+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 42, April 10, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 42 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: JAVASCRIPT. 05: NAVIGATION. 06: USABILITY. 07: XML. SECTION TWO: 08: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. 5 Hidden Risks of Your Inaccessible Website By Deque Systems. "...These risks can add up to greater costs than government fines or civil litigation. If you decide to ignore web accessibility requirements, you should be prepared to accept these hidden risks as well..." http://www.deque.com/blog/5-hidden-risks-inaccessible-website/ UX Accessibility with aria-label By Heydon Pickering. "WAI-ARIA, the accessibility extension technology for HTML, has a reputation for being complex - if not entirely impenetrable - in its specification..." https://dev.opera.com/articles/ux-accessibility-aria-label/ Twitter (Accidentally) Takes Step Toward Accessible Images By Adrian Roselli. "Twitter has officially released its new-ish tweet quoting feature. Since at least last June, if a user included the URL of a tweet within a new tweet, it would present viewers with the full body (albeit smaller) of the referenced tweet within the new tweet..." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2015/04/twitter-accidentally-takes-step-toward.html Accessibility and Low-Powered Devices By Brad Frost. "I think this story is really fascinating. It's an interesting intersection between performance, accessibility, and devices. A few thoughts..." http://bradfrost.com/blog/post/accessibility-and-low-powered-devices/ EdX Settles Inaccessible Online Courses Case By Tim Lohman. "Massive open online course (MOOC) provider edX has settled a case brought by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) alleging that its online courses breach accessibility requirements under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)..." http://www.accessiq.org/news/news/2015/04/edx-settles-inaccessible-online-courses-case +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Using CSS to Customize Standard Checkboxes and Radio Buttons for an Accessible Interface By Heidi Jungel. "Standard HTML radio buttons and checkboxes are often some of the most difficult controls to customize for visual appearance..." http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/using-css-customize-standard-checkboxes-radio-buttons-accessible-interface/ What Nobody Tells You About 'Will-Change' By Thierry Koblentz. "...do not use will-change until all modern browsers are onboard with it (unless you know what you're doing)..." http://cssmojo.com/the-dark-side-of-the-will-change-property/ Sass Basics - Control Directives and Expressions By Reggie Dawson. "If you have used Sass for while or looked at the code of a framework like Foundation, you will notice a lot of advanced features used in mixins. These mixins use control directives such as @if and @for to accomplish things like setting up classes for grid systems. Continuing with the basics of Sass we will discuss these control directives and see how you can use them in your projects. You may not ever find a need to use these control directives but its always good to know what tools are at your disposal..." http://www.sitepoint.com/sass-basics-control-directives-expressions/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. The 3 Lenses of Usability Evaluation By David Travis. "Over the last few months, I've worked with three clients who have each adopted a different approach to usability evaluation. These approaches are like different lenses used to observe the customer experience. No single approach is adequate on its own, but in combination the three approaches form a powerful strategy...." http://www.userfocus.co.uk/articles/3-lenses-of-usability-evaluation.html The First Rule of Usability Testing: Test the Right Users By Daniel G. "OK, so the real first rule of usability testing is, 'do it.' But we can assume you already know that usability testing is important, and that you need to be doing it in order to make sure your apps and software are creating value for your users-and thus for you-as efficiently as possible. Given that, the most important consideration when it comes to usability testing is making sure your testers can give you the information you need..." http://www.loop11.com/the-first-rule-of-usability-testing-test-the-right-users/ Demographics are Key to Unlocking Usability Test Returns By Daniel G. "...Expertise is just one element of your usability group that needs to match your target audience, though. Demographics-age, culture, and in some cases gender and more-are also important considerations..." http://www.loop11.com/demographics-are-key-to-unlocking-usability-test-returns/ Pilot Testing - Getting It Right (Before) the First Time By Amy Schade. "Pilot testing (a session or two before the real test) helps fine-tune usability studies, leading to more reliable results. It provides an opportunity to validate the wording of the tasks, understand the time necessary for the session, and, if all goes well, may even supply an additional data point for your study." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/pilot-testing/ How to Measure the Reliability of Your Methods and Metrics By Jeff Sauro. "Reliability is a measure of the consistency of a metric or a method..." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/measure-reliability.php +04: JAVASCRIPT. Deploying ECMAScript 6 By Axel Rauschmayer. "This blog post describes the options you have for deploying ECMAScript 6 in current JavaScript environments..." http://www.2ality.com/2015/04/deploying-es6.html ECMAScript 6 - Feature Overview and Comparison By Ralf S. Engelschall. http://es6-features.org/ Progressive Enhancement with Handlers and Enhancers By Hidde de Vries. "Recently I adopted a different way to manage bits of JavaScript in websites I was building..." http://hiddedevries.nl/en/blog/2015-04-03-progressive-enhancement-with-handlers-and-enhancers +05: NAVIGATION. WAI-Finding with ARIA Landmark Roles By Lyza Danger Gardner. "Recently, as part of my research for a presentation about web accessibility for non-specialized teams, I asked around about how people were applying the HTML role attribute in their day-to-day web practice..." http://alistapart.com/column/wai-finding-with-aria-landmark-roles/ +06: USABILITY. Content Migration Alone Is Not An Effective Content Strategy By Kara Pernice. "While fairly popular, 'lift and shift' is not a viable content strategy. It is a folly fueled by fear, limited resources, inexperience, and politics. There are better ways to ensure high-quality intranet content, and two award-winning designers offer their insights, proving that a bright attitude makes all the difference." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/intranet-content-strategy/ Writing Is Design, Too By Peter Hornsby. "...I'm really disappointed to see-on a fairly regular basis-just how poorly people still write online copy...." http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2015/04/writing-is-design-too.php Practical Empathy By Indi Young. "This is a sample chapter from Indi Young's new book Practical Empathy. 2015 Rosenfeld Media." http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2015/04/practical-empathy.php A Dao of Web Design at 15 By John Allsopp. "What in many ways is a lifetime ago, 15 years as it happens, I wrote (or more accurately A List Apart published) A Dao of Web Design. The anniversary would have come and gone had not Val Head email me to remind me (after the original person who had the vision to publish the article, Jeffrey Zeldman had reminded her)..." http://www.webdirections.org/blog/a-dao-of-web-design-at-15/ 15 Years of Dao By A List Apart Staff. "...To help us commemorate John's article, we asked some of our past authors and friends to share their thoughts and reflections on the 15th anniversary of 'Dao.' Here's what they had to say..." http://alistapart.com/blog/post/15-years-of-dao +07: XML. Move and Scale SVG Graphics With the viewBox Attribute By Steven Bradley. "The SVG canvas and the SVG viewport, through which you see the canvas operate on independent coordinate systems. The systems are aligned by default, but you can change the default to move and scale the canvas..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/svg-viewbox/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +08: 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.]