+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 12, Issue 35, February 20, 2014. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 35 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: DRUPAL. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: NAVIGATION. 10: TOOLS. 11: USABILITY. 12: XML. SECTION TWO: 13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Future of Accessibility and Video Captions According to Google and YouTube By Shannon K. Murphy. "Making video accessible to people who need captions is really important. And I want to encourage everybody who has power over this to make their videos accessible, to add captions, and to focus not on excuses or reasons why not to do it or what's required, but how you can have the biggest impact and reach the most people..." http://www.3playmedia.com/2014/01/10/future-accessibility-video-captions-according-google-youtube/ Accessible Forms for Deaf People? By Sveta. "...the form may look normal, but many people who cannot use phone or don't like using it are at disadvantage. It is the main issue with deaf and hard of hearing visitors. Even though many of them can talk on phone via a relay service operator, they can do that only within their country and also get frustrated with many businesses hanging up on them..." http://audio-accessibility.com/news/2012/12/accessible-forms-for-deaf-people/ Avoid Triggering Unexpected Context Changes on Keyboard Focus By Denis Boudreau. "Make sure major content changes are not unexpectedly triggered by simply moving focus..." http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/76249035567/avoid-triggering-unexpected-context-changes-on-keyboard Simple Accessibility Updates to Improve New York Times New Redesign - Part 2 By John F Croston III. "For those following along, this is Part 2 of my series on how the New York Times can make simple updates to improve their website's accessibility. 'Part 1 - Simple Accessibility Updates to Improve New York Times New Redesign' is available for those that missed reading it." http://www.jfciii.com/blog/2014/02/10/simple-accessibility-updates-to-improve-new-york-times-new-redesign-part-2/ Include Accessibility in Your Company's Style Guide - Part 1 By Paul J. Adam. "The Style Guide is the PERFECT place to promote standards-compliant, accessible code and user-centered design/usability best practices! In Part 1 of this series I'll post a few inaccessible code examples from Yelp's style guide which gave me the idea for this topic..." http://pauljadam.com/blog/accessibility/include-accessibility-in-your-companys-style-guide/ New Accessibility Agreement - WCAG 2.0 AA Standard for Web and Mobile By Law Office of Lainey Feingold. "...WellPoint, one of the largest health benefits companies in the United States, announced a comprehensive plan to increase accessibility of its print and digital information. The company will be using WCAG 2.0 AA as its standard for web and mobile apps, and will be expanding its system for providing braille, large print, electronic, and audio versions of print information..." http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/w3c-wai-ig/2014JanMar/0063.html Podcast #99: Jennison Powers Up Silicon Valley By Dennis Lembree. "Dennis speaks with @Jennison Asuncion about his big move to Silicon Valley from Toronto, new Meetup groups and camps, CSUN14 and other fun things." http://www.webaxe.org/podcast-99-jennison-powers-up-silicon-valley/ EPUB Makes Mobile Content Inclusive and Accessible By Rich Schwerdtfeger. "Throughout the history of computing, software has typically advanced more quickly than the hardware on which it runs. But that's not the case when it comes to documents and mobile devices. All too often, things like PDF documents and HTML pages are laborious to operate on a mobile device or limited in capability. When you consider the widespread and unrelenting proliferation of mobile devices, from smart phones to tablets, the problem was only going to get worse." http://asmarterplanet.com/blog/2014/02/epub-mobile.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Use CSS to Change the Presentation of Elements on Keyboard Focus By Denis Boudreau. "Make sure CSS enhances visual feedback when an element receives keyboard focus..." http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/76641389813/use-css-to-change-the-presentation-of-elements-on +03: COLOR Color Theory Tutorial, Concepts, Essays and Color Basics By Janet Shallbetter. "If you are involved in the creation or design of visual documents, an understanding of color will help when incorporating it into your own designs. Choices regarding color often seem rather mystical, as many seem to base decisions on nothing other than "it looks right." Although often told I had an eye for color, the reason why some colors worked together while others did not always intrigued me and I found the study of color theory fascinating..." http://worqx.com/color/ +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Everything You Know About Accessibility Testing is Wrong (part 1) By Karl Groves. "My first experience with accessibility and, therefore, accessibility testing, came from Bobby..." http://www.karlgroves.com/2014/02/13/everything-you-know-about-accessibility-testing-is-wrong-part-1/ 10 Things That Can Go Wrong in a Usability Test By Jeff Sauro. "Here are the ten most common problems we encounter in usability testing and some ideas for how to avoid or manage them when they inevitably occur..." http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/wrong-usability-test.php 10 Ways to Get a Horrible Survey Response Rate By Jeff Sauro. "Enevitably one or a few of these response rate killers will creep into your next survey project. Knowing more about them should improve your next survey response rate..." http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/horrible-responserate.php Business-Value Metrics for Field Studies By Nicki L. Davis. "Demonstrating business value is a continual challenge for the UX community, as Lis Hubert and Paul Callee noted in their recent series of articles on UXmatters. I'd like to contribute to the discussion about business value by presenting a case study that offers hard numbers on the business value of field studies..." http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/02/business-value-metrics-for-field-studies.php +05: EVENTS. W3C JavaScript Course March 17-April 14, 2014. Online http://www.w3devcampus.com/javascript-for-beginners-w3c-course/ Drupal Camp April 18-19, 2014. Stanford, California, U.S.A. https://drupalcamp.stanford.edu/ Global Accessibility Awareness Day May 9, 2014. Everywhere. https://www.facebook.com/globalaccessibilityawarenessday DrupalCon June 2-6, 2014. Austin, Texas, U.S.A. https://austin2014.drupal.org/ CSS Day 2014 June 4, 2014. Amsterdam, The Netherlands http://cssday.nl/ +06: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Adopting a Professional Compass for Information Architecture By Nathaniel Davis. "It is...beneficial to adopt a compass that dictates what is good and right in information architecture- in essence, a professional compass for information architecture..." http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/02/adopting-a-professional-compass-for-information-architecture.php +07: JAVASCRIPT. ARIA-busy By Rakesh Paladugula. "...ARIA-busy state should be used by the content authors when a portion on a web page has auto updating content..