+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 12, Issue 45, May 1, 2014. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 45 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: EVALUATION & TESTING. 06: EVENTS. 07: HTML5 08: JAVASCRIPT. 09: MISCELLANEOUS. 10: NAVIGATION. 11: TOOLS. 12: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 13: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Guide to Creating Accessible Electronic Materials (PDF) By George Mason University. "The Assistive Technology Initiative (ATI) at George Mason University designed this user manual to provide information and guidance for the creation and testing of e-learning materials (i.e., documents, websites, and videos), including step-by-step procedures for access and use..." http://ati.gmu.edu/upload/PDF-Guide_Final_upd030314.pdf When is an Image 'Purely Decorative'? By Dey Alexander. "In this article, we discuss some examples of images that divide opinion and argue that blank text alternatives are usually best..." http://www.4syllables.com.au/2014/04/decorative-images/ Video Captions Improve Comprehension, Professor Finds By Eurek Alert. "A simple change -- switching on captions -- can make a big difference when students watch educational videos, an SF State professor has discovered..." http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2013-10/sfsu-vci101113.php Captions Improve Learning - Study By Jonathan Morales. A case study conducted at San Francisco State University has found that student test scores and levels of comprehension improve when captions are turned on in university classrooms. http://m.mediaaccess.org.au/latest_news/captions/captions-improve-learning-study Don't Write for Professors (or, How Educated are Your Users?) By Luke McGrath. "The key is to write a simply as you can, that way the majority of your users will stay with you..." http://www.wuhcag.com/reading-level/ 2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap By Rakesh Paladugula. "'If keyboard focus can be moved to a component of the page using a keyboard interface, then focus can be moved away from that component using only a keyboard interface, and, if it requires more than unmodified arrow or tab keys or other standard exit methods, the user is advised of the method for moving focus away. (Level A)...'" http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/04/2-1-2-no-keyboard-trap/ Explain all Abbreviations to Your Users By Luke McGrath. "Some of your users need help understanding your content. Using abbreviations can cause confusion and prevent your users from using your website. Avoid using abbreviations where you can and explain them when you need to use them..." http://www.wuhcag.com/abbreviations/ Practice What You Preach - Federal Agency Hit With Class Action Web Access Suit By Kristina M. Launey and Minh N. Vu. "he American Council of the Blind and three individuals filed suit in the US District Court for the District of Columbia against the United States General Services Administration, alleging GSA's own website, SAM.gov, is inaccessible and does not comply with Section 504, leaving certain blind and visually impaired government contractors unable to register or timely renew their government contracts..." http://www.adatitleiii.com/2014/04/practice-what-you-preach-federal-agency-hit-with-class-action-web-access-suit/ Skipping Heading Levels - Accessibility Considerations By Duff Johnson. "The PWS article, PDF/UA and Skipped Headings, critiques the above-quoted provision in PDF/UA. The article presents the position that it was wrong for PDF/UA to exclude skipping heading levels from the PDF accessibility standard, and includes five arguments and five examples to make its case..." http://duff-johnson.com/articles/the-argument-for-skipping-heading-levels/ Emotions and Web Accessibility By Derek Featherstone. "There's an emotional aspect to accessibility that makes it difficult to determine exactly how we should design for a particular persona." http://simplyaccessible.com/article/emotions/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS Shapes 101 By Sara Soueidan. "The new CSS Shapes specification has the pottential to change the way you think about arranging content on a webpage. (Hint: think outside the rectangles!) Sara Soueidan walks us though the different ways to use this property, with results ranging from simple elegance to eye-popping." http://alistapart.com/article/css-shapes-101 CSS3 Buttons with Gradient Stroke By Jonathan Christopher. "I style a lot of buttons, but a classic treatment I find myself needing to implement is one with a gradient background and subtle gradient stroke along the edges. Over time my solutions began with multiple elements and specific CSS for each. It got the job done but it was clearly bloated. CSS3 changes so much of our lives, and it applies here too. I'm leaving this here for a number of reasons: posterity, reference, and hopefully having it help other developers cleanly implement a streamlined button with minimal markup.." http://mondaybynoon.com/css3-buttons-gradient-stroke/ Incomplete List of Mistakes in the Design of CSS By W3C CSS Working Goup. http://css-tricks.com/incomplete-list-mistakes-design-css/ +03: COLOR. Importance of Color Accessibility By Greg Kraus and Wayne Dick. Presentation materials from Greg and Wayne's April 24 EASI Webinar are available. http://easi.cc/archive/color2014/resources.htm +04: DRUPAL. Sharing Templates Between Multiple Drupal Views By Jeremy Epstein. "Do you have multiple views on your Drupal site, where the content listing is themed to look exactly the same? For example, say you have a custom 'search this site' view, a "featured articles' view, and an 'articles archive' view. They all show the same fields - for example, 'title', 'image', and 'summary'. They all show the same content types - except that the first one shows 'news' or 'page' content, whereas the others only show 'news'..." http://greenash.net.au/thoughts/2014/04/sharing-templates-between-multiple-drupal-views/ How to Remove Core and Module CSS from a Drupal 7 Theme By John Hannah. "In the post on base themes that I wrote earlier this week, I pointed out that core adds a lot of CSS to your site that you may not want. If you find yourself overriding this CSS in your themes, you definitely have some bloat that you could trim down. You also run into this issue quite a bit with contributed modules. Views, Flexslider and Superfish are modules that typically add a lot of CSS I don't want..." http://friendlymachine.net/posts/how-remove-core-and-module-css-drupal-7-theme +05: EVALUATION & TESTING. Why I'm Still In Love With User Testing By Susan Weinschenk. "I've been doing user testing for (I'm afraid to admit) decades. And I still love it. It's a great way to get feedback from people about how effective your design, your product, your assumptions are..." http://www.blog.theteamw.com/2014/04/23/why-im-still-in-love-with-user-testing/ 5 Questions to Answer Before Measuring Anything By Jeff Sauro. "Before measuring anything, especially a construct that's not well defined or used in practice, we answer these five questions..." http://www.measuringusability.com/blog/five-answers.php +06: EVENTS. ADA In Higher Education - What Students and Administrators Need to Know June 11, 2014. Online. http://adata.org/event/ada-higher-education-what-students-and-administrators-need-know WebAIM Web Accessibility Training August 12-13, 2014. Logan, Utah U.S.A. http://webaim.org/training/ +07: HTML5 HTML5 Accessibility By Steve Faulkner. Steve's Presentation at the Paris Web conference. http://vimeo.com/77860167 +08: JAVASCRIPT. Labelmask By Brad Frost. "Labelmask is a way to create accessible input hinting without using input masks." http://bradfrostweb.com/blog/post/labelmask/ 2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap By Rakesh Paladugula. "'If keyboard focus can be moved to a component of the page using a keyboard interface, then focus can be moved away from that component using only a keyboard interface, and, if it requires more than unmodified arrow or tab keys or other standard exit methods, the user is advised of the method for moving focus away. (Level A)...'" http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/04/2-1-2-no-keyboard-trap/ You Have Ruined JavaScript By Rob Ashton. "In the old days we had some really awful JS being written on pages in a pretty ad-hoc fashion and it caused us huge problems..." http://codeofrob.com/entries/you-have-ruined-javascript.html +09: MISCELLANEOUS. Nicole Sullivan on the Value of Optimising Code By Martin Cooper. "The creator of Object-Oriented CSS tells Martin Cooper why bubblegum, carpentry and pianos hold lessons for performance-conscious coders..." http://www.creativebloq.com/netmag/nicole-sullivan-value-optimising-code-41411428 +10: NAVIGATION. Beware Horizontal Scrolling and Mimicking Swipe on Desktop By Katie Sherwin. "Even as more sites mimic swiping gestures and incorporate horizontal scrolling in desktop designs, users remain reluctant to move sideways through content..." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/horizontal-scrolling/ +11: TOOLS. Tanaguru Contrast-Finder "Tanaguru Contrast-Finder finds correct color contrasts for web accessibility..." http://contrast-finder.tanaguru.com/ Sizer Soze By Yoav Weiss et al. "What is the cost of your non-responsive images?" http://sizersoze.org/ +12: USABILITY. Stop Wasting Users' Time By Paul Boag. "...People hate to have their time wasted, especially online. We spend so much of our time online these days, and every interaction demands a slice of our time. One minor inconvenience on a website might not be much, but, accumulated, it is death by a thousand cuts..." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/04/25/stop-wasting-users-time/ The Ideal Length of Everything Online, Backed by Research By Kevan Lee. "...Solid research exists to show the value of writing, tweeting, and posting at certain lengths. We can learn a lot from scientific social media guidelines like these. Here's the best of what I found..." http://blog.bufferapp.com/the-ideal-length-of-everything-online-according-to-science The Web Is A Rectangle By Steven Bradley. "Have you ever noticed how many websites look the same? How many are just a bunch of rectangles? How many seem to copy from one another? Where's the uniqueness and creativity?..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/rectangular-web/ Why Users ArenŐt Clicking Your Home Page Carousel By Anthony. "A website study found that out of 3 million home page visits only about 1% clicked a carousel slide. How could a large, graphical element on the home page get such few clicks? The reason most carousels do poorly might surprise you." http://uxmovement.com/navigation/why-users-arent-clicking-your-home-page-carousel/ And They All Look Just the Same By Greg Storey. "Let me reiterate that Jason's business savvy is keen. Business owners, marketing managers, creative directors, and designers should all consider this statement regarding their own digital properties or the ones they are in care of: 'Too many companies look the same-all style and not enough substance.'" http://cognition.happycog.com/article/and-they-all-look-just-the-same [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.]