+++ WEB DESIGN UPDATE. - Volume 14, Issue 36, March 4, 2016. An email newsletter to distribute news and information about web design and development. ++ISSUE 36 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: JAVASCRIPT. 06: TOOLS. 07: USABILITY. SECTION TWO: 08: What Can You Find at the Web Design Reference Site? [Contents ends.] ++ SECTION ONE: New references. +01: ACCESSIBILITY. Keyboard and Overflow By Adrian Roselli. "Imagine that as a user you regularly use the keyboard for non-data-entry tasks. Think about how frustrating it is to have to grab the mouse to hover over something on the screen just to see it. Now imagine that you are a keyboard-only user..." http://adrianroselli.com/2016/02/keyboard-and-overflow.html YouTube's Automatic Captions Prove Insufficient for ADA Compliance By Courtney Duerig. "...Since the intelligibility of captioning drops dramatically at even a 2% error rate, most of the time YouTube's computer generated captions are incomprehensible..." http://www.automaticsync.com/captionsync/youtube-automatic-captions/ How to Make Videos Accessible for Blind, Disabled Users By Joseph C. Dolson. "A video is a compelling option when you want to demonstrate a product or show off its features. But a video can cause accessibility challenges..." http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/97439-How-to-Make-Videos-Accessible-for-Blind-Disabled-Users What Will It Take to Move the Needle of Change? By Cyndi Rowland. "...For me, I think that if anyone is actually interested in accessible content they will find the technical specifications that already exist (i.e., WCAG 2.0, Section 508) and just get to work. So I am left with thinking that after all this time and our collective efforts we either don't have the awareness, the motivation, the support, or the oversight..." http://webaim.org/blog/moving-the-needle-of-change/ Accessibility - Why I Got Into This and Why I'm Still Here By Elle Waters. "My manager asked me to make the company's website accessible to people with disabilities. And when I realized how artificial yet systemic the barriers were that prevented this website from being fully accessible, a lifetime accessibility zealot was born..." http://simplyaccessible.com/article/why-i-got-into-this/ Why Accessibility is Key for Search and Visibility By Rebecca Sentance. "If you're involved with SEO, you've no doubt thought about all sorts of ways and means to boost your site in the search rankings. But if your site isn't web accessible, your efforts will be in vain for 1/5 of your potential visitors..." https://searchenginewatch.com/2016/02/25/why-accessibility-is-key-for-search-and-visibility/ Mobile Assistive Technology Gesture References By Adrian Roselli. "During a recent consultation on a mobile project, I broached the topic of gestures that are used by assistive technology on various devices..." http://adrianroselli.com/2016/02/mobile-assistive-technology-gesture-references.html +02: CASCADING STYLE SHEETS. Use Rems for Global Sizing, Use Ems for Local Sizing By Richard Rutter. "The web has always been a type-based medium. Cascading Style Sheets joined HTML as a part of the web in 1996, and did so with typographic foundations from their inception. The principal underpinning to those foundations is the em unit..." http://clagnut.com/blog/2384/ Sass - When To Use @mixin And When To Use @extend By Steven Bradley. "Mixins are ways to reuse styles across your project and their ability to take arguments makes them very powerful and flexible..." http://vanseodesign.com/css/sass-mixin-or-extend/ The Ultimate CSS Survey - Standards and Learning By Louis Lazaris. "...let's look at some quick tidbits from part two, which focused on CSS tools and workflow..." http://www.sitepoint.com/the-ultimate-css-survey-standards-and-learning/ +03: EVALUATION & TESTING. Are Focus Groups a Useful Research Technique in UX? By Juliet Richardson. "...Do focus groups work? In a word: no...There are many reasons, but among the main factors contributing to the ineffectiveness of focus groups are: Peer pressure...Lack of time...Unnatural setting...Participants lie, albeit unintentionally..." http://www.nomensa.com/blog/2016/are-focus-groups-useful-research-technique-ux Why Everyone Should do Usability Testing (Even You) By Rian van der Merwe. "...Usability testing is a very powerful (and shamefully underused) user research methodology-when it is used correctly. In fact, usability testing is probably the only method that can be relied on to consistently produce measurable improvements to the usability of a product..." http://www.elezea.com/2016/02/why-everyone-should-do-usability-testing/ Using the Microsoft Desirability Toolkit to Test Visual Appeal By Kate Meyer. "Measure people's attitudes toward a user interface by a controlled vocabulary test: give users the list of product reaction words and asks them to select those that best describe the design..." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/microsoft-desirability-toolkit/ How to Handle Multiple Comparisons By Jeff Sauro. "...The danger of false positives applies to more than just blood work and pet-scans; it applies to p-values used in data science and customer experience research, too..." http://www.measuringu.com/blog/multiple-comparisons.php +04: EVENTS. Making Media Accessible by Adding Captions and Audio Description March 14, 2016. Online http://easi.cc/clinic.htm#march Audio Description: The Visual Made Verbal Online March 15, 2016. http://www.adasoutheast.org/eventscalendar.php?eventid=1102 Providing Accessible Media Using Able Player March 15, 2016. Online http://easi.cc/clinic.htm#march The Importance of User Testing for Accessibility March 15, 2016. Online http://www.peatworks.org/content/webinars/2016/03/Knowbility 2016 Accessibility Conference May 30-June 1, 2016. Guelph, Ontario, Canada http://accessconf.ca/ UX Week August 9-12, 2016. San Francisco, California, U.S.A. http://uxweek.com/ BigDesign September 8-10, 2016. Addison, Texas, U.S.A. http://bigdesignevents.com/conference/ +05: JAVASCRIPT. Quick Tip - How to Create and Manipulate Arrays in JavaScript By Stephen Chapman. "The length property of Array objects is one that many who are relatively new to JavaScript do not understand..." http://www.sitepoint.com/quick-tip-create-manipulate-arrays-in-javascript/ +06: TOOLS. ARIA Label Bookmarklet By Ted Drake. "I love simple bookmarklets that visualize coding patterns. I was working on a project today and wanted to verify that aria-labels were sufficiently descriptive. So I put together this quick bookmarklet." http://www.last-child.com/aria-label-bookmarklet/ +07: USABILITY. Infinite Scrolling, Pagination Or 'Load More' Buttons? Usability Findings In eCommerce By Christian Holst. "We tested (among other things) these three design patterns for loading products, both on desktop and mobile." https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/03/pagination-infinite-scrolling-load-more-buttons/ Young Adults Appreciate Flat Design More than Their Parents By Kate Meyer. "18-to-25-year olds rated flat UIs as slightly more attractive than older adults did. That increased aesthetic appeal may not be worth the usability costs of flat design." https://www.nngroup.com/articles/young-adults-flat-design/ [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.]