+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 45, April 30, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 45 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: EVALUATION & TESTING. 03: EVENTS. 04: HTML5. 05: JAVASCRIPT. 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. It's Alive! Apps that Feed Back Accessibly By Heydon Pickering. "It's one thing to create a web application and quite another to create an accessible web application. That's why Heydon Pickering, both author and editor at Smashing Magazine, wrote an eBook Apps For All: Coding Accessible Web Applications, outlining the roadmap for the accessible applications we should all be making..." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/04/27/its-alive-apps-that-feed-back-accessibly/ 3.2.4: Consistent Identification By Rakesh Paladugula. "In any website, same functionality repeats in several pages. For example a search functionality if available on one webpage it appears on several other pages of the website. A web page can have multiple links that navigates to same destination. If such functionalities exist on the website, they should be identified with same name, role and value. This allows the screen reader and users with cognitive difficulties to find the component quickly and more efficiently..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/04/3-2-4-consistent-identification/ ARIA-level (Property) By Rakesh Paladugula. "The aria-level (property) defines the hierarchical structure of an element within a document. Similar to all other ARIA roles, states and properties aria-level (property) is used only when the native semantics cannot provide the structural level of an element, or when the user agent including assistive technologies cannot identify the level of any element. Aria-level is used for defining a heading structure, level of a list item within a list, nested tablist, treeitems within a tree structure, nested grids etc..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/04/aria-level-property/ Time to Revisit accesskey? By Leonie Watson. "What we need is a way for websites to provide keyboard shortcuts that are exposed in the browser's accessibility tree - so that the information can be queried by any assistive technology using the accessibility API. Perhaps it's time to revisit accesskey, fix the broken bits and extend it to become a useful thing?..." http://tink.uk/time-to-revisit-accesskey/ WCAG Cheat Sheets By Dennis Lembree. Dennis' list of cheat sheets. http://www.webaxe.org/wcag-cheat-sheets/ Testing for Presence in an Invisible Interface By Brandon McCartney. "As important as testing is to site usability, we too often forget to test for accessibility. This week, author Brandon McCartney suggests a new form of testing to ensure sites are universally usable." http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/testing-for-presence-in-an-invisible-interface/ Accessibility Testing in Android Studio By Ted Drake. "Android Studio, as well as IntelliJ Idea and Eclipse, provide a simple solution for testing your application for accessibility errors. This short video shows how to use the testing tool to find errors and fix an input that lacks a label..." http://www.last-child.com/accessibility-testing-in-android-studio/ Future of Web Design - Creating Accessible Interfaces Everyone Wants to Use By Leonie Watson. Leonie's slides from the Future of Web Design conference. http://tink.uk/future-of-web-design-creating-accessible-interfaces-everyone-wants-to-use/ Make Your Presentations Accessible - Seven Easy Steps By Whitney Quesenbery. "You've spent hours carefully crafting your presentation and decided there's enough good content to share. Why not then go the extra mile to make your presentation accessible for all who might want to view, quote, comment, or read it?..." http://uxpamagazine.org/make-your-presentations-accessible/ Scribd Faces Setback in Lawsuit Over Accessibility By Nate Hoffelder. "District Court Judge William Sessions ruled on Thursday that the ADA lawsuit filed against Scribd will be moving forward..." http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/03/20/scribd-faces-setback-in-lawsuit-over-accessibility/ +02: EVALUATION & TESTING. User Testing Explained By Jerry Cao. "Usability testing is a technique used to help discover problems or bottle-necks in your design. But there are different types of user testing that suit different types of goals. Scripted or un-scripted? Here we'll explain the differences between the two and how you can make the most of them..." http://thenextweb.com/creativity/2015/04/27/user-testing-explained/ How Many Test Users? 3... 5...10? Try 46! By Peter W. Szabo. "Yes, this is yet another blog post on number of test participants, but this time it is based on very large samples and statistical wizardry..." http://kaizen-ux.com/number-of-tests/ Practical Advice for Testing Content on Websites By Hoa Loranger. "What happens when people reach the web page that contains the information they seek? Don't let the user experience fall apart on the content page. Use modified user-testing techniques to evaluate whether your content meets users' needs and expectations." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/testing-content-websites/ The Fox Guarding the Usability Lab (PDF) By Bill Albert. "The idiom of 'don't let the fox guard the hen house' warns us about the potential danger of giving someone responsibility for overseeing something that he or she shouldn't be involved with, particularly when there is an inherent interest in the outcome." http://www.uxpajournal.org/wp-content/uploads/pdf/JUS_Albert_May2015.pdf 3 Ways to Combine Quantitative and Qualitative Research By Jeff Sauro. "If you're setting up a customer-research project and wondering whether to take a quantitative or a qualitative approach, consider a third option: use both, and take advantage of the opportunities afforded by mixing the two methods..." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/mixing-methods.php +03: EVENTS. Digital and Technology Access: The Role of Law I the Limits of Law (Lainey Feingold) May 21, 2015. Audio Conference http://www.ada-audio.org/Webinar/AccessibleTechnology/Schedule/ +04: HTML5. HTML5 Video Captions - Current Browser Status By Ian Devlin. "The topic of HTML5 videos and captions is something that I have written extensively about in the past, specifically talking about creating your own UI via JavaScript to access multiple tracks since browser support is generally quite poor at the moment. I have decided to document here what the current browser support is actually like, at the time of writing..." http://www.iandevlin.com/blog/2015/04/html5/html5-video-captions-current-browser-status HTML 5 Forms By Mark DuBois. "It is April, 2015 as I write this post. HTML5 is supported by the majority of modern browsers..." http://webprofessionals.org/html-5-forms/ Extending By Jeremy Keith. "Contrary to popular belief, web standards aren't created by a shadowy cabal and then handed down to browser makers to implement..." https://adactio.com/journal/8814 +05: JAVASCRIPT. Everyone has JavaScript, Right? By Stuart Langridge. "Your user requests your web app..." http://kryogenix.org/code/browser/everyonehasjs.html +06: USABILITY. The Millennial Generation is Defining the Web Experience By Gerry McGovern. "We must design our websites for speed, for simplicity, because the Millennials are just the spear point of a world that has got a taste for doing things for themselves, for doing things quickly and easily. We are seeing a historical rebalancing of the relationship between the individual or community and the systems and organizations that are used to govern and control them." http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/millennial-generation-defining-web-experience Obvious Always Wins By Luke Wroblewski. "It's tempting to rely on menu controls in order to simplify mobile interface designs -especially on small screens. But hiding critical parts of an application behind these kinds of menus could negatively impact usage." http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1945 10 Tips for a Better Login Page and Process By Neil Turner. "...Ensure that your login page doesn't present an unnecessary obstacle to your users by following these 10 top tips for designing a better login page and process..." http://www.uxforthemasses.com/login-page/ Password Creation - 3 Ways To Make It Easier By Katie Sherwin. "By making password requirements visible upfront, allowing users to unmask the password, and showing a strength meter, designers can improve the frustrating user experience of creating a password." http://www.nngroup.com/articles/password-creation/ There Is No Fold By Luke Wroblewski. "On the Web, people use the concept of 'above the fold' to support layout decisions, call to action designs, ad placements, and more. Here's why most of these arguments don't fly..." http://www.lukew.com/ff/entry.asp?1946 +07: XML. How To Define SVG Content for Reuse - The defs, symbol, and use Elements By Steven Bradley. "An ability to define code in one location and reuse it in another helps you make your code more modular, maintainable, and readable. SVG provides that ability through elements that define the code and elements that reference it for reuse..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/svg-definition-reuse/ [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.]