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/02/aria-busy/ JavaScript Time Values - Dates as Milliseconds Since 1970-01-01 By Axel Rauschmayer. "This blog post explains how JavaScript dates are stored internally as time values, milliseconds since 1970-01-01." http://www.2ality.com/2014/02/time-values.html +08: MISCELLANEOUS. What Does It Mean To Design Websites Responsively? By Steven Bradley. "How do you define what is and isn't a responsive design..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/what-is-responsive/ Grid By Adam Kaplan. "A simple guide to responsive design..." http://www.adamkaplan.me/grid/ An Interview with Derek Featherstone By Sarah Horton. "Derek Featherstone is founder and lead of Simply Accessible, a consultancy that works to bring accessibility into organizations through consulting, training, workshops, and support. Derek is a well-known and well-respected advocate for accessible user experience, moving beyond technical accessibility to support good and successful experiences for everyone..." http://rosenfeldmedia.com/blogs/a-web-for-everyone/accessible-interaction-an-interview-with-derek-featherstone/ +09: NAVIGATION. Text Links - Best Practices for Screen Readers By Sailesh Panchang. "Sometimes, the visible anchor text as mandated by the user interface design is not very meaningful to vision impaired users. One could use aria-label or the title attribute or even off-screen text on text links. But what's the best practice based on current assistive technology support?" http://www.deque.com/blog/text-links-practices-screen-readers/ The Accessible Current Page Link Conundrum By Heydon Pickering. "The problem with 'current page' links is there's no interoperable (read: accessible) way of communicating them. Unlike links to page fragments, which are identified as 'same page link' (or similar) by popular screen readers, the mechanism by which a link points to the current location is not exposed via browsers to assistive technologies..." http://www.heydonworks.com/article/the-accessible-current-page-link-conundrum The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet 2.0 By Danny Dover. "...It is my honor and privilege today to introduce the brand-new version of The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet." http://moz.com/blog/the-web-developers-seo-cheat-sheet-2013-edition +10: TOOLS. YouDescribe By Smith-Kettlewell Video Description Research and Development Center. "An experimental platform for adding extended audio description to YouTube videos. Describe your favorite YouTube videos for the benefit of blind friends and strangers alike. Choose a video, pause it to insert brief descriptions, and tell us what you see! When viewed with YouDescribe, your voice is inserted into those spots in the video. Be descriptive, be brief, be part of the solution..." http://youdescribe.ski.org/rel/ W3Schools Hider (Firefox Extension) By Aaron J Spetner. "Hides W3Schools (and other) results from Google Searches. No longer will web developers find incorrect information when searching. With this extension, search results for W3Schools.com are automatically blocked, preventing you from stumbling across one of the most misleading and aggravating sites on the internet." https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/w3schools-hider/ +11: USABILITY. Don't Use Automatic Image Sliders or Carousels, Ignore the Fad By conversionXL. "I'm sure you've come across dozens, if not hundreds of image sliders or carousels (also called 'rotating offers'). You might even like them. But the truth is that they're conversion killers. So if they're not effective, why do people use them? 2 reasons: (1) Some people think they're cool. But cool does not make you money - at least not this way. (2) Different departments and managers want to get their message on the home page. Design by committee never fails to fail..." http://conversionxl.com/dont-use-automatic-image-sliders-or-carousels-ignore-the-fad/ 6 Usability Mistakes That Kill Conversions By Lisa Barone. "1.) You Aren't Keeping it Simple...2.) You Tried to be Pretty, Not Useful... 3.) You Forgot Words (or Spelled Them Wrong)...4.) You Give Too Many Options...5). You Didn't Make the Action Obvious...6.) There's No Communication..." http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2327233/6-Usability-Mistakes-That-Kill-Conversions Instructional Overlays and Coach Marks for Mobile Apps By Aurora Bedford. Instructions in mobile applications must be designed for optimal scannability, as users tend to dismiss them quickly and do not read thoroughly. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-instructional-overlay/ Protecting Against Link Rot While Embracing the Future By Tim Murtaugh. "...If cool URLs don't change, cool content anticipates un-cool URLs..." http://alistapart.com/blog/post/protecting-against-link-rot-while-embracing-the-future Definitions of User Experience and Usability By User Experience Professionals Association. "Below are various definitions of common user experience terms. Visit these resources to find out more..." https://uxpa.org/resources/definitions-user-experience-and-usability +12: XML. How SVG Line Animation Works By Chris Coyier. "I bet all of you have seen that little trick where an SVG path is animated to look like it's drawing itself. It's super cool. Jake Archibald pioneered the technique and has a super good interactive blog post on how it works. Brian Suda wrote about it on 24 Ways. Polygon used it to great effect on a custom designed article and wrote about it. Codrops has some neat examples. I have very little to add, except my brain just kinda figured it out, so I thought I would explain it one more time the way it clicked for me..." http://css-tricks.com/svg-line-animation-works/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +13: 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.]