+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 16, October 16, 2014. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 16 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: EVALUATION & TESTING. 04: EVENTS. 05: JAVASCRIPT. 06: MISCELLANEOUS. 07: NAVIGATION. 08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. 09: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 10: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. A11y Needs You - User Survey to Improve WCAG 2.0 Supporting Documents by Joshue O Connor. "Are you a Web developer? Interested in web accessibility? Do you find WCAG easy to use as a resource for creating accessible content? Are the supporting documents and techniques useful to you?" http://www.cfit.ie/news-and-commentary-archive/671-wcagusersurvey2014 Barriers? Ha! Web Design Expert Champions Accessibility By Starshine Roshell. "Derek Featherstone has spent his life leaping over barriers-and helping others do the same..." http://www.lynda.com/articles/ux-expert-web-accessibility/ Why Keyboard Usability Is More Important Than You Think By David Sloan and Sarah Horton. "This is the first of two articles in which we'll look at why and how to provide an accessible, enjoyable experience for people who use the keyboard to work with websites and applications. Here, we look at the reasons why keyboard usability is such an important part of good user experience design..." http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2014/10/08/why-keyboard-usability-is-more-important-than-you-think/ Designing Better Keyboard Experiences By David Sloan and Sarah Horton. "In this article, we'll examine four key ways to improve online user experiences for people who don't use a mouse. Let's look at each of them in turn..." http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2014/10/08/designing-better-keyboard-experiences/ Accessible HTML Video as a Background By Emma Sax. "...Using video as a background is on the increase so it's important to know how to make it accessible for everyone..." http://www.punkchip.com/accessible-html-video-as-a-background/ Rough Guide - Browsers, Operating Systems and Screen Reader Support - Updated By Steve Faulkner. "When testing aspects of support for new HTML5, WAI-ARIA features and HTML features in general, I often test browsers that do not have practical support for screen readers on a particular operating system. I find they have support for feature X, but lack support for feature Y that is required to enable practical support to web content for screen reader users. While it is useful to test and find successful implementations of discrete features, it needs to be viewed in the broader context of which browsers can be considered usable with popular OS level screen readers..." http://www.paciellogroup.com/blog/2014/10/rough-guide-browsers-operating-systems-and-screen-reader-support-updated/ WebAIM's 15th Birthday, WAVE Chrome Extension, and API Access By Jared Smith. "This month WebAIM celebrates its 15th birthday..." http://webaim.org/blog/webaims-15th-bday/ Should TEACH Act Language Appear in the Higher Education Act? NCDAE and WebAIM Weigh In. By Cyndi Rowland. "NCDAE and WebAIM joined together on this position statement..." http://ncdae.org/blog/teach-act/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. CSS, DRY, and Code Optimization By Jens Meiert. "When I explained the problems with type sortingin CSS I realized that the type sorter's motivation was a particular problem, not just mere preference. It was something more fundamental, something that has caused us web developers more headache. The underlying problem is that people repeat themselves too often in CSS-or repeat the wrong code too often, respectively..." http://meiert.com/en/blog/20141009/css-dry-and-optimization/ Spacing Elements By Simurai. "So let's say we have a 'bar' with some items inside. Like a header or footer. Let's also say we want those items to be spaced evenly, meaning they have the same gap everywhere. Shouldn't be a big problem. Let's take a look..." http://simurai.com/blog/2014/05/25/spacing-elements/ Getting Started with Sass, Part 3 By Laura Kalbag. "In this Part 3, I'm going to explore mixins and placeholders, and demonstrate how to use frameworks to import useful mixins and make development faster..." http://webstandardssherpa.com/reviews/getting-started-with-sass-part-3 Top 5 Sass Mistakes By Roy Tomeij. "Frontend architect Roy Tomeij highlights the top Sass mistakes and explains how to avoid them..." http://www.creativebloq.com/netmag/top-5-sass-mistakes-101413088 4 Sass Features You May Not Have Tried By M David Green. "Once you've gone to the trouble of converting your workflow over to Sass, it's easy to fall into familiar patterns. You may be so pleased with the power of what Sass can do with a few simple techniques that you never bother to explore some of the more advanced features. There are many advantages to using a powerful pre-processor like Sass, and it's worth exploring some of the less familiar ways to use it..." http://www.sitepoint.com/sass-features-may-never-tried/ Managing Color Values with Sass By James Steinbach. "There are plenty of suggestions for managing color values with Sass. You can generate palettes programatically, rely on Sass color functions, name variables well, or even let math pick all your colors for you..." http://www.sitepoint.com/managing-color-values-with-sass/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. When to Use Which User-Experience Research Methods By Christian Rohrer. "Modern day UX research methods answer a wide range of questions. To know when to use which method, each of 20 methods is mapped across 3 dimensions and over time within a typical product-development process." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/which-ux-research-methods/ Why Marketing and UX Should Test Together By Jacob. "...Rather than proposing some radical concept or changing existing practices, here are some reasons why the UX practitioner should consider collaborating with the marketing department more closely so that the company gains the maximum benefit from its research activities and budget..." http://www.loop11.com/why-marketing-and-ux-should-test-together/ +04: EVENTS. UX Futures November 5, 2014. Online. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ux-futures-registration-12433112775 International Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference March 2-7, 2015. San Diego, California, U.S.A. http://www.csun.edu/cod/conference/ South By Southwest Interactive March 13-17, 2015. Austin, Texas, U.S.A. http://sxsw.com/interactive MinneWebCon 2015 April 13-14, 2015. Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. http://minnewebcon.org/ LeanUX April 15-19, 2015. New York, New York, U.S.A. http://leanuxnyc.co/nyc/ +05: JAVASCRIPT. aria-grabbed (State) By Rakesh Paladugula. "ARIA-grabbed state is defined to any element of the web page which allows the user to drag it from one portion of the page to another. Read ARIA-dropeffect article to understand how WAI ARIA can be used to define if an element can be grabbed from one portion and drop at another portion of the..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/10/aria-grabbed-state/ Learning Much JavaScript From One Line of Code By Javier Marquez. "...Today I want to break in pieces a one-liner code that Addy Osmani shared a few days ago that can be used to debug your CSS layers. Here it is, in 3 lines to fit in the post..." http://arqex.com/939/learning-much-javascript-one-line-code +06: MISCELLANEOUS. Here is the Biggest Challenge to Modi's Digital India Vision By Saptarishi Dutta. "...4 billion people in the world don't have access to Internet-India accounts for 25% of them..." http://qz.com/274880/here-is-the-biggest-challenge-to-modis-digital-india-vision/ It was Twenty Years Ago Today - An Interview with Hakon Wium Lie By Bruce Lawson. "Twenty years ago today, Opera's CTO Hakon Wium Lie published Cascading HTML style sheets - a proposal..." https://dev.opera.com/articles/css-twenty-years-hakon/ +07: NAVIGATION. The Importance of Navigation Design Patterns: Chris Banks By Chris Banks. "In this article we discuss the importance of navigation design patterns using examples from some of the hottest websites and web apps..." http://speckyboy.com/2014/10/09/navigation-design-patterns/ Wayfinding For The Mobile Web By Dennis Kardys. "When designing mobile first, navigation takes a back seat to content, and ruthless editing paves the way for more focused experiences. The pursuit of simplicity, combined with the tight spatial constraints of mobile viewports, often leads us to strip away elements in an attempt to minimize the interface. But the space-saving convenience we gain through clever editing and a compact UI can come at the expense of the very navigational aids our users rely on..." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/10/13/wayfinding-for-the-mobile-web/ +08: STANDARDS, GUIDELINES & PATTERNS. Application Foundations for the Open Web Platform By Jeff Jaffe. "Bringing HTML5 to the status of W3C Recommendation (in October 2014) is a defining moment in the development of the Open Web Platform (OWP), a set of technologies for developing distributed applications with the greatest interoperability in history. This year is also the 25th anniversary of the Web and 20th anniversary of W3C, making this an even more meaningful time to engage with the community about the Next Big Thing for the Web Platform..." http://www.w3.org/blog/2014/10/application-foundations-for-the-open-web-platform/ +09: USABILITY. Design is Functional First By Paul Boag. "When most of us think about design we focus on aesthetics. But as any designer will tell you, aesthetics shouldn't be your primary concern..." http://boagworld.com/design/design-is-functional-first/ What on Earth is 'Satisficing'? By Jessica Enders. The term 'satisficing' refers to the human tendency to expend only the minimum amount of energy required to successfully complete a task. It's an subconscious phenomenon: (most of the time) we don't sit down to do something and think 'I'm going to spend the bare minimum on this'. http://www.sitepoint.com/satisficing-mean-web-forms/ The Key Difference Between Online and Print Publishing By Gerry McGovern. "Vigorously managing what is already published is the critical difference between a professional online publishing culture and a traditional offline print culture." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/key-difference-between-online-and-print-publishing [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 Drupal Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/drupal.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 HTML Information. http://www.d.umn.edu/itss/training/online/webdesign/html.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.]