+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 12, Issue 13, September 20, 2013. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 13 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: TOOLS. 08: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 09: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Digital Education Shouldn't Bypass Disabled By Kyle Shachmut. "...Just like buildings, digital resources can be made accessible to all through good design and planning...Yet, the vast majority of universities, publishers, and software creators do not embrace mainstream accessibility solutions. Technology giants like Google and Amazon are making immense efforts to put their products in front of students across the country, even though Google Apps for Education, Google Books, the Amazon Kindle, and the Kindle App for mobile devices have features that blind people cannot use..." http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/09/08/classroom-technology-must-accessible-those-with-disabilities/svRyLPnmnBSNCDUuQaUEVJ/story.html Is Innovation More Important than Accessibility? By Paul Boag. "With more and more sites relying on technologies and techniques that hamper accessibility, there seems to be a move away from universal accessibility. But should we accept this as inevitable?" http://boagworld.com/working-in-web/is-innovation-more-important-than-accessibility/ Creating an Accessible Infographic By Michael Guill. "...Creating accessible infographics should not be rocket science to anyone who can slice PSD files and turn out good-quality HTML and CSS. There can be a few extra bits of work involved in perfecting the finished page, but in the end, the infographic is not just some static image. It is readable by people using assistive technology and also easily indexed by search engines, which can be considered a type of blind user...." http://www.interactiveaccessibility.com/blog/creating-accessible-infographic Implementing a PDF Reduction Strategy By Dey Alexander. "PDF is rarely chosen because it's been assessed as the best format for the content. And if it's not used appropriately, it can create a range of problems..." http://www.4syllables.com.au/2013/09/pdf-reduction-strategy/ Google - Web Accessibility is NOT Just for Blind By Svetlana Kouznetsova. "...Google - please do a favor to the accessibility community and users with disabilities to consult and double check with experienced accessibility professionals first before developing a course to teach about accessibility that addresses needs of more people than just those who are blind..." http://svk-nyc.com/journal/2013/09/google-web-accessibility-is-not-just-for-blind/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Recap - 7 Habits of Highly Effective Media Queries By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "At the closing session of the Mobile UX Summit 2013, Brad Frost, web designer, speaker, writer and creator of This is Responsive and Mobile Web Best Practices, shared practical advice and tips for working with media queries..." http://www.lireo.com/recap-7-habits-of-highly-effective-media-queries/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Making Usability Findings Actionable - 5 Tips for Writing Better Reports By Jakob Nielsen. "For usability testing to be valuable, study findings must clearly identify issues and help the team move toward design solutions." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/actionable-usability-findings/ +04: EVENTS. UX Intensive 2013 Seattle November 4-7, 2013. Seattle, Washington, U.S.A. http://ux-intensive.com/ UX New Zealand November 6-8, 2013. Wellington, New Zealand http://uxnewzealand.co.nz/uxnz-2013/ User-Centred Design (UCD) November 8-9, 2013. London, England, United Kingdom http://2013.ucduk.org/ Build Conf November 11-15, 2013. Belfast, Northern Ireland http://2013.buildconf.com/ JavaScript Summit November 19-21, 2013. Online http://environmentsforhumans.com/2013/javascript-summit/ +05: MISCELLANEOUS. Do as Little as Possible By Lyza Danger Gardner. "...it is an appeal for simplicity and elegance: putting commonality first, approaching differentiation carefully, and advocating for consistency in the creation and application of web standards..." http://alistapart.com/column/do-as-little-as-possible Mobile - Native Apps, Web Apps, and Hybrid Apps By Jakob Nielsen. "Native and hybrid apps are installed in an app store, whereas web apps are mobile-optimized webpages that look like an app. Both hybrid and web apps render HTML web pages, but hybrid apps use app-embedded browsers to do that..." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-native-apps/ Responsive Elements By Kumail Hunaid. Responsive elements makes it possible for any element to adapt and respond to the area they occupy. It's a tiny javascript library that you can drop into your projects today. http://kumailht.com/responsive-elements/ Why All Graphic Design Students Should Learn Web Design By Michelle Godfrey. "I want to share some tips with current students on making your college days actually count, things to drill into your head now before you have to learn the hard way..." http://www.loudnoises.us/the-noise/why-all-graphic-design-students-should-learn-web-design-and-10-other-things-you-outta-know/#post-821 The Birth of the Web By Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleair. "The World Wide Web, invented at CERN in 1989 by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, has grown to revolutionize communications worldwide..." http://home.web.cern.ch/about/birth-web +06: NAVIGATION. Landmark Roles and Page Structure By Lias Seeman. "This post is part of my blog series on using ARIA. This post talks about using ARIA landmark roles." http://www.deque.com/aria-blog-series-landmark-roles-page-structure Happiness Engineers Deliver ARIA Joy By Virginia DeBolt. "WordCamp Albuquerque included a Happiness Bar stocked with Automattic Happiness Engineers. I went in with my problem about wanting to add ARIA roles to my new blog..." http://www.webteacher.ws/2013/09/17/happiness-engineers-deliver-aria-joy/ Links Vs Buttons By Rakesh Paladugula. "Where to use links, When to use buttons? This question is in my mind for many years. Finally I did some research to understand the difference between links and buttons. Took opinions from experts, discussed in mailing lists, posted in facebook groups and read some blogs. I have documented my understanding below. Feedback welcome and ready to incorporate the valid comments in the post..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2013/09/links-vs-buttons/ BPOW: Arrow Keys for Mega Menu Navigation By Jeff Smith. "In this week's Best Practice of the Week we'll take a look at making mega menus easier to navigate for keyboard and screen reader users..." http://simplyaccessible.com/bpow/arrow-key-navigation/ +07: TOOLS. W3C Validator Suite By W3C. "The W3C Validator Suite examines the public pages of an entire website and evaluates conformance with W3C open standards. It is available as an online service that provides: Website crawling, HTML5 & CSS Validation, Internationalization checking, Real-time integrated reports." https://validator-suite.w3.org/ +08: USABILITY. Page Height, Scrolling and Responsive Web Design By Brad Frost. "...The fold doesn't exist on the Web, but we should be mindful of page length and scrolling when creating responsive experiences." http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/post/page-height-scrolling-and-responsive-web-design/ Designing Effective Carousels - Create a Fanciful Amusement, Not a House of Horrors By Jakob Nielsen. "Carousels allow multiple pieces of content to occupy a single, coveted space. This may placate corporate infighting, but on large- or small-view ports, people often scroll past carousels. A static hero or integrating content in the UI may be better solutions. But if a carousel is your hero, good navigation and content can help make it effective..." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/designing-effective-carousels/ Intuitive Equals Familiar (1994) By Jef Raskin. "One of the most common terms of praise for an interface is to say that it is 'intuitive' (the word should have been 'intuitable' but we will bow to convention). Yet the Human Computer Interaction (HCI) literature rarely mentions the word, and for good reason. This note attempts to clarify the meaning of 'intuitive' for non-HCI specialists..." http://www.asktog.com/papers/raskinintuit.html [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.]