+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 12, Issue 23, November 29, 2013. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 23 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: COLOR. 04: DRUPAL. 05: HTML5. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: NAVIGATION. 10: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Image alt Exception Change Re-Re-Re-Requested By Adrian Roselli. "This post is an unexpected follow-up to my post Image alt Exception Change Re-Re-Requested (note one fewer "re-") from June 2012. Back then, some had called into question the need for alt attributes to be required and ubiquitous on all img tags. Well, guess what - alt is back under review..." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2013/11/image-alt-exception-change-re-re-re.html Accessible Video in WordPress By Joe Dolson. "Since version 3.6, WordPress has incorporated the MediaElementJS library in core to handle the output of video files. It's a great library - it has support for captions and subtitles; support for chapters; support for fallback formats of video; support for YouTube; keyboard support - everything you'd want to have for displaying video accessibly. That's totally exciting! But there's a 'but'..." https://www.joedolson.com/articles/2013/11/accessible-video-wordpress/ USDOJ Seeks to Intervene in Lawsuit Alleging H&R Block's Tax Preparation Website is Inaccessible to Persons with Disabilities By Global Accessibility News. "The Civil Rights Division and U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz announced yesterday that they have moved to intervene in National Federation of the Blind et al v. HRB Digital LLC et al, a private lawsuit alleging disability discrimination by HRB Digital LLC and HRB Tax Group Inc., subsidiaries of H&R Block Inc. In the memorandum and proffered complaint filed by the United States in support of its motion to intervene, the United States alleges that the H&R Block companies discriminate against individuals with disabilities and that their website, www.hrblock.com , is being operated in violation of Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), notwithstanding well-established and readily available guidelines for delivering web content in an accessible manner..." http://globalaccessibilitynews.com/2013/11/26/usdoj-seeks-to-intervene-in-lawsuit-alleging-hr-blocks-tax-preparation-website-is-inaccessible-to-persons-with-disabilities/ W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: 2013 in Review By Scott Hollier. "Reflecting on 2013, it's been an exciting year for both mainstream consumer devices and web accessibility..." http://www.accessiq.org/news/w3c-column/2013/11/w3c-web-accessibility-initiative-2013-in-review HTML5 Accessibility (Video) By Steve Faulkner. Steve's Paris Web Conference presentation. http://www.paris-web.fr/2013/conferences/html5-accessibility.php +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Print Styles Are Media Queries By Adrian Roselli. "I have alluded to this point in the past. Usually when I get off on a rant about print styles, I lump it into the overall process of making responsive sites and I use media query formatting in my examples. But I haven't just flat-out said that print styles are media queries..." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2013/11/print-styles-are-media-queries.html +03: COLOR. 1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum) By Rakesh Paladugula. "...People who have color vision deficit will not be able to read the text if the text and its background do not have enough contrast. Web designers should ensure that the text and background have adequate contrast. The intention of this guideline is to help the people with color vision deficit read the content without the use of assistive technologies such as screen magnifiers or make specialized settings such as high contrast mode..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2013/11/1-4-3-contrast-minimum/ +04: DRUPAL. OpenPublic By OpenPublic. "OpenPublic is an open-source, content management system (CMS) based on Drupal and tailored to the needs of government." http://openpublicapp.com +06: HTML5. Hidden and Aria-hidden Support on the UP! By Steve Faulkner. "...support landscape is no longer depressing..." http://blog.paciellogroup.com/2013/11/html5-accessibility-chops-hidden-aria-hidden-support/ HTML5 Bones By Ian Devlin. "HTML5 Bones is a template that goes back to basics and provides you with the bare minimum required to get going with HTML5..." http://html5bones.com/ HTML5 - Section or Article? By Ian Devlin. "One of the main questions I have seen popping up all over the place in relation to HTML5, in forums, StackOverflow, and Twitter, is 'which do I use: article or section?..." http://www.iandevlin.com/blog/2011/04/html5/html5-section-or-article The HTML5 Meter Element By Pankaj Parashar. "The following is a guest post by Pankaj Parashar. Pankaj has written here before, last time about the progress element. Fitting indeed then to write again about the very related meter element. They are different both functionally and semantically, so read on..." http://css-tricks.com/html5-meter-element/ No to DRM in HTML By Jens O. Meiert. "It's been quiet around DRM lately so I like to share my opinion, in brief: DRM doesn't belong into nor anywhere near HTML..." http://meiert.com/en/blog/20131122/drm-and-html/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. Progressive