+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 12, Issue 47, May 15, 2014. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 47 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: DRUPAL. 03: HTML5. 04: JAVASCRIPT. 05: MISCELLANEOUS. 06: NAVIGATION. 07: TYPOGRAPHY. 08: USABILITY. 09: XML. SECTION TWO: 10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Celebrate Global Accessibility Awareness Day May 15 By ITSS, University of Minnesota Duluth. "Discover what Accessibility Awareness Day is and check out over 30 ways you can celebrate it..." http://blog.lib.umn.edu/itsshelp/news/2014/04/celebrate-global-accessibility-awareness-day-may-15.html 5 Questions to Ask to Gauge Web Accessibility Compliance By Abbe Miller. "...To determine the accessibility of your website, the following questions can be used as the foundation for future development conversations..." http://www.business2community.com/tech-gadgets/5-questions-ask-gauge-web-accessibility-compliance-0842802 4 Guiding Principles for Providing Online Accessibility By Abbe Miller. "...In 2008, the World Wide Web Consortium established its web content accessibility guidelines to enhance website usability. The group's recommendations were broken into four guiding principles, which still serve as the backbone for creating accessible websites today..." http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/4-guiding-principles-providing-online-accessibility-0833288 Writing Appropriate Alternate Text for Images By Rakesh Paladugula. "Alternate text for images is the first standard or practice that comes into mind when we talk about accessibility. People think adding an alternate text for images is as simple as providing an alt attribute. I don't want to argue if it is simple or complex at this point. I want to leave it up to the readers but come to a conclusion after reading this article. 1.1.1 Non-text content of WCAG 2.0 mandates that every image should have an alternate text." http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/05/writing-appropriate-alternate-text-images/ Let Your Users Check and Change Their Submissions By Luke McGrath. "Some of your users are more likely to make mistakes than others. They may have difficulty concentrating, using forms or understanding instructions. You can help these users by allowing them to check their submissions and confirm them before they're sent." http://www.wuhcag.com/error-prevention-all/ Help Your Users Fill Out Forms Before They Need You By Luke McGrath. "...This article explains what you need to do to meet Guideline 3.3.5 - Help from the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0..." http://www.wuhcag.com/help/ Content and Web Accessibility By Derek Featherstone. "If you're not considering content strategy, creation, and writing an essential part of web accessibility, you're failing." http://simplyaccessible.com/article/content-web-accessibility/ WordPress Accessibility Plug-in - Who Needs It? By Joe Doleson. "The WP Accessibility plug-in contains features that will be useful to all WordPress sites, such as support for the longdesc attribute. Even if your theme was designed with accessibility in mind, there's a place for the WP Accessibility plug-in on your site." https://www.joedolson.com/articles/2014/05/wordpress-accessibility-plug-needs/ +02: DRUPAL. Introduction to Views 3 in Drupal 7 By Daniel Sipos. "Views is one of the most popular Drupal modules with over 5 million downloads and over 700 thousand sites that report using it. It is so popular that Drupal 8 will ship with Views in core as part of an exciting and welcomed initiative of the Drupal 8 release process..." http://www.sitepoint.com/introduction-views-3-drupal-7/ +03: HTML5. The New srcset and Sizes Explained By Martin Wolf. "Last sunday I sat down on my couch, got comfy and started reading up on the new srcset and sizes syntax. I wanted to understand it and then starting to use it now with the awesome picture/srcset/sizes polyfill picturefill 2." http://martinwolf.org/2014/05/07/the-new-srcset-and-sizes-explained/ +04: JAVASCRIPT. Keyboard Accessible Google Map By Pierre Frederiksen. "The basic map controls for Google maps (pan, zoom and the Map and Satellite buttons) are not keyboard accessible by default. This can be addressed by adding a short script to your page..." http://www.visionaustralia.org/digital-access-googlemap Make Your Site Work on Touch Devices By Patrick H Lauke. "Patrick H Lauke demonstrates how to make your site work on touch devices in an introduction to handling touch events in JavaScript..." http://www.creativebloq.com/javascript/make-your-site-work-touch-devices-51411644 ECMAScript 6's New Array Methods By Axel Rauschmayer. "This blog post explains what new array methods ECMAScript 6 will bring and how to use them in current browsers..." http://www.2ality.com/2014/05/es6-array-methods.html