+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 25, December 18, 2014. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 25 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: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: NAVIGATION. 07: TOOLS. 08: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 09: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Youngstown State University Settles Federal Complaint Over Accessibility of Website for People with Disabilities By U.S. Department of Education. "The U.S. Department of Education announced that its Office for Civil Rights has entered into an agreement with Youngstown State University in Ohio to ensure that the school's websites comply with federal civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability..." http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-education-department-reaches-agreement-youngstown-state-university-ensure-equ Web Accessibility Sues and Settlements in 2014 By Rakesh Paladugula. "The U.S. Department of Education announced that its Office for Civil Rights has entered into an agreement with Youngstown State University in Ohio to ensure that the school's websites comply with federal civil rights laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of disability..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2014/12/web-accessibility-sues-settlements-2014/ A New Challenge for Investment Managers - ADA Compliant PDFs, Websites By John Toepfer. "I was in a client meeting a few weeks ago when I first heard the phrase- compliant documents. One of our major asset management clients announced that they were beginning to make plans to update their literature strategies to ensure their electronic documents are accessible to people with disabilities, according to Section 508 standards. As their document automation vendor, we took this news very seriously and immediately started taking a closer look at how this would affect our business and our clients..." http://www.snth.com/blog/new-regulation-investment-managers-ada-compliant-pdfs-websites/ Three Easy Tips for Accessible Theming By Joe Dolson. "Let's start with a question: what is accessibility, and why do we care?.." https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2014/12/15/three-easy-tips-for-accessible-theming/ One Year of Accessibility-Ready By Joe Dolson. "...Coming out of the WordPress community summit in San Francisco was wild goal: to require all WordPress themes hosted in the WordPress repository to meet accessibility requirements. It's a wild and crazy idea, and there's a lot of work ahead to get there - but we're pushing the idea forward. We've published an initial roadmap, and met to discuss the issues..." https://www.joedolson.com/2014/12/one-year-accessibility-ready/ How Subtitles Add Value, Not Just Access By I Heart Subtitles. "..., subtitles and captioning can add value in 4 areas..." http://iheartsubtitles.wordpress.com/2014/12/10/how-subtitles-add-value-not-just-access/ WCAG 2.0 Should Not Be Applied to Software and Mobile Apps By Ken Nakata. "I have growing concerns about the application of the W3C Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 to software and particularly mobile apps. To avoid any confusion, let me clarify that when I say 'software and mobile apps' I am not talking about software with a browser-based user interface (e.g. Microsoft Office 365 Web apps, SharePoint, or Google Docs) instead, I am referring to software that has a user interface (UI) separate from the browser..." http://blog.hisoftware.com/2014/accessibility/wcag-2-0-should-not-be-applied-to-software-and-mobile-apps +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Using CSS Floats with Image Links By Heidi Jungel. "The use of CSS floats has been a common method for developers to position content on a web page. According to the W3C CSS 2 specification, section 9.5, 'A float is a box that is shifted to the left or right on the current line.' Ensuring visual keyboard focus indication can be tricky for floated image links..." https://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/2014/12/16/using-css-floats-with-image-links/ How To Use Position Relative and Position Absolute Correctly By CSS Newbies. "Using position in CSS is a big deal. It can be the difference between code that works OK in certain situations, and code that works beautifully every single time..." http://www.cssnewbie.com/how-to-use-position-relative-and-position-absolute-correctly/ Why the :visited Pseudo-Class is Strange By Jacob Gube. "Modern browsers have severely restrained the CSS properties that developers can use in a style rule that uses the :visited link pseudo-class. If you're unfamiliar with this oddball pseudo-class, you may be wondering why your site's visited links aren't rendering as expected." http://sixrevisions.com/css/visited-pseudo-class-strange/ Design Considerations - Text on Images By Chris Coyier. "I enjoyed Erik D. Kennedy's post 7 Rules for Creating Gorgeous UI (Part 2). In it, his Rule 4 is: Learn the methods of overlaying text on images. I thought we could take a look at all his points, code them up, and note anything that comes up technically..." http://css-tricks.com/design-considerations-text-images/ +03: COLOR. The Effect Of Luminance and Contrast Ratio On Accessibility By Steven Bradley. "You know it's important to contrast text with it's background. Black text on a white background offers the most contrast. Light gray text on a light gray background, not so much. What exactly are you contrasting and how do you know when the contrast is enough?.." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/luminance-contrast-ratio-accessibility/ +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. Usability Evaluation of an Accessible Collaborative Writing Prototype for Blind Users By John Schoeberlein, Yuanqiong Wang. "...As the answer to our research question, How a collaborative writing interface should be designed in order to be accessible and usable for persons who are blind?, two collaborative writing prototypes were designed and tested using the iterative design approach..." http://www.uxpajournal.org/usability-evaluation-of-an-accessible-collaborative-writing-prototype-for-blind-users/ How Speeders Affect Online Research By Jeff Sauro. "Speeders are survey participants who finish too quickly, even impossibly quickly. How much do they affect the quality of online research?..." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/speeder-research.php The 5Ws and 1H of User Interviews By Luke Tellefson. "As I gained more experience doing user research, it occurred to me that these questions are extremely useful for user (or stakeholder) interviews. This connection may be bleedingly obvious. But I found that by making a conscious effort to use these questions during interviews, I felt more confident as a facilitator." http://uxmas.com/2014/the-5ws-and-1h-of-user-interviews +05: EVENTS. Mobile+Web DevCon: San Francisco February 3-5, 2015. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. http://mobilewebdevconference.com/ ForwardJS February 3-5, 2015. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. http://forwardjs.com/ Space City JS Houston, Texas, U.S.A. February 5, 2015. http://spacecityjs.com/ Interaction15 February 9-11, 2015. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. http://interaction15.ixda.org/ An Event Apart Atlanta February 16-18, 2015. Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.A. http://aneventapart.com/event/atlanta-2015 Mobile World Congress March 2-5, 2015. Barcelona, Spain http://www.mobileworldcongress.com/ +06: NAVIGATION. Accessible In-Page Tabs (Video) By Russ Weakley. "A quick presentation done at OzeWAI 2014, on using ARIA to make in-page tabs move accessible." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOAsU9SUooA A Link is a Promise By Kara Pernice. "Any broken promise, large or small, chips away at trust and credibility. The words in a link label make a strong suggestion about the page that is being linked to. The destination page should fulfill what the anchor text promises." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/link-promise/ Format-Based Navigation is a Symptom of Organization-Centricity By Gerry McGovern. "Navigation based on formats, tools or systems is a sure sign that an organization is not customer focused..." http://gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/format-based-navigation-symptom-organization-centricity +07: TOOLS. Line Break Remover Tool By textfixer. "You can remove line breaks from blocks of text but preserve paragraph breaks with this tool..." http://www.textfixer.com/tools/remove-line-breaks.php A-Tester Report By Evaluera. "...A-Tester evaluates the pre-enhanced version of a live http(s) web page designed with progressive enhancement against Evaluera's 'WCAG 2.0 Level-AA conformance statements for HTML5 foundation markup' and delivers a report that, in the absence of issues, can act as a very broad and easily confirmed WCAG 2.0 Level-AA claim..." http://www.evaluera.co.uk/ +08: USABILITY. 7 Things I Wish Everyone Knew About Interaction Design By Christopher Noessel. "If I had a dime for every time I heard 'interaction design can't be defined' I would have a frustrating amount of dimes. Such proclamations strike me as lazy. Just because it's difficult doesn't mean it's impossible. Let's give it a shot here..." http://uxmas.com/2014/7-things-i-wish-everyone-knew-about-interaction-design [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +09: 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.]