+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 13, Issue 52, June 18, 2015. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 52 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: DRUPAL. 04: EVALUATION & TESTING. 05: EVENTS. 06: HTML5. 07: JAVASCRIPT. 08: MISCELLANEOUS. 10: TOOLS. 11: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 12: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. A Journey Into Web Accessibility By Steven Bradley. "I don't pay as much attention to accessibility as I should. I suspect it's the same for many web designers and developers. We know we should do more, but it's often something we'll get to and not something we actually do..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/accessibility-journey/ What Does It Mean To Develop Accessible Websites? By Steven Bradley. "If I ask what it means to develop accessible websites, what would you say? Would you respond that accessibility means adding code for screen readers? Is there anything more? Does accessibility start and end with screen readers?..." http://www.vanseodesign.com/web-design/develop-accessible-websites/ How Can I Make My Forms A Little More Accessible? By Rob Copeland. "...what can we do, besides just semantic markup, that’s easy to implement and remember and will give us the most improvement for only a small amount of effort?(Keep in mind that this is what I want to do instead of doing nothing.) In trying to answer that question, I decided to start in the obvious place, forms..." https://medium.com/@roblcopeland/how-can-i-make-my-forms-a-little-more-accessible-1726d63210f2 3.3.1 Error Identification By Rakesh Paladugula. "If an input error is automatically detected, the item that is in error is identified and the error is described to the user in text. (Level A) Description Submitting a web form and retrieving information on websites is quite common on today’s interactive web space..." http://www.maxability.co.in/2015/06/3-3-1-error-identification/ A New Appreciation for Audio Description By Elizabeth Simister. "While at the John Slatin AccessU event in Austin, TX recently, I had the opportunity to learn more about audio description..." http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/a-new-appreciation-for-audio-description/ Why WCAG's H65 Technique is Invalid and Abused to Allow Disappearing Placeholders Over Visible Labels By Paul J. Adam. "The examples in H65 have no relevance to a large form with many text inputs like a Shipping Address fieldset. However, due to design trends in mobile the use of Placeholder attributes have replaced the use of visible label text to describe what the user must type into the input..." http://pauljadam.com/demos/wcagh65invalid.html People with Disabilities Have Lousy Access at State Websites, Including Covered California By Ken Broder. "California law has required state government websites to be accessible by people with disabilities since 2003. According to the California State Auditor, that's also how long state websites have not followed the law..." http://www.allgov.com/usa/ca/news/top-stories/people-with-disabilities-have-lousy-access-at-state-websites-including-covered-california-150610?news=856689 Release of the Windows 10 Edge Browser - What it Means for Accessibility and ARIA Support in IE By Bryan Garaventa. "As the launch date for Windows 10 comes closer, so does the release of a new web browser. Previously code named Spartan, this new browser has officially been branded by Microsoft as Edge..." http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/release-of-the-windows-10-edge-browser-what-it-means-for-accessibility-and-aria-support-in-ie/ Accessibility Policy Series #4: Phase 2 - Policy Operationalization By Sheri Byrne-Haber. "In my last Accessibility Policy Series post I discussed the accessibility policies that must be created during the Accessibility Policy phase. In this blog I will look in more detail at the types of Accessibility Plans that must be built during the second part of accessibility policy/plan establishment, the Accessibility Policy Operationalization Phase. These Plans rely on data established during the Policy phase. The Operationalization plans include..." http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/accessibility-policy-series-4-phase-2-policy-operationalization/ Accessibility Policy Series #5: Phase 3 - Establish Accessibility Standards By Sheri Byrne-Haber. "In my last post in the Accessibility Policy Series, I discussed the accessibility plans that must be created during the Accessibility Operationalization phase. In this post I'll discuss the types of Accessibility Plans and Guides that must be built during the third phase of accessibility policy/plan establishment, the Accessibility Policy Standards Phase..." http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/accessibility-policy-series-5-phase-3-establish-accessibility-standards/ Accessibility Policy Series #6: Phase 4 - Implementation By Sheri Byrne-Haber. "In this post I’ll look in more detail at the types of Accessibility Plans that must be built during the last part of accessibility policy/plan establishment, the Accessibility Implementation Phase. These Plans rely on data established during the previous phases..." http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/accessibility-policy-series-6-phase-4-implementation/ Accessibility Policy Series #7: Measuring Success with DAMM By Sheri Byrne-Haber. "In this last post in the series blog I will discuss at a high level a method to measure the maturity level of your organization after the accessibility policies have been implemented..." http://www.ssbbartgroup.com/blog/accessibility-policy-series-7-measuring-success-with-damm/ Reviewing PDF/UA-related comments on the Section 508 NPRM By Duff Johnson. "The comment period has closed on the US Access Board’s NPRM for the refresh of Section 508. This article reviews the 17 (out of 126) comments that mention PDF/UA. I’ve grouped them into four categories..." http://duff-johnson.com/2015/06/01/a-reviewing-pdfua-related-comments-on-the-section-508-nprm/ +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Accessible Footnotes with CSS By Hugo Giraudel. "I was playing with CSS counters the other day and thought about using them to deal with footnotes..." http://www.sitepoint.com/accessible-footnotes-css/ The Future Generation of CSS Selectors - Level 4 By Louis Lazaris. "This article will focus on the new selectors not discussed in my previous article. Browser support for many of these is pretty poor, so I don't recommend using many of these in production. View this post as a peek into what's to come when the spec is further along and browsers start their implementations. I've included demos for those that have support..." http://www.sitepoint.com/future-generation-css-selectors-level-4/ Linear Gradient Problems in Chrome By Adrian Roselli. "I’m going to tell you up front that I don’t have a fix for the issue I am raising, though there are bugs filed against it..." http://blog.adrianroselli.com/2014/10/linear-gradient-problems-in-chrome.html +03: DRUPAL. Inline Form Errors for Accessibility and UX By Brandon Bowersox-Johnson. "...This issue involves accessibility, usability, all four themes, and the Form system, so there are a lot of stakeholders involved..." https://www.drupal.org/node/1493324 +04: EVALUATION & TESTING. An Analytics-First Approach to UX, Part 1 By Luke Hay. "Usability testing is typically done to identify why users are behaving in a certain way. This week, author Luke Hay shows us how to use analytics to determine what to spend time usability testing." http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/an-analytics-first-approach-to-ux-part-1/ An Analytics-First Approach to UX, Part 2 By Luke Hay. "In part two of this two-part series, Luke Hay shows us how to identify user journeys and segment users to get the most out of usability testing..." http://www.uxbooth.com/articles/an-analytics-first-approach-to-ux-part-2/ +05: EVENTS. W3C JavaScript Course July 6-August 2, 2015. Online. http://www.w3devcampus.com/javascript-w3c-course/ Prototypes, Process & Play August 6-7, 2015. Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A. http://chicagocamps.org/events/2015/prototypes-process-play/ MidwestJS August 12-14, 2015. Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.A. http://midwestjs.com/ TypeCon2015: Condensed August 12-16, 2015. Denver, Colorado, U.S.A. http://www.typecon.com/ HybridConf 2015 August 19-21, 2015. Dublin, Ireland https://hybridconf.net/ +06: HTML5. Introducing srcset Our First Step Towards Fully Responsive Images in Microsoft Edge By Greg Whitworth. "Windows 10 Insider builds recently introduced support for srcset, our first step on the path to fully supporting the picture element for responsive images. In this post we'd like to share more about our initial implementation of srcset in Windows 10 and our strategy for bringing more components of responsive images to future releases." http://blogs.windows.com/msedgedev/2015/06/08/introducing-srcset-responsive-images-in-microsoft-edge/ HTML5 Accessibility - Work in Progress June 2015 By Steve Faulkner. Steve updated his useful tests. http://www.html5accessibility.com/ Is HTML 'Complete'? By Bruce Lawson. "...I agree with Tim that fixing the web platform is more important right now than adding more elements to HTML...But I think it's incorrect to claim HTML is finished..." http://www.brucelawson.co.uk/2015/is-html-complete/ +07: JAVASCRIPT. ECMAScript 2015 Has Been Approved by Abel Avram. "The General Assembly of Ecma International has announced the approval of ECMA-262 6th edition, which is the Language Specification of ECMAScript 6 (ES6), also known as ECMAScript 