Enhancement and the Content-Out Approach By Aaron Gustafson. "...While philosophically different, from a practical standpoint progressive enhancement and graceful degradation can look quite similar, which can be confusing. To bring the differences into focus, I like to boil the relationship between the two philosophies down to something akin to standardized testing logic: all experiences that are created using progressive enhancement will degrade gracefully in older browsers, but not all experiences built following graceful degradation are progressively enhanced..." http://www.uie.com/articles/progressive_enhancement/ Initializing an Array with Values By Axel Rauschmayer. "It is not a frequent use case, but it comes up occasionally: Producing an array [1] of a given length that is filled with values. This blog post explains how to do it and what to watch out for..." http://www.2ality.com/2013/11/initializing-arrays.html When JavaScript Feature Detection Fails By James Edwards. "...The general rule is this: reliance on automatic type conversion is safe for objects and functions, but is not necessarily safe for strings and numbers, or values which might be null..." http://www.sitepoint.com/javascript-feature-detection-fails/ An Introduction To Full-Stack JavaScript By Alejandro Hernandez. "Nowadays, with any Web app you build, you have dozens of architectural decisions to make. And you want to make the right ones: You want to use technologies that allow for rapid development, constant iteration, maximal efficiency, speed, robustness and more. You want to be lean and you want to be agile. You want to use technologies that will help you succeed in the short and long term. And those technologies are not always easy to pick out." http://coding.smashingmagazine.com/2013/11/21/introduction-to-full-stack-javascript/ +08: MISCELLANEOUS. Devising a Strategy for Responsive Design By Jared M. Spool. "This year, it will be hard to find an organization that doesn't prioritize making their web site responsive. Yet, as we talk to organizations moving in this direction, we're finding they haven't nailed down their strategy for getting there yet..." http://www.uie.com/articles/strategy_for_responsive_design/ Mobile First vs Mobile-Second a Nuance By Niels Matthijs. "After a surprisingly short transition period, the mobile-first css approach has become the de facto way of implementing responsive designs. Unless you're retrofitting a responsive design on an existing site, there really is no question about how to structure your css. But lingering underneath the reassuring cloak of best practise comfort there is a little nuance that is lost on some. There are basically two ways to approach a mobile-first css setup and only one of them is sane..." http://www.onderhond.com/blog/mobile-first-alternative Mobile Up, Widescreen Down, or Somewhere In-Between? By Steven Bradley. "Designing responsively means designing a site for several key points based on device and conditions and then developing flexibly between those points..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/mobile-up-widescreen-down/ The Power Of Simplicity (Video) By Jeremy Keith. "We're working on increasingly complex websites. There's a tempting to match this growth with increasingly complex solutions. But there's a real value in keeping things simple ... or at least starting things simple. If you can build a solid robust foundation, there's a good chance that your work will be future-friendly..." http://vimeo.com/79556632 +09: NAVIGATION. A Few Tips on Accessible Links By Gosia Mlynarczyk. "This video gives you some tips on how to create accessible links." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2013/a-few-tips-on-accessible-links/ +10: USABILITY. Usability 101 Quiz By Jeff Sauro. "...See how well you can answer some questions on the core concepts of usability, with an emphasis on usability evaluation..." http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/usability-quiz.php Responsive Design Won't Fix Your Content Problem By Karen McGrane. "...Responsive design itself won't fix your content-no one ever said it would. But the opportunity to implement a responsive redesign is also the opportunity to fix your content and its underlying strategy. It may seem more complicated to edit your content and fix your processes and systems at the same time you're designing a new site-but in fact, pretending you don't have to solve these problems just makes the job harder. Smart organizations will see this as a benefit, not a drawback, and will use this chance to make a better website, not just a squishy one." http://alistapart.com/column/responsive-design-wont-fix-your-content-problem Seamlessness in the Cross-Channel User Experience By Janelle Estes. "A seamless user experience, regardless of channel or device, is one of the 4 requirements for a usable cross-channel experience. Companies and organizations that allow users to switch channels while completing tasks have a competitive advantage." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/seamless-cross-channel/ Conversion Rates By Jakob Nielsen. "Increased conversion is one of the strongest ROI arguments for better user experience and more user research. Track over time, because it's a relative metric." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/conversion-rates/ [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.]