Understanding the Four Layers of JavaScript OOP By Axel Rauschmayer. "JavaScript OOP is baffling: on one hand, there is a simple core, on the other hand, there are some really weird things going on..." http://www.2ality.com/2014/05/oop-layers.html +05: MISCELLANEOUS. Sarah Horton and Jonathan Lazar - Accessibility Research Methods (Interiew) By Sean Carmichael. "Accessibility research can help us better understand how people with disabilities use the web and what we in product design and development can do to make that experience more successful and enjoyable. However, accessibility research is often carried out in academia. The valuable insights gained through research are shared and built upon among scholars, but often do not make their way into the practice of people who are designing and building digital products and services...." http://www.uie.com/brainsparks/2014/05/09/sarah-horton-and-jonathan-lazar-accessibility-research-methods/ +06: NAVIGATION. Efficiently Simplifying Navigation, Part 1 - Information Architecture By Anastasios Karafillis. "This series of articles, divided into two parts, is a four-step guide to efficiently simplifying the navigation experience, by analyzing the type and amount of content as well as choosing and carefully designing the right type of navigation menu..." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/12/03/efficiently-simplifying-navigation-information-architecture/ Efficiently Simplifying Navigation, Part 2 - Navigation Systems By Anastasios Karafillis. "How do we make navigation as simple and predictable as possible? As explained in part 1 of this series, the first two steps are to structure content in a way that naturally narrows the navigation options, and to explain those options in a way that minimizes the cognitive load on users. However, two more steps are required..." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/05/09/efficiently-simplifying-navigation-systems/ Bad Intranet Navigation Labels: 3 Workarounds By Kathryn Whitenton. "Many intranets are saddled with poorly-understood labels. If you can't change them, add context to make these labels more transparent to users..." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/fixing-bad-intranet-navigation/ URLs are Already Dead By Nicholas C. Zakas. "...The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this move was not only okay for the web, but it is the next logical step in a process that has been ongoing for sometime now..." http://www.nczonline.net/blog/2014/05/06/urls-are-already-dead/ +07: TYPOGRAPHY. Using Small Caps and Text Figures on the Web By Dmitry Fadeyev. "Typography on the Web is slowly getting better. These days it is not unusual to see custom fonts in use, and oftentimes, though not always, set in comfortable sizes, with enough padding and line spacing to ensure a pleasant reading experience. And yet, some important typographical tools are still being ignored. In this post I'll talk about two such tools: small caps and text figures..." http://usabilitypost.com/2014/05/10/using-small-caps-and-text-figures-on-the-web/ +08: USABILITY. It's About Branding (How Traditional Branding is Killing the Web) By Gerry McGovern. "Of course, everything you are now about to read is fictional. Most real customers couldn't be bothered writing to organizations to vent their annoyance. They just leave." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/it%E2%80%99s-about-branding-how-traditional-branding-killing-web Placeholders in Form Fields Are Harmful By Katie Sherwin. Placeholder text within a form field makes it difficult for people to remember what information belongs in a field, and to check for and fix errors. It also poses additional burdens for users with visual and cognitive impairments. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/form-design-placeholders/ Error Messages Are Evil By Don Norman. "...Error messages punish people for not behaving like machines. It is time we let people behave like people. When a problem arises, we should call it machine error, not human error: the machine was designed wrong, demanding that we conform to its peculiar requirements. It is time to design and build machines that conform to our requirements. Stop confronting us: Collaborate with us." http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/error_messages_are_e.html +09: XML. The Designer's Guide to Working with SVG - Pt 1 By Alex Walker. "What's the big deal about SVG, anyway? Don't you just hit 'Save as SVG' in Illustrator, and you've got yourself an SVG? Yes and no. While it's technically true, by the same logic, every MS Word user is technically a web developer..." http://www.sitepoint.com/designers-guide-working-with-svg/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +10: 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.]