2015..." http://www.infoq.com/news/2015/06/ecmascript-2015-es6 WAI-ARIA Support Matrix By Paul J. Adam "WAI-ARIA attributes listed with accessibility support documented in desktop and mobile OS, browser, and screen reader combinations..." http://pauljadam.com/demos/ariasupport.html Six Steps for Approaching the Next JavaScript By Cody Lindley. "The next recommendation/version of the JavaScript standard, also known as "harmony", "ES.next", "ECMAScript 6", "ES6", and most recently "JavaScript/ECMAScript 2015", is pretty much cemented..." http://developer.telerik.com/featured/six-steps-for-approaching-the-next-javascript/ Against CSS in JS By Keith J. Grant. "...The relationship between CSS and JavaScript is not like the relationship between HTML and JavaScript. With HTML, a true separation of concerns between the markup and the corresponding component code is impossible (because they are in fact the same concern). With CSS, this separation is possible. And, in fact, the concerns are unique, so separation is vital to clean code organization..." http://keithjgrant.com/posts/against-css-in-js.html +08: MISCELLANEOUS. When Responsive Images Get Ugly By Taylor Hunt. "...As for those weirdo units, like ch or ex or pc… If you use them, Tim Berners-Lee calls Håkon W. Lie, who calls Bert Bos, and he calls the authorities..." http://codepen.io/Tigt/blog/when-responsive-images-get-ugly +09: PHP. Naming Functions Consistently By Anna Filina. "I believe that in order to write readable and maintainable code, we must name our functions in a consistent way..." http://afilina.com/naming-functions-consistently/ +10: TOOLS. aXe (The Accessibility Engine) By Deque. "...open source library is a lightweight (~100 KB), fast, portable JavaScript library that executes automated accessibility testing inside your testing framework or browser of choice..." http://www.deque.com/products/axe/ +11: USABILITY. A Checklist for Designing Mobile Input Fields By Raluca Budiu. When you design an input field for use on mobile devices, check whether it satisfies this list of 14 usability requirements. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/mobile-input-checklist/ 5 Common UX Mistakes to Avoid on Your Mobile Site By Spencer Lanoue. "... I'm going to break down 5 of the most common mistakes mobile sites make that frustrate users, causing them to leave and go somewhere else..." http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/06/09/5-common-ux-mistakes-to-avoid-on-your-mobile-site/ Scannability: Principle and Practice By Devan Goldstein. "...how can writers reach people who don't read? Through scannability..." http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2015/06/scannability-principle-and-practice.php The Homepage Exception By Johanna Bates "Structured, automatic systems are great at managing content efficiently-but not so great at accommodating humans changes in that content. On the other hand, free-for-all WYSIWYGs lead to inconsistency and breakdowns. Stakeholders and content administrators need flexibility and control, especially where the all-important homepage is concerned. What’s a website to do? Johanna Bates suggests embracing a people-friendly homepage solution within our robot-driven architectures." http://alistapart.com//article/homepage-exception Answer These 3 Questions on Your Homepage to Reduce Bounce Rates By Marieke McCloskey. "...Who are you? Through your logo, name, and tagline....What do you offer?...Who is this for? Through customer-focused language and a descriptive tagline..." http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/06/09/homepage/ Dealing With Redundant, Out-Of-Date and Trivial (ROT) Content By Paul Boag. "...Although there is a cost to producing this content in the first place, there is a far higher cost in maintaining that content over time...The hidden cost is not just limited to maintenance. It also impacts the usability of sites..." http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2015/06/11/dealing-with-redundant-out-of-date-trivial-rot-content/ 5 UX Tips to Capture the Audience You're Probably Ignoring By Jennifer Winter. "...Capturing-and holding-your reader's' attention has always been a challenge. But there's an entire population out there that you might be ignoring: Users with low literacy..." http://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/06/11/low-literacy/ Help People Create Passwords That They Can Actually Remember By Kara Pernice. Create designs that capitalize on what we know about human memory. Help people remember passwords by encouraging them to: focus when creating, and rehearse; choose passwords that relate to important events, are chunked, have limited characters, and can be articulated in 2 seconds. http://www.nngroup.com/articles/passwords-memory/ [Section one ends.] ++ SECTION TWO: +12: 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.]