+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 12, Issue 37, March 6, 2014. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 37 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: DREAMWEAVER. 04: EVENTS. 05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. 06: JAVASCRIPT. 07: MISCELLANEOUS. 09: NAVIGATION. 09: TYPOGRAPHY. 10: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Accessibility and Building a Web for Everyone Because Sometimes It's Not All About Us By Jenn Schiffer. "...With a lack of time and budget, a lot of accessibility 'testing' really falls on whether the designer and developer of a page or application can, well, access it. Designs then become focused on aesthetics only, with low contrast being seen as more pleasant to those who have excellent vision; tools become tiny because that makes them cute and out of the way for more content. It's 2014 and we continue to build a Web for what we consider to be the group most worthy of access: able-bodied, good-sight-and-hearing-having people, in a class that can afford high-bandwidth and memory for large asset loading sites...." http://negativitysandwiches.com/accessibility-and-building-a-web-for-everyone-because-sometimes-its-not-all-about-us/ Break Complex Data Tables in Smaller, Simpler Data Tables By Denis Boudreau. "Make sure data tables can be digested in smaller, simpler data chunks..." http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/77946869931/break-complex-data-tables-in-smaller-simpler-data Use Caption Elements to Bind Table Headings with Data Tables By Denis Boudreau. "Make sure data tables headings are marked up using real HTML caption elements..." http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/78014554511/use-caption-elements-to-bind-table-headings-with-data Provide ALT attributes on Images Used as Submit Buttons By Denis Boudreau. "Make sure images used as submit buttons have ALT attribute values describing their functions..." http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/78328587719/provide-alt-attributes-on-images-used-as-submit-buttons Present Definitions of Words or Phrases Using Definition Lists By Denis Boudreau. "Make sure definitions of phrases or words are marked up using definition lists..." http://dboudreau.tumblr.com/post/78448710614/present-definitions-of-words-or-phrases-using Captions, Audio Descriptions and Transcripts (Video) By Gosia Mlynarczyk. "This video gives you some advice about alternatives for audio and video content..." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2014/captions-audio-descriptions-and-transcripts/ WCAG-EM - Evaluating Websites with Structure and Flexibility By Scott Hollier. "...In essence, WCAG-EM is designed for web accessibility specialists with a high degree of technical knowledge. As such, the document has three clear sections to assist with the process..." http://www.accessiq.org/news/w3c-column/2014/02/wcag-em-evaluating-websites-with-structure-and-flexibility Separate is Not Equal - Good News for Grocery Delivery By Law Office of Lainey Feingold. "...Eliminating the text-only site is part of Safeway's commitment to making its main site accessible to all users..." http://lflegal.com/2014/02/safeway-accessibility/ Screen Reader User Survey #5 Results By WebAIM. "In January 2014, WebAIM conducted a survey of preferences of screen reader users. We received 1465 valid responses to this survey..." http://webaim.org/projects/screenreadersurvey5/ The WebAIM survey sparked numerous articles and a bug regarding screen reader detection: Why Screen Reader Detection on the Web is a Bad Thing By Marco Zehe. "...letting a website know you're using a screen reader means running around the web waving a red flag that shouts 'here, I'm visually impaired or blind!' at anyone who is willing to look. It would take away the one place where we as blind people can be relatively undetected without our white cane or guide dog screaming at everybody around us that we're blind or visually impaired, and therefore giving others a chance to treat us like true equals..." http://www.marcozehe.de/2014/02/27/why-screen-reader-detection-on-the-web-is-a-bad-thing/ Bug 979298 - Screen Reader Detection Heuristics - Privacy Review By Marco Zehe. "...In short, the main concerns are that web developers will offer feature-reduced or text-only versions of web sites to screen reader users, limiting the experience or even exposing out of date content because the text-only version is not being maintained and updated like the rest of the page. Moreover, screening out visually impaired users on job employment sites and only offering them certain types of jobs, limiting equal access to the job market..." https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=979298 Assistive Technology Detection - It Can be Done Right By Dylan Barrell. "It seems like the WebAim 5th annual screen reader survey has launched a bunch of discussion on screen reader detection and most of the voices have been against it. I think that all of these negative voices are wrong..." http://unobfuscated.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/assistive-technology-detection-it-can.html 'Should We Detect Screen Readers?' is the Wrong Question By Karl Groves. "...if your approach to accessibility has anything to do with detecting screenreaders, you've clearly misunderstood accessibility..." http://www.karlgroves.com/2014/02/28/should-we-detect-screen-readers-is-the-wrong-question/ On Detecting Assistive Technology By Joe Dolson. "...Has there ever been a time when separate but equal was a legitimate treatment?...So many accessibility failures amount to ignorance and laziness, rather than failures of technology, that I can't see this as solving the root problem: developers..." https://www.joedolson.com/articles/2014/03/detecting-assistive-technology/ Detecting Screen Readers - No By Dennis Lembree. "There has been much discussion about the idea of detecting a screen reader from a website and optimizing the code. In the W3C editor's draft IndieUI 1.0: User Context, screen reader detection is proposed. This scares me and many others in the web accessibility community..." http://www.webaxe.org/detecting-screen-readers-no/ On Screen Reader Detection By Adrian Roselli. "...this is where different risks come in. I'll focus on three that come to mind immediately...Double Effort...Selection Bias...Privacy..." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2014/03/on-screen-reader-detection.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Confused About REM and EM? By Jeremy Church. "REM can be confusing, especially without a solid understanding of its partner EM and their archvillain, the PX." http://j.eremy.net/confused-about-rem-and-em/ Basics of CSS Blend Modes By Chris Coyier. "Bennett Feely has been doing a good job of showing people the glory of CSS blend modes. There are lots of designerly effects that we're used to seeing in static designs (thanks to Photoshop) that we don't see on the web much, with dynamic content. But that will change as CSS blend modes get more support. I'd like to look at the different ways of doing it, since it's not exactly cut and dry..." http://css-tricks.com/basics-css-blend-modes/ CSS Gradients By Chris Coyier. "This article was originally published on March 2, 2010. It was updated April 1, 2011, July 20, 2011, and again March 3, 2014, each time to clarify and correct browser prefixes and best practices..." http://css-tricks.com/css3-gradients/ +03: DREAMWEAVER. Struggles with Dreamweaver CC's Grid Layout System By Virginia DeBolt. "After building about 20 layouts, redoing a couple of sites, and starting and rejecting an uncounted number of Dreamweaver CC grid system attempts, I'm here to describe some of my issues with this tool..." http://www.webteacher.ws/2014/03/03/struggles-dreamweaver-ccs-grid-layout-system/ +04: EVENTS. CSUN 2014 Hackathon March 21, 2014. San Diego, California, U.S.A. http://john.foliot.ca/csun-2014-hackathon/ Generate Conf June 20, 2014. New York, New York, U.S.A. http://www.generateconf.com/Content/New-York-1-2 mLearnCon 2014 Conference and Expo June 24-26, 2014. San Diego, California, U.S.A. http://www.elearningguild.com/mLearnCon/content/2702/mlearncon--2013-home/ OSCON July 20-24, 2014. Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. http://www.oscon.com/oscon2014 +05: INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE. Achieving Alignment - Collaboration Versus Wireframes? By Janet M. Six. "In this edition of Ask UXmatters, our experts discuss whether wireframes can sometimes be a crutch that product teams rely on too much when trying to achieve alignment rather than becoming aligned by truly collaborating...." http://uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2014/02/achieving-alignment-collaboration-versus-wireframes.php +06: JAVASCRIPT. JavaScript String: substring, substr, slice - Which Function Should You Use When? By Ariya Hidayat. "Extracting a portion of a string is a fairly well understood practice. With JavaScript, there are three different built-in functions which can perform that operation. Because of this, often it is very confusing for beginners as to which function should be used. Even worse, sometimes it is easy to fall into the trap and choose the wrong function..." http://ariya.ofilabs.com/2014/02/javascript-string-substring-substr-slice.html +07: MISCELLANEOUS. Responsive Strategy By Brad Frost. "Right now around 11 or 12% of the top 100,000 sites are responsive, and no doubt that number is slated to rise over the next few years..." http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/post/responsive-strategy/ +08: NAVIGATION. Global Navigation is Less Useful on Large, Complex Websites By Gerry McGovern. "As a website becomes larger and more complex, navigation should focus on helping customers move forward. Helping them move backwards or sideways can cause major distraction and confusion..." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/global-navigation-less-useful-large-complex-websites +08: TYPOGRAPHY. Web Typography is Now Open Source By Richard Rutter. "In December 2005 I launched Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web, a practical guide to web typography using Robert Bringhurst's book The Elements of Typographic Style as a basis..." http://clagnut.com/blog/2375/ +10: USABILITY. Simplicity - A Thoughtful Approach To Better Design By Steven Bradley. "...the closer any design gets to simplicity the better that design will be. Staying true to the essence of the thing being designed should be a primary goal of all design. Those that successfully follow the goals of simplicity will appear inevitable and right..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/simplicity-thoughtful-reduction/ From Google Ventures - 5 Rules For Writing Great Interface Copy By John Zeratsky. "John Zeratsky gives pointers on the importance of crafting those little bits of text in the UI design of software products." http://www.fastcodesign.com/3026463/from-google-ventures-5-rules-for-writing-great-interface-copy What Happens When Placeholder Text Doesn't Get Replaced By Rian van der Merwe. "One of the many things I do that proves that I need to get out more is collect examples of placeholder text that ends up in a final interface. But I've also noticed that the issue happens more and more in the offline world as well..." http://www.elezea.com/2014/02/lorem-ipsum-gone-wrong/ [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.]