hinges on its content. Content, as we are frequently reminded, is king. But if that's the case, then navigation is the establishment that keeps him on the throne..." http://www.netmagazine.com/features/master-mobile-navigation +08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. W3C in the Wild By Doug Schepers. "Each month, a new author from the W3C will keep you informed on what we're up to-and how you can be a part of it. This month's column is from Doug Schepers, W3C Developer Relations Lead at the W3C. - Ian Jacobs, Head of W3C " http://alistapart.com/column/w3c-in-the-wild The Progress Element By Ian Devlin. "When building web sites and web applications, we often need to provide essential feedback to a user informing them of the progress of their request or task, be it uploading a file, playing a video, or importing data..." http://html5doctor.com/the-progress-element/ Further Examples on Using the Main Element By Ian Devlin. "Which is the more correct page layout? - was the question posed over on Stack Overflow with regards to the new HTML5 main element. Neither of them as it turned out, but it did make me think that further examples on how to use the main element might be useful..." http://www.iandevlin.com/blog/2013/02/html5/further-examples-on-using-the-main-element DRM for the Web? Say It Ain't So. By Scott Gilbertson. "So far it ain't so, but some form of DRM in HTML is becoming a more likely possibility every day..." http://www.webmonkey.com/2013/02/drm-for-the-web-say-it-aint-so/ +09: TOOLS. Word2cleanhtml By Olly Cope. "Word2cleanhtml cleans up HTML pasted from Word documents. It applies filters to fix various things that Microsoft Office puts in its HTML and gives you a well formatted result that you can paste directly into a web page or content editing system. " http://word2cleanhtml.com/ Edge Inspect: Developing Mobile Sites with Accessibility in Mind By Kathy Wahlbin. "Adobe Edge Inspect has been around for a while but the latest accessibility upgrades will be a breath of fresh air for accessibility professionals..." http://www.interactiveaccessibility.com/blog/edge-inspect-mobile-accessibility +10: USABILITY. Making Content More Usable for both Designers and the End User By Steph Hay. "...I have to think about the user, so I typically start with a text file. I create the content in a text file based on conversations with the client and with end users. I then hand it to the designer and the designer really builds the site around that. Once I hand it to the designer and some comps come back, I might make a few UI/UX suggestions in the notations as part of the content..." http://www.uie.com/articles/making_content_more_usable Adaptable Content By Sara Wachter-Boettcher. "Sara Wachter-Boettcher's book, Content Everywhere, went on sale just before the holidays. We present an exclusive excerpt that looks into creating content for responsive and adaptive experiences..." http://www.netmagazine.com/features/adaptable-content Your Website has Two Faces By Lyle Mullican. "Your website must serve human and robot masters. An interface that reflects too much of a system's internals will confuse human users; but if data doesn't conform to a specific structure, it's likely to confuse the machines that need to use it. How can your designs serve these very different masters? Jon Postel's Robustness Principle, although usually applied to low-level protocols like TCP, offers a clue to designing experiences that meet human and machine needs with equal grace. Lyle Mullican explains." http://alistapart.com/article/your-website-has-two-faces A Brief History of Usability By Jeff Sauro. "The profession of usability as we know it largely started in the 1980s..." http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/usability-history.php [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 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.]