+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 38, March 12, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 38 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: HTML5. 06: JAVASCRIPT. 07: MISCELLANEOUS. 08: NAVIGATION. 09: TOOLS. 10: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 11: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Form Elements and Accessibility By Rakesh Paladugula. "Hyperlinks and forms are the most commonly found interactive elements on the web page. Providing accessibility features for forms is the most easiest but commonly ignored part while developing a website..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/03/form-elements-accessibility/ On Adding Captions to Videos By Deborah Edwards-Onoro. "...It's straightforward to upload the transcript for a video, I explained. If you used a transcript for the video, simply upload the transcript file to YouTube..." http://www.lireo.com/on-adding-captions-to-videos/ Cognitive Accessibility 101 - Part 1: What is Cognitive Accessibility By Jamie Knight. "This article is based on the content of my 2015 CSUN session of the same title. It's a very light summery of the core content. I will split the talk up into a number of posts so that I can get it out quicker..." http://jkg3.com/Journal/cognitive-accessibility-101-part-1-what-is-cognitive-accessibility WCAG 2.0 Checklist By Paul J Adam. http://pauljadam.com/wcag20checklist.html Better Accessibility Needs User Research By Whitney Quesenbery. "An excerpt from Whitney's and Sarah's book A Web for Everyone, provided by Rosenfeld Media..." https://www.uie.com/articles/better_accessibility_needs_user_research/ Every Little Thing The Refresh Does For Low Vision Users... By Denis Boudreau. "...I say we cannot let the 508 Refresh happen without a minimum of adjustments for low vision users. Planning provisions for efficient word wrapping and setting a percentage to which text can still be resized without loss of content or functionality is not rocket science..." http://www.denisboudreau.org/blog/2015/03/every-little-thing-the-refresh-does-for-low-vision-users/ Secret Life of an Accessible Media Player By Henny Swan. "Below are the slides I gave at CSUN 2015 on accessible user experience for media player..." http://www.iheni.com/secret-life-of-an-accessible-media-player/ Accessibility as a Framework By David A. Kennedy. "...Infusing accessibility patterns and best practices into your project will get you to higher-quality products faster. It's the framework that comes with the Web." http://davidakennedy.com/2015/03/10/accessibility-as-a-framework/ My Testimony at the CSUN 2015 Access Board Hearing: Make Haste By Karl Groves. "...You must not delay this process any longer. You must make haste. Finish what so many people have worked so hard on. Make haste toward an actual Final Rule." http://www.karlgroves.com/2015/03/05/my-testimony-at-the-csun-2015-access-board-hearing-make-haste/ Why Online Ed Accessibility is Not a 'When We Get to It' Issue By Bridget McCrea. "As several high-profile lawsuits surface around accessibility of web content, colleges and universities must take the steps necessary to shore up their own approaches to online accessibility of web content..." http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/online-education-accessibility-299/ The 2015 CSUN Mega Post By Paul Schantz. "When I come to the CSUN conference, I write about every session I attend. When I'm all done with the conference, I make sure I gather up all my posts into one MEGA POST. In the past, I felt strongly pulled toward the more technical web track sessions, because I run a web development shop. This year, I sprinkled in some legal and compliance sessions, because the technical stuff doesn't exist in a vacuum. That, and I find myself being asked to weigh in on accessibility concerns in senior-level conversations more frequently these days..." http://paulschantz.com/2015/03/07/the-2015-csun-mega-post/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. The Truth About !important By Jens Meiert. "...!important is a legitimate feature of CSS, is a tool. It's a critical tool for users, for who it's what guarantees that their rules (when they ever put any in place) get applied. And it's an important tool for authors, us web developers, not just to test (admit, 99% here have used !important for debugging purposes) but also to come up..." http://meiert.com/en/blog/20150310/important/ Sass Basics: Nesting By Reggie Dawson. "When you are just starting out using Sass one of the first features you will hear about is nesting. One reason we may use a preprocessor is to lessen the amount of typing we need to create CSS rules. Nesting allows us to use shortcuts to create our rules. The problem with all great tools is that the potential for misuse is always there. Nesting is no different as overuse can create complex, unmanageable stylesheets..." http://www.sitepoint.com/sass-basics-nesting/ Booster Conference Slides: Making Your Site Printable By Adrian Roselli. "I'll fill this up with notes and other content later, but in the meantime here are the slides from my talk this morning..." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2015/03/booster-conference-slides-making-your.html CSS, Accessibility and You By Paul Schantz. "This is the first presentation I attended on Thursday, March 5 at the #CSUN15 conference. I've attended a few of Derek's presentations in the past and am looking forward to this one. I hope he covers some of the more advanced CSS topics that have come to the forefront of web design in the last couple years. I'm nursing a nasty headache I woke up with, so I hope my notes are up-to-snuff! Bear with me, please..." http://paulschantz.com/2015/03/05/css-accessibility-and-you/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Using Heatmaps to Improve Usability and Conversions By Charles Costa. "Traditional site analysis tools always provide you with valuable insights into how popular your content is and the length of time users spend on your site. However even the best analysis tools are limited in the information they report..." http://www.sitepoint.com/using-heatmaps-improve-usability-conversions/ +04: EVENTS. Web Sherpa Summit April 2, 2015. Online. http://environmentsforhumans.com/2015/web-sherpa-summit/ +05: HTML5. Improving Responsive Images with the Picture Element By Annarita Tranfici. "...In this tutorial I'll give an overview of the picture element, describing its main features and advantages..." http://www.sitepoint.com/improving-responsive-images-picture-element/ +06: JAVASCRIPT. Accessible Drag and Drop with Multiple Items By James Edwards. "In this article, I'd like to show you how to extend the capabilities of HTML5 drag and drop - so it can handle multiple elements, and support keyboard interaction, for sighted and screen reader users." http://www.sitepoint.com/accessible-drag-drop/ Advancing JavaScript Without Breaking the Web By Christian Heilmann. "Current advancements in ECMAScript are a great opportunity, but also a challenge for the web. Whilst adding new, important features we're also running the danger of breaking backwards compatibility..." http://christianheilmann.com/2015/03/09/advancing-javascript-without-breaking-the-web/ +07: MISCELLANEOUS. Bridging Senior Management Disconnect with Digital By Gerry McGovern. "This is the age of fast, give-it-to-me-now, you-better-make-it-simple convenience. But how do we convince senior management of this new reality?..." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/bridging-senior-management-disconnect-digital +08: NAVIGATION. Beyond Blue Links - Making Clickable Elements Recognizable By Hoa Loranger. "Whether you adopt a flat-design style or not, interactive components must retain sufficient cues to suggest clickability. Signaling clickability with cues such as borders, color, size, consistency, placement, and adherence to web standards can give interactive components the proper look." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/clickable-elements/ +09: TOOLS. IBM AbilityLab Mobile Accessibility Checker By Kim Phillips. "IBM AbilityLab Mobile Accessibility Checker helps developers and designers automate, document and report on accessibility standards conformance directly within mobile hybrid and native iOS and Android application development environments..." http://www-03.ibm.com/able/accessibility_research_projects/mobile_accessibility_checker.html +10: USABILITY. How Eye Scanning Impacts Visual Hierarchy in UX Design By Jerry Cao. "In this article we'll briefly outline the importance of visual organization, then explain how the findings of eye tracking can improve the layout of web interfaces..." http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2015/03/how-eye-scanning-impacts-visual-hierarchy-in-ux-design/ [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